Islamist Extremists Publicly Crucify Two Syrian Rebels

Radical Islamist groups fighting in Syria continue to conduct atrocities and executions. Now, reports indicate that extremists fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have publicly crucified two Syrian rebels.

The executions allegedly took place in Raqqa, a Syrian province under ISIL control. The terrorist organization, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), continues to govern the territory by a strict interpretation of Islamic law and severely represses potential dissent. Earlier this year, the small Christian community remaining in Raqqa received an ultimatum demanding that they pay a tax and follow other strict rules, convert to Islam, or be killed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights posted a graphic photograph of the two prisoners being crucified. Pedestrians walking by the two men appear to be unfazed.

One of the men is pictured with a sign wrapped around his body reading: "This man fought against Muslims and threw a grenade in this place."

The human rights organization revealed that this was not the first crucifixion committed by ISIL. On April 16, its fighters killed a man for stealing from a Muslim in a similar fashion.

Canada Raids, Designates Hamas-Tied Charity

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has conducted searches in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec as part of an investigation into a Muslim charity organization. Canadian federal auditors accuse the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN-Canada) of sending nearly $15 million to Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization. On Tuesday, the Canadian government officially added the organization to its list of banned terrorist organizations.

"As a consequence, any property or asset belonging to IRFAN is now frozen," said a letter from the RCMP said.

IRFAN-Canada lost its charity status in 2011 following a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit that exposed the organization as an "integral part" in Hamas' international fundraising infrastructure. The donations in question were sent between 2005 and 2009.

The CRA also found videos at the organization's Mississauga office that "demonize Israel, characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious war, appeal for all Arab and Muslim nations to join in the struggle against Israel and glorify martyrdom."

Tuesday's raids netted "an extensive amount of documentary evidence along with stored media, money and other records were seized," according to the RCMP statement issued shortly after the government announced the organization's ban.

"IRFAN-Canada has knowingly financed Hamas … for many years," Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said Tuesday. "The well intentioned and charitable Canadians who sought to support humanitarian relief through this organization deserve better."

No one for IRFAN-Canada was available to comment, but a lawyer speaking on the organization's behalf condemned the listing as an attack on humanitarian assistance for Palestinians.

Blueprint's Discovery Fuels UK "Trojan Horse" Concerns

While British officials investigate an alleged "Trojan Horse" plot to replace state school leaders with people sympathetic to Islamist ideology, the Telegraph reports that a 2007 blueprint "closely resembles what appears to be happening in Birmingham."

The 72-page document was published online by the Muslim Council of Britain, reports Telegraph London Editor Andrew Gilligan.

It was co-authored by Tahir Alam, chairman of governors at Birmingham's Park View school. The document called for "girls [to] be covered except for their hands and faces." Alam has also promoted gender segregation in some school activities and slammed a "multicultural approach" to collective worship.

Secular UK schools must "take account of Muslim sensitivities and sensibilities with respect to sexual morality," the document says, with "girlfriend/boyfriend as well as homosexual relationships" considered "not acceptable practices according to Islamic teachings."

Park View teachers revealed that a boy and girl have been suspended after being caught holding hands, weeks before their exams. "They have done this to quite a few students in Year 11," a faculty member told Gilligan.

The document also said that schools should not teach "potential harmful forms of music" which "promote immoral behaviour" or include "unethical and un-Islamic lyrics."

The Telegraph also obtained a Department foe Education inspection report, which said that girls at Park View were forced to sit at the back of class.

The investigations were prompted by a letter which surfaced in March, detailing a plot to take over the schools by driving out existing administrators and replacing them with people who supported the plot to instill strict Islamic ideology.

While some have cast the letter as a hoax – Alam dismissed the allegations as "Islamophobic" and a "witch-hunt" – the blueprint reinforces critics' concerns.

"Mr. Alam … has been planning this for 15 years," Birmingham Labour MP Khalid Mahmoud said about the new disclosure. "He goes around making these schools religious by manipulating governors, and bringing in certain teachers. He was able to hone the [tactics] in Birmingham that he drafted in this report."

Radicalization is already evident at Park View. A former staff member told the Telegraph that another staff member put up posters in the school hallways with the message: "If you do not pray, you are worse than a kafir" a derogatory term for non-Muslims.

CAIR's Newest Enemy

Canadian Ali Rizvi is a lot of things. He's a physician in Canada. He's a musician. He has a thought provoking and entertaining Twitter feed.

And he's a blossoming writer, working on a book called The Atheist Muslim. In a column posted Monday by the Huffington Post, Rizvi blasted Islamists for a series of campaigns aimed at silencing critics of Islam. Their reflexive cry of "Islamophobia" is "the ultimate, lazy substitute for a non-existent counter-argument," he wrote.

He singled out the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for special ridicule.

Pointing to CAIR's role in pressuring Brandeis University to cancel plans to bestow an honorary degree on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women's rights advocate who focuses on the treatment of women in Muslim societies, Rizvi emphasized the irony in CAIR's invoking "Islamophobia" to criticize Hirsi Ali.

Last month, a white American man successfully convinced the Massachusetts liberal arts school Brandeis University that he was being victimized and oppressed by a black African woman from Somalia -- a woman who underwent genital mutilation at age five and travels with armed security at risk of being assassinated.

That is the power of this term.

That white American is CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, a convert to Islam.

Last week, CAIR joined others in lobbying the National September 11 Memorial Museum to purge references to jihad and "Islamist" from a brief film about al-Qaida that will be on display.

"They don't want the public to think that Islamism or jihad had anything to do with Al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks, because that could foster 'Islamophobia,'" Rizvi wrote. "We've so been down this road before."

CAIR often responds aggressively to such attitudes, especially when it comes from someone who, as Rizvi notes, "a brown-skinned person with a Muslim name." CAIR officials have a never-ending campaign to discredit Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim fights Islamism – the blending of mosque and state – disparaging him as an "Uncle Tom" for the sin of disagreeing with them.

If CAIR wants to smear Rizvi as an Islamophobe, he's already issued a rebuttal. The word "seeks to shield Islam itself (an ideology) from criticism," he wrote. "It's as if every time you said smoking was a filthy habit, you were perceived to be calling all smokers filthy people. Human beings have rights and are entitled to respect. But when did we start extending those rights to ideas, books, and beliefs? You'd think the difference would be clear, but it isn't. The ploy has worked over and over again, and now everyone seems petrified of being tagged with this label."

Liberals especially. Rizvi borrows the phrase "Greenwald Syndrome" from a friend who, like Rizvi, is Pakistani expatriate who embraced secularism. It is "the phenomenon of Western liberals, in a supposed show of tolerance, embracing an apologist stance in favor of the intolerant."

He cites plenty of other examples, saying that shaming critics into silence by calling them "Islamophobes" has "fast become something of an epidemic."

Rizvi is a provocative voice with a growing profile. CAIR must be stewing. Read his full column here.

Hamas Leader Thanks Ghannouchi For Helping Palestinian Unity Deal

A top Hamas leader and the Palestinian ambassador to Tunisia have thanked Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia's Muslim Brotherhood-linked party, Ennadha, for his role in brokering last week's reconciliation deal between Fatah and the terrorist group.

Ghannouchi has been the most prominent Islamist leader in Tunisia for over 30 years and was banned from entering the U.S. during the 1990s because of his support for Palestinian terrorism.

The Obama administration lifted the ban in 2011 following the Arab Spring even though he never renounced his support for terrorism. He met with top State Department officials in Washington last year and during his most recent visit in February.

The Middle East Monitor reports that Khalid Meshaal, head of Hamas's political bureau, called Ghannouchi to discuss the status of intra-Palestinian relations and to thank him for his role in mediating the agreement. Hamas and Fatah signed the agreement ending seven years of sometimes violent feuding last Wednesday.

Ghannouchi helped mediate the longstanding rift between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas over a two-month period.

He similarly congratulated Meshaal and Palestinian Ambassador Salman al-Harfi, saying that their division weakened the "noble cause of the Palestinians" and that reconciliation was essential.

The deal does not mean that Hamas ready to renounce violence or accept Israel's right to exist.

Ghannouchi serves on the board of trustees for the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by radical sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, which has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. The IUMS also counts Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as a member.

Ghannouchi's biography on the IUMS's Arabic website is filled with praise for Hamas, saying that the "approach of Hamas in Resistance restored hope to the Islamic ummah" and has "given legitimacy to the Islamic movement."

He called Hamas's Qassam rockets an essential way to "create intimidation and balance in power" and to "strike terror" into the hearts of the Israelis during a February 2009 interview with Al-Hiwar TV.

Mediating the agreement could be a step toward his goal of getting "rid of the bacillus of Israel" before Hamas co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's target of destroying the Jewish state by the year 2027.

"I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this," Ghannouchi said in a May 2011 interview with the Qatari website Al-Arab.

Ghannouchi also enjoys warm relations with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), both of which have hosted him since the ban on his entering the United States was lifted.

Revolution Muslim Founder Sentenced

A convert to Islam who led a small, radical movement called "Revolution Muslim" will serve 2 ½ years in prison for Internet postings that may have inspired terrorist violence.

Yousef Al-Khattab, 45, pleaded guilty in October to "using the internet to place another in fear of death or serious injury."

He helped create Revolution Muslim in 2007, along with Jesse Craig Morton. Morton is serving an 11 ½ year sentence for using the Internet to solicit murder, including against a woman who promoted "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

According to a prosecution sentencing memo, which recommended a three-year sentence, Al-Khattab was only slightly less precise. In 2009, he posted a video "encouraging viewers upset about Israeli military actions in Gaza to seek out the leaders of Jewish organizations in America and 'deal with them directly at their homes.'" He provided the addresses of three large New York synagogues and the Brooklyn headquarters of the Chabad movement.

In a separate post later that month, he showed a picture of the Chabad headquarters and a map. "Make EVERY attempt to reach these people and teach them the message of Islam or leave them a message from Islam," Al-Khattab wrote.

Al-Khattab and Morton succeeded in inspiring followers, and the memo cites numerous examples of people caught plotting attacks and one successful knife attack on a British parliamentarian.

Al-Khattab's involvement in Revolution Muslim dropped off in 2009, but he "set in motion a sequence of events that ... spiraled into even more serious criminal activity" and "likely emboldened" Morton and others. He has expressed some regret for his actions, prosecutors noted, but "the messages that he posted on internet sites patronized by terrorists and their sympathizers likely will never disappear. Regardless of any regrets that he may have now, Chabad and the leaders of the Jewish organizations identified by Al-Khattab in 2009 will always be marked as targets for those who seek to gain entrance to heaven by killing an enemy of Islam."

Declaration Signals Growing Split in Al-Qaida

A pledge signed by nine al-Qaida commanders from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran is the latest example of how the terrorist movement's once monolithic structure has begun to crumble under stress from Syria's civil war.

The "Khorasan pledge," which was signed April 9, announces a shift in loyalty from al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Al-Zawahiri denounced ISIS at the beginning of February and said al-Qaida had nothing to do with the group. The split left al-Qaida without representation in Iraq, where the ISIS began and spent the better part of the past decade fighting U.S. troops.

ISIS had been engaged in an internecine battle with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida's other Syrian branch prior to al-Zawahiri's denunciation.

The nine leaders who signed the pledge attacked Zawahiri and Jabhat al-Nusra without naming them, saying they "did not have any courage to enforce judgments over those who disobey sharia, under the pretext of avoiding a clash with people due to their inability and incapacity, although they enforced in secret more than they did out in the open."

They argued that conflict began with a dispute between the late Islamic State of Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Zawahiri in 2005. In their view, Zawahiri has "always been lax." Zawahiri is an apostate who does not go far enough in merely referring to the Shia as infidels, they said.

The declaration has been circulating in jihadi forums such as Shumukh al-Islam.

One source sought to downplay the pledge's importance, telling the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper that it had been blown out of proportion by the media. "The people mentioned are not in a leadership position and do not carry any notable responsibilities," the source told Al-Akhbar.

ISIS spokesman Mohammed al-Adnani attacked al-Qaida a few days after the signing of the declaration saying that "al-Qaida deviated from the rightful course."

Indictment Alleges Chemical Equipment Sent to Syria

An indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Middle District of Pennsylvania charged three people and an alleged front business with conspiring to illegally export laboratory equipment to Syria, including items used to detect chemical warfare agents (CWAs).

British national Ahmed Feras Diri is accused of conspiring with Moawea Deri of Syria to transfer items used to detect CWAs to customers in Syria through third countries using their company d-Deri Contracting and Trade. "The defendants would ship and export goods from the United States to Syria, by shipping and transshipping goods to third party countries while providing false and misleading invoices that undervalued and mislabeled the goods and services and listing false purchasers and end-users of the goods," the indictment said.

