Free Republic

Illustrating that the jihadist enterprise transcends all borders, American Islamist groups typically preoccupied with remaking the U.S. have been leaving their fingerprints on the campaign to exchange secular authoritarianism for religious authoritarianism in the Middle East. As these organizations labor stateside to nudge the governing class to embrace Arab Islamists at the expense of liberals — prompting Egyptian intellectual Essam Abdallah to lament that "the most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring … is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington" — several of the groups' past and current officials have emerged as key...

KUALA LUMPUR, October 20 (IslamOnline) - Islamic groups in Indonesia have decided to play a larger political role in the country in order to limit accusations against Islam in Indonesia, sources close to the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) told IslamOnline on Sunday, October 20. The source, known as “the Sheikh”, said the Islamic groups will follow the steps of the Laskar Jihad or the Jihad Force (JF) that disbanded itself on Wednesday last week, with several members joining its leader in forming an Islamic school in Java. Muslim groups targeted as “extremists” are currently being talked into turning their attention...