MI5 targets Ireland’s al-Qaeda cells

Ireland is not a supporter of the GWOT which according to most Muslims propagandists is a major reason to be targeted. We know better – the jihad has nothing to do with what westerners do or do not do. It has only the koran to drive it. Nothing more needs to be said.

Henry McDonald, 2 March, 2008, The Observer
MI5 has set up a dedicated team to monitor suspected al-Qaeda activists and supporters in Ireland.

The Observer has learnt that an eight-strong unit is spying on Islamists based in Belfast, Lisburn and mid-Ulster, but is also liaising via the Police Service of Northern Ireland with the Garda Siochana across the border. The revelation coincides with the arrest yesterday of a suspected Islamist terror unit in Co Kerry. Three Afghans were in custody after the Garda swooped on an apartment in Tralee and found devices they believe could be used to make bombs.
The new unit at MI5’s regional headquarters at Holywood, on the outskirts of Belfast, also monitors inbound US military flights to Shannon airport in case of an Islamist terror attack on Irish soil.

All reports on suspected al-Qaeda activities across Ireland are to be handed over to the head of MI5 in Northern Ireland, Trevor Harper. He is based at the new £20m headquarters inside Palace military barracks. Last week The Observer revealed that, in the event of a major terror attack on MI5’s HQ at Thames House in London, command of the security services would be switched to Holywood.

Security sources said al-Qaeda ‘sleeper cells’ in Northern Ireland were being watched in particular, because of suspected links to other cells in Britain. ‘They operate a very tight structure, just like the IRA. There are possible links to cells on the mainland,’ one source said.

A cell in Lisburn, Co Antrim, has been under investigation for almost two years after it was found to be operating out of a housing estate close to the town. Another cell believed to be operating in the Mid-Ulster area has planted roots around Portadown, Lurgan and Craigavon.

A number of suspects are believed to be working in restaurants which are being monitored. And there are said to be ongoing inquiries into those suspected of being linked to a Belfast cell controlled by Kafeel Ahmed, said to have been a leading light in al-Qaeda in Ulster. Ahmed is believed to have arrived in Northern Ireland in 2001 and enrolled at Queen’s University to study aeronautical engineering, graduating in 2003. The 27-year-old stayed on at the campus as a paid researcher.

Russia “Votes”

I like the title of the following article, “Putin and Medvedev in relaxed mood as Russia votes.” It says it all. Vlad “the Bear” Putin and his cronies at the Kremlin have succeeded in destroying any advances made since the fall of the Soviet Union. They have taken over Television and radio. Coerced newspapers into killing articles critical of Putin’s buddies in government. Lined their pockets with money gained from monopolizing businesses and the oil market through nefarious means. And, finally, just to make sure they get elected, they’ve rigged the election by removing the names of any serious contenders from the ballot…

Well played, my friend… Well played… o/

Putin and Medvedev in relaxed mood as Russia votes
The Associated Press – International Herald Tribune
Published: March 2, 2008
MOSCOW: Russian voters were expected to endorse Vladimir Putin’s choice of a successor in the presidential election Sunday, allowing Putin to retain a measure of power in a nation whose wealth and global voice have grown while democratic freedoms have diminished.

Dmitri Medvedev, a 42-year-old lawyer and loyal Kremlin aide, is expected to take over from Putin, whose eight years as president have left a deep imprint on the country. Putin has said he would accept Medvedev’s offer of the prime minister’s post.

“I’m in a good mood. Spring is here,” Medvedev said as he cast his ballot in Moscow, where rain and snow sprinkled slushy streets. “The season has changed.”

Putin, smiling and relaxed as he went to vote, said that he was in a “holiday” spirit and that his wife, Lyudmila, had called the rain “a good sign” – a reference to an old Russian superstition.

Some voters complained of pressure to cast ballots in Medvedev’s favor, and critics called the election a cynical stage show. “The result doesn’t matter, as this is an illegitimate transfer of power,” said former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a Putin foe who was barred from the ballot.

Two senior al-Qaida operatives killed in Iraq

From the Good News desk:

By PATRICK QUINN, March 02, 2008 (AP)
BAGHDAD — A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted Saudi Arabian al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was believed responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said Monday.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan, were both killed Wednesday in Mosul. Al-Saudi headed up the al-Qaida network in southeast Mosul, an insurgent hotbed where U.S forces wage daily battles against the group.
-Being an al Qaida operative in Iraq is a very hazardous position.

According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bombing that killed the five U.S. soldiers.

In that attack, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque. The soldiers died in the explosion _ the deadliest on American forces since six soldiers perished Jan. 9 in a booby-trapped house north of Baghdad.
-Imagine the outrage by the Christian community if one Christian were seen to shoot a single round from a church. My question is where is the Muslim reaction? Why no outrage, why are their weapons in a Mosque? Why didn’t the US bomb it flat?

Arab-American activist lies about a rising tide of bigotry

H/t to changedforever for sending this is,

This should be good a real howler.

By BRUCE NOLAN, 1 March 2008, Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS — American culture’s view of American Muslims and Islam is steadily deteriorating under an onslaught of “bigotry” on cable news shows, