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An influential Muslim scholar has issued a global ruling against terrorism and suicide bombing.Dr Tahir ul-Qadri, from Pakistan, says his 600-page judgement, known as a fatwa, completely dismantles al-Qaeda's violent ideology. The scholar describes al-Qaeda as an "old evil with a new name" that has not been sufficiently challenged. The scholar's movement is growing in the UK and has attracted the interest of policymakers and security chiefs. In his religious ruling, delivered in London, Dr Qadri says that Islam forbids the massacre of innocent citizens and suicide bombings. Although many scholars have made similar rulings in the past, Dr Qadri...

SNIPPET: "A top Taliban commander who trains children to become suicide bombers has disproved reports that he was killed during a US Predator airstrike in mid-January. Qari Hussain Mehsud, a senior lieutenant to Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leader Hakeemullah Mehsud, spoke to a Pakistani news service on Feb. 14 to take credit for last week's deadly suicide attacks in Bannu." SNIPPET: "The Pakistani government claimed Qari Hussain was killed in the Jan. 14 US airstrike that targeted Hakeemullah in North Waziristan. But Qari Hussain confirmed he was alive when he contacted a Pakistani television station on Feb. 1...

Everyone seems to be wondering why Muslim terrorists are so quick to commit suicide. Let's see now.... 1) No Christmas 2) No television 3) No cheerleaders 4) No naked women 5) No NASCAR 6) No football 7) No pork BBQ 8) No hot dogs 9) No burgers 10) No chocolate chip cookies 11) No lobster 12) No nachos 13) No beer 14) Rags for clothes and towels for hats 15) Constant wailing from the guy next-door because he's sick and there are no doctors 16) Constant wailing 6 times a day from the guy in the tower 17) More than...

"Six arrested over hotel terror plot" (UKPA) – 1 day ago SNIPPET: "Pakistan police have arrested six suspected Taliban militants with a suicide vest and hand grenades allegedly on their way to attack a five-star hotel and kill Americans in the country's cultural capital. The militants arrested on the outskirts of Lahore included a 14-year-old boy and a prayer leader from Pakistan's Khyber tribal area near the Afghan border, said police official Zulfikar Hameed. The prayer leader was wearing a vest packed with explosives. They told police they were targeting Americans at the Pearl Continental hotel, he said."

LONDON – Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up. Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers....

As I wrote here in December: "One thing we have seen over the years since 9/11 is that airport security is always one step behind the jihadists: after jihadist Richard Reid attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his shoes, we all have to take off our shoes and send them through security scanners. After a group of jihadists tried to sneak onto planes explosive chemicals hidden in drink bottles, we can't carry drinks through airport security terminals. Because Abdulmutallab attempted his jihad attack just before the plane landed, now we can't get up during the last hour of...

Al-Qaeda has trained female suicide bombers to attack West, US officials warn Al-Qaeda terror cells have trained a group of female suicide bombers to attack Western targets, US officials have warned. /snip Published: 8:30PM GMT 23 Jan 2010 The women, who may have a "non Arab" appearance and be travelling on Western passports, have been prepared for their missions by the Yemeni group responsible for the operation to blow up an airliner over the United States on Christmas Day. Details of the bombers emerged just hours after British spy chiefs raised the UK threat state to "severe" amid fears that...

Snips: At least six people on the no-fly list were denied boarding in a 48-hour period between Saturday and Monday this week, according to the officials. Two of the six were stopped at London's Heathrow Airport.M. On Saturday, an Egyptian man on the no-fly list was stopped from flying on American Airlines flight 113 from London to Miami. The next day, Sunday, a Saudi Arabian passenger was stopped from boarding United Airlines flight 929 to Chicago. Officials said the man was sent back to Saudi Arabia by the British. In two other overseas cases involving people on the no-fly list,...

Paper no. 3614 Guarding Against Swarm Attacks on Nuclear Establishments - International Terrorism Monitor --- Paper No. 611 By B. Raman 19-Jan-2010 SNIPPET: "A swarm attack is a commando-style attack involving multiple targets and/ or multile modus operandi----that is a mix of the use of hand-held weapons and explosives. Since the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 26 to 29, 2008, which was itself a major swarm attack, there have been seven more---- four in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost in Afghanistan by the Afghan Taliban and three in Lahore possibly by the Pakistani Taliban. 2. These attacks---particularly those in Kabul--- have...

COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners. The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen. It was there London-educated Umar Abdulmutallab, 23, prepared for his Christmas Day bid to blow up a US jet. The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton and Leytonstone, East London. They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike. A Scotland Yard source said: "The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of...

Terrorist violence is down, and the attacks that are being made are using smaller and less sophisticated bombs. The terrorist groups are not doing very well. In the north, where the bombings were the worst over the last year, efforts to dry up terrorist funding (from sources in Syria and Jordan, as well as local scams, like stealing oil from pipelines and trucking it out of the country) have succeeded. The gangs that provided the bomb makers and other technical help, are now out of work. Many of these guys have turned (or, in some cases, returned) to crime. Extortion,...

SNIPPET: "The Taliban have struck again in the heart of Pakistan's military garrison city of Rawalpindi. A Taliban suicide assault team estimated at between three to five men entered a mosque in the city and opened fire on the worshippers and detonated their vests, killing 40 and wounding 83 more. The attack killed two senior generals and wounded another. Two of the members of the suicide assault team have been killed. The assault team was not interested in taking hostages or negotiations, according to the Pakistani military. "They exploded bombs inside the mosque," Major General Athar Abbas, the top military...

Note: The following text is a quote: Terror Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against Eight Defendants, Justice Department Announces The Justice Department announced that terrorism charges have been unsealed today in the District of Minnesota against eight defendants. According to the charging documents, the offenses include providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization; attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab; and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab. Thus far, 14 defendants have been charged in the District of Minnesota in indictments or criminal complaints that have been unsealed and...

"Stop portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber or more Muslims will become suicide bombers and murder you blasphemers." That's pretty much what Algeria's Ambassador to the U.N., Idriss Jazairy, who serves as chairman of the U.N.'s Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards told the Associated Press in an interview about efforts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to pass a U.N. treaty banning blasphemy against Islam.The exact quote from the AP:"If we keep hitting this glass wall and say there's nothing you can do about Islamophobia — you can do something about anti-Semitism but Islamophobia is...

The Decline of Islamic Science, the Rise of Extremism The United Nations Development Program, in a report published last year, described in often painful detail some of the factors that have contributed to the decline of science and the rise of extremism in Arab societies. Among them are: Increases in average income have been lower in the Arab world than anywhere else for 20 years, except for the poorest African countries. "If such trends continue...it will take the average Arab citizen 140 years to double his or her income, whole other regions are set to achieve that level in a...

In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate   Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History? By Bakir Tarabishy   The history books that fill our bookshelves are indispensable recollections of past civilizations’ glories and failures, achievements and abominations. Unfortunately, history can never be completely objective, since it is written by men, and men have a tendency to restrict their thoughts to a single point of view. While history has created in our minds many heroes from murderers, and criminals from saints, one of its greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the ...

asir al-Din al-Tusi was still a young man when the Assassins made him an offer he couldn't refuse. His hometown had been devastated by Mongol armies, and so, early in the 13th century, al-Tusi, a promising astronomer and philosopher, came to dwell in the legendary fortress city of Alamut in the mountains of northern Persia. He lived among a heretical and secretive sect of Shiite Muslims, whose members practiced political murder as a tactic and were dubbed hashishinn, legend has it, because of their use of hashish. Although al-Tusi later said he had been held in Alamut against his will, ...

In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, President Barack Obama claimed: “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar University — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing.” Obama is not much of a “student of history” if he believes this. Almost every advance he attributes to the Muslims was...

Today in the WSJ, Karen Elliot House reviews a new book from Bernard Lewis entitled What Went Wrong. She begins this way: How has it come to pass that a civilization that for centuries led the world in science, medicine, and the arts ... Does anyone know what contribution the Islamic world made to science besides giving us our number system (admittedly a biggie) and naming a bunch of stars (less big)? Algebra may have Arabic roots linguistically, but I cannot think of a single concept or theorem that we credit to the Arabs. The Greeks are all over geometry. ...

BAGHDAD — From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zawra Park, and go-karts and water slides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses — all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq. But down below, it turned out to be a morning from hell. Terrorists exploded two massive car bombs at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration, killing more than 100 and wounding more than 500. It was the worst day of violence this year, and it was,...