The men did not have an export license or authorization from the Commerce Department, which violates a federal law prohibiting the export of U.S. goods and technology to Syria, other than food and medicine. The law was put in place a decade ago to close the supply chain used by Syria to sponsor terrorism, as well as limit its capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons.

The charges included criminal conspiracy, wire fraud, illegal export of goods, money laundering, and false statements. Harold Rinko of Hallstead, Penn., also charged in the indictment. His business, Global Parts Supply, allegedly served as a "front" to bypass U.S. sanctions and cover up the conspiracy.

Ahmed Diri is in police custody in Britain and faces extradition to the U.S. in connection with the charges. Prosecutors have sought a plea agreement with Rinko that is awaiting court approval.

CAIR, MPAC, Religious Leaders: Don't Mention Jihad at Ground Zero

Two national Islamist organizations and other aligned Arab-American groups have hopped on the bandwagon to expunge references "Islamic" or "Islamist" from a film about al-Qaida which will be shown at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) are among the groups which called the video "ill-considered and insufficiently vetted" in a letter to museum leadership.

The signatories demand that "stereotypical" elements in the film, "The Rise of Al-Qaeda," be addressed and that they are allowed to view it. They also suggest that the film leads viewers to blame Islam as a whole the 9/11 attacks.

Members of a local New York interfaith panel who reviewed the film similarly slammed it, saying in an earlier letter to the museum's director that it "may well leave viewers with the impression that all Muslims bear some collective guilt or responsibility for the actions of al-Qaeda."

They also demanded that elements in the film discussing Islamic extremism be censored before the museum opens next month.

This marks CAIR's latest censorship drive in the wake of its recent series of actions intended to shut down debate over Islamic extremism. It pressured universities cancel screenings of the documentary "The Honor Diaries," demanded that Brandeis cancel plans to grant an honorary doctorate to former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and were able to get ABC Family to cancel the show Alice in Arabia" before it was ever taped.

Leaders CAIR and MPAC, meanwhile, have defended terrorism by Hamas and Hizballah as "legitimate resistance" and that they are "liberation movements" rather than terrorist groups.

CAIR is not in the best position to preach about the connection between Islam and violence. U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis wrote in 2009 that there is "at least a prima facie (face value) case as to CAIR's involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas." Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, says in its own charter that it "draws its guidelines from Islam; derives from it its thinking, interpretations and views about existence, life and humanity; refers back to it for its conduct; and is inspired by it in whatever step it takes."

That includes a universal rejection of any peaceful settlement with Israel, because "renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion."

Even if al-Qaida embraces a heterodox version of Islam, it is impossible to discuss its actions without using terms such as "Islamist," "jihad" or religion even if CAIR or its allies find them offensive.

Discussing 9/11 in the absence of religion is akin to talking about the Crusades as having been solely driven by the Western European greed and a desire for plunder or talking about the Inquisition without religious references.

Americans deserve an open debate over Islamic extremism instead of censorship.

Fatah and Hamas Announce Reconciliation Deal

Palestinian Rivals Fatah and Hamas have officially announced a reconciliation deal, seeking to form a unity government in the coming weeks.

Since the factions' violent split in 2007, Hamas and Fatah have attempted to reconcile on multiple occasions. However, previous reconciliation deals in Doha and Cairo were never implemented.

"This is the good news we tell our people," said Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. "The era of division is over."

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization that is committed to the destruction of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas.

"You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace; so far he hasn't done so." Netanyahu said.

As a result, Israel cancelled a planned meeting Wednesday night with Palestinian officials over extending the peace negotiations.

Many politicians in Israel criticized Abbas decision to reconcile with Hamas, which remains dedicated to Israel's destruction. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said: "We don't talk to murderers. The agreement between Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad brings the Middle East to a new diplomatic era. The Palestinian Authority turned into the largest terrorist organization in the world, 20 minutes from Tel Aviv."

According to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah would mean the end of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

An unnamed senior U.S. official told Israel's Haaretz that any Palestinian unity government must recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous agreements.

"We have been clear about the principles that must guide a Palestinian government in order for it to play a constructive role in achieving peace and building an independent Palestinian state," the official said.

It was not clear what the U.S. would do when those conditions are not met.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings