Report: Hamas Holds Eritrean Refugees

Approximately 250 Eritrean refugees have been held captive and tortured for the past month by Hamas in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, Italian human rights organization EveryOne Group reported. The organization has issued a statement calling for the Egyptian government to intervene to stop the kidnapping and exploitation of African refugees in Egypt.

"The [Egyptian] authorities have still not carried out any inspections of the locations that have been pointed out to them (in the town of Rafah)," the statement said. "The reason is quite clear… behind the crimes that serve to fund terrorism and to make huge profits for unscrupulous people is a criminal organization so powerful that it is able to challenge and defy governments: the Muslim Brotherhood (the organization Hamas belongs to) and al-Qaida."

Eight of the immigrants were killed and four have gone missing. They were allegedly subjected to human organ harvesting and trafficking, noted the statement. It also said that about 100 of them were transferred to a "concentration camp" at an unknown location. The captives are beaten, the women and children raped. "The prisoners eat poor food and are forced to drink their own urine," the statement said. "Most of the migrants are contemplating suicide."

Kidnappers along the border used these methods to extract ransoms from the refugees' families in their home countries. "According to repeated accounts, groups of approximately 200-300 Eritreans are brought to Sinai where they are held in metal containers or compounds. Captives undergo torture by burning or beating, as smugglers call their relatives demanding the immediate transfer of funds to be guaranteed transit to the Israeli border," the EveryOne Group stated, based on reports by Israeli human rights group Physicians for Human Rights. "Because of the high ransom price, it often takes weeks or even months for refugees to be taken to the border."

EveryOne Group stated that it forwarded on details about the traffickers and called for the Egyptian government to liberate the refugees. However, the Egyptian government has rejected the organization's claims. "These refugees do not exist. It is pure fabrication to bring discredit on Egypt," declared Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Ghait. Egyptian human rights groups are also pushing the government to intervene on behalf of the refugees.

Hamas' media websites, like http://www.palestine-info.info/ and http://www.qassam.ps/, have not responded to EveryOne Group's allegations..

Egyptian TV Station: "The U.S. Will Be Islamic Republic"

Egyptian journalist 'Ata Abd Al-Aal told an Egyptian religious channel that "the U.S. will be transformed into an Islamic Republic" due to the large number of converts each year. He also gave advice on how to raise the number of converts and encouraged them to participate in the U.S. electoral system.

"The Islamic institutions in the Islamic world should send preachers who are well versed in Islam, who know how to preach to the American mentality, and who are proficient in English and can communicate with the Americans," Abd Al-Aal told Egyptian religious channel Al-Rahma/Al-Rawdha TV. "The rate of converts to Islam in the U.S. is very high. This is of great alarm to the Zionist circles in the U.S., because this rate is rising on a daily basis. These converts adhere to Islam with total conviction. They become preachers themselves, and convince others to convert to Islam."

Al-Rahma TV was previously banned in European countries, such as France, for calling for violence against Jews. "Your turn has come at last, you offspring of apes and pigs, you most accursed creatures created by Allah, you people who have harmed the Prophet again and again," Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman said on an Oct. 31, 2009, Al-Rahma TV broadcast. "The Jews have proven they are like a cancer, if they are not removed from the body of the nation, they will kill the entire nation… The Jews are dangerous to the whole world."

Jasser: America Will Benefit from Muslim Radicalization Hearings

U.S. Islamist groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) have reacted hyperbolically to news that the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), plans to hold hearings on American Muslim radicalization.

But Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, writes in the New York Post that critics of the hearings like MPAC, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) are attempting "to deny and obfuscate the connection between 'political Islam' or Islamism, and terror."

Political correctness dominates public discussion of incidents involving Islamists, Jasser writes. One example was the Pentagon report on Nidal Hasan, currently charged in last year's Fort Hood massacre.

"The report was intended to convey to military commanders whatever lessons were learned from the incident, so as to prevent similar attacks in the future," Jasser writes. "Yet it never mentioned the word Islam or Muslim. Nowhere to be found was any dissection of Hasan's slide into militant Islamism or of his relationship with his homegrown jihadist mentor, Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki."

Major American Muslim groups like CAIR, ISNA and MPAC were built on the ideology of political Islam. But "knowing where most American Muslims fall in the spectrum of Islamism-vs.- liberalism, as King hopes to find out in his hearings, would be a key step toward counterradicalization," Jasser writes.

Congressional hearings are just one step in crafting a strategy against political Islam.

"Only liberty-minded Muslims working from within Muslim communities can counter the narrative of Muslim victimization. But America needs to be unashamed of taking the side of those Muslims who advocate reform against political Islam," Jasser adds. "In 2011, more Americans need to understand that jihadism is a natural by-product of a political Islam that is incompatible with Western secular democracies based in liberty. America is at war with theocratic Muslim despots who seek the imposition of sharia and don't believe in the equality of all before the law, blind to faith. They detest the association of religious freedom with liberty."

Writer: Vatican Appeases Islamists, Slams Israel

Christians are being massacred by jihadists in Baghdad, but the Vatican has been largely silent, writes Evelyn Gordon at Commentary magazine's Contentions blog. Instead of speaking out forcefully against the terrorists who commit these crimes against Christians, the Church has focused its indignation on Israel, blaming the Jewish State for the lack of peace in the Middle East.

For example, in mid-October the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, called for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, calling it "an evil for both Palestinians and Israelis." If it proved impossible to establish a Palestinian state next to Israel, Twal said that he would favor creation of "one, single democratic state" in Palestine. Given substantially higher Palestinian Arab birthrates, Israelis regard this as a formula for the destruction of their country.

At a Vatican synod convened by the pope that same month, bishops issued a communique telling Israel it should not use the Bible to justify "injustices" against the Palestinians. Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation church in Boston, suggested that Israel is illegitimate.

"The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands," Bustros said. He stated that "the Palestinian refugees will eventually come back" - another demographic formula for Israel's destruction.

The Catholic bishops, Gordon argues, are ignoring the real threat to embattled Christians in the Middle East: terrorist violence perpetrated by Islamist radicals. In Iraq, for example, hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled the country since the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that many fleeing Iraqi Christians "evoked the mass departure of Iraq's Jews after the establishment of Israel in 1948."

"It's exactly what happened to the Jews," said Nasser Sharhoom, who fled last month from Baghdad to the Kurdish capital Erbil. "They want us all to go."

The Vatican synod statement is evidence that the Catholic Church "isn't merely remaining silent; it's actively speaking out against the Jews - and thereby collaborating with its own enemies, the radical Islamists," Gordon writes. "It evidently hopes to thereby turn the Islamists' wrath away from Christians. But as the recent attacks show, appeasement hasn't worked."

Five Accused in Jihadist Plot Targeting Danish Newspapers

Police arrested five men in Sweden and Denmark on Wednesday in connection with a terror plot against two Danish newspapers that published cartoons in 2005 depicting the Prophet Mohammad. The Danish security service PET said authorities there moved to prevent "an imminent terror attack, in which several of the suspects can be labeled militant Islamists with links to international terror networks."

Danish officials said four of the suspects had entered the country Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning and were planning to strike within days. PET General Director Jacob Scharf said the suspects planned to force their way into the Copenhagen building which housed the Jyllands-Posten and Politikens newspapers "and kill as many as possible of the people present there." Authorities seized a machine gun with live ammunition and a silencer as well as plastic strips that can be used as handcuffs in connection with the arrests.

The New York Times reported that the four suspects arrested in Denmark included a 29-year-old of Lebanese origin; a 44-year-old Tunisian citizen; and a 26-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq who lived in Copenhagen. Swedish police identified the fifth suspect as a 37-year-old Swedish national of Tunisian origin.

Riots and death threats followed Jyllands Posten's publication of the Mohammad cartoons five years ago, and authorities have thwarted numerous subsequent plots against cartoonists deemed to have blasphemed the Prophet. It was the fourth plot targeting the Jyllands-Posten in the past year alone, the Wall Street Journal reported. It quoted Magnus Ranstorp, research director at the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College calling this attempt "without question the most serious."

In January 2010, an al-Shabaab supporter carrying an axe and a knife tried to enter the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in Denmark. In March, David Coleman Headley pled guilty to participating in a plot to attack Jyllands-Posten's offices in retaliation for the Mohammed cartoons. Also, in March, an indictment against a Pennsylvania woman named Coleen LaRose (aka "Jihad Jane") was unsealed. Authorities say she participated in a plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist.

Qaradawi's Retirement Wish

A recent interview shows that age is not mellowing Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian. He's not content to live out his years issuing fatwas and enjoying a bizarre reputation as a moderate. Rather, he told the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat, he wants to be killed by an infidel.

"I am a soldier of God Almighty fighting with knowledge, work, and call for God. I wish to conclude my life by martyrdom for the sake of God," a translation of the interview shows. "I wish that God concludes my life with martyrdom, and that my martyrdom be at the hand of a non-Muslim."

He also explained why, in his view that the Islamist movement is crucial because Islam the faith cannot be separated from politics. The goal is to make Islam "victorious," and to do that, "the Islamist movement has to have links to politics, because it is not possible to raise the status of Islam unless it has influence and impact. In the life and nature of Islam there is call, state, creed, Shari'ah, worship, dealings, faith, and worldly life; in order that this is achieved, Islam has to be linked to politics."

Qaradawi remains a highly influential cleric despite such pronouncements. They're relatively tame compared with other comments he's made. Among them, that Hitler punished Jews "for their corruption" and that the next time such punishment is needed, it he hoped it "will be at the hand of the believers." He apparently hopes to mete out some of that punishment himself, praying for the opportunity to kill a Jew before he dies.

Other statements have sanctioned suicide bombings by Palestinians and by Iraqis fighting American soldiers.

Earlier this year, he called on Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize their enemies." He also said that Muslims are permitted to kill Israeli women because they serve in the army.

In the Al-Sharq interview, he repeated his claim that he repeatedly rejected overtures by the Brotherhood, an Egyptian movement that seeks to establish a global Caliphate governed by Islamic law, to serve as its official spiritual guide.

Indianapolis Grandmother Embraces Jihad

An Indianapolis woman is under investigation for suspected terror ties, Fox News reported Tuesday. Kathie Smith, a 46-year-old grandmother, married Salahudin Ibn Ja'far last year. The 28-year-old Ja'far is believed to be a German radical who reportedly boasts of his childhood friendships with known and suspected terrorists.

Smith has praised al-Qaida terrorist mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki and "celebrated the deaths of U.S. soldiers – who she called 'terrorists' – at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and applauded another user's posting of a rendering of the two planes hitting the World Trade Center towers" on 9/11, Fox News reported.

The report cited online postings uncovered by the Jawa Report website. U.S. security officials say Smith (who now calls herself "Zubaida") frequently flies back and forth between the United States and Germany – most recently two weeks ago. Officials are investigating a video in which Smith and her husband are pictured hugging and holding weapons. Those images are mixed in with photographs of German Taliban Mujahideen (German nationals who have set up their own splinter group inside the Taliban) and an Awlaki sermon cover.

Ja'far has written in support of "noble leaders" including Awlaki, Osama bin Laden, and the 9/11 hijackers and maintained online forums hosting Awlaki's sermons. He claims to have trained in jihadist camps, and is a Facebook friend of Inspire, al Qaida's English-language magazine.

On Facebook, Smith says she "likes" Awlaki. Smith belongs to a Facebook group called Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, referring to a terrorist offshoot in North Africa and is Facebook friends with the Somali terror group al-Shabaab.

"These so-called 'jihadists' you have mentioned are actually personal friends of my husband from childhood. In the video he was expressing his love and gratitude to his friends, who have died fighting for freedom. Just like any other American or European citizen who displays pictures of soldiers who have died on their videos," Smith told Fox News. "It is just that your government has deemed these noble men as 'terrorists' because they are no longer on the same side."

Awlaki Link in UK Plot

The nine men suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom during the holiday season downloaded videos of American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and had read the terrorist group's English-language magazine, British media reports say.

The men were arrested Dec. 20 and face charges of conspiring to cause explosions in a terrorist attack. The London Stock Exchange, the U.S. Embassy, the London Eye and Big Ben were among their prospective targets.

But the suspects also had information on two rabbis, a priest and a Church of Scientology office.

Police searching their homes found at least two copies of Inspire magazine and a magistrate judge was told Monday that the men were inspired by Awlaki. In its first few issues, the magazine has tried to connect with Western readers, encouraging them to wage small-scale attacks which "bleed the enemy to death."

Police and British intelligence had been watching the men for months, the Guardian reported. That may explain some of the detailed information provided in their hearing Monday, including a summary of their travels scouting potential targets. At Big Ben, "a mobile phone had appeared to be raised and pointed towards the clock tower," the Telegraph reported.

They are being held without bail and are due back in court January 14.

LA City Council's "Islamophobia" Resolution Challenged

Violence motivated by bigotry is unacceptable regardless of the target. While crime statistics show blacks and Jews are among the most frequent victims, the Los Angeles city council recently singled out acts targeting Muslims for a special condemnation in the form of a resolution.

In the Daily News of Los Angeles Sunday, Joe Hicks and David Lehrer challenge the move as misleading political rhetoric. Statistics from the local human relations commission show there were 131 crimes based on religion in Los Angeles County during 2009. Of those, 88 percent targeted Jews, 8 percent targeted Christians. Muslims were the victims in 3 percent of the cases reported.

That mirrors national hate crime data issued annually by the FBI.

Passing the resolution gives a false impression that "America's Muslims are under attack nationally and that here in Los Angeles acts of hate are out of control," Hicks and Lehrer write. "This might serve the advocates' agenda, but it ill-serves the interests of the people of Los Angeles."

Lehrer is a former Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League and Hicks served as Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission. The two work with Community Advocates, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that focuses on race relations.

In their column, they describe the campaign to elevate "Islamophobia" as a cause, pushed by political advocacy groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council that routinely seek to undermine law enforcement counter-terrorism efforts. The City Council bought into that campaign, Hicks and Lehrer write, and "simply took information provided by an advocacy group, one that's hardly unbiased, and uncritically spat out a resolution opposing "Islamophobia" and "random acts of violence against Muslim-Americans."

Read the full column here.

Turkish Group Promises Flotilla Encore

The organization behind the deadly encounter between Turkish activists and Israeli soldiers on the Mediterranean Sea on May 31st has announced plans for a second flotilla that will depart for Gaza on the same ship on the same day next year.

"The fate of the Mavi Marmara will be determined by its owners' conscience," said Ümit Sönmez, production branch coordinator of the Turkish group IHH at a rally held Sunday in Istanbul. "We will organize another trip to Gaza on May 31, the same date the raid happened this year, with a larger crew to draw interest to the embargo one more time."

As many as 50 ships will accompany the Mavi Marmara on the next flotilla to Gaza, Sönmez said.

Thousands of people from approximately 50 countries attended the celebration at Istanbul's Sarayburnu port. The crowd waved Palestinian, Turkish and Hamas flags, chanting "Down with Israel" and "Allah is great."

Among those who delivered speeches at the ceremony include IHH President Bülent Yildirim, Free Gaza Movement Legal Advisor Audrey Bomse, Viva Palestina leader Muhammad Sawalha and Mazen Kahel from the London-based European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza.

"Israel says, 'Stay away from us, and leave us alone.' We ask it to stay away from Palestine so that we can stay away from it. As long as Israel continues its blockade of Gaza, we will set sail to Gaza with new ships," Yildirim told the audience.

The blockade of Gaza, meant to weaken the Hamas government and stop it from arming, has been dramatically relaxed.

Yildirim, who openly supports Hamas, prepared the Turkish IHH operatives on the Mavi Marmara to engage the Israeli soldiers violently. The incident, which left nine Turkish activists dead, triggered tensions between the two countries that remain unresolved.

Yildirim's organization IHH has assisted al-Qaida and supported jihadi operations in Bosnia and Afghanistan in the 1990s. The U.S. government has verified that IHH has ties to Hamas, and the State Department has considered designating the Turkish NGO as a terrorist organization.

The Free Gaza Movement (FGM) and the London-based European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) organized the May Freedom Flotilla, along with IHH and groups based in Greece and Sweden. FGM, ECESG and IHH will again lead Freedom Flotilla II in May, 2011, along with groups from countries including the UK, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Italy, Canada, the United States, and others.

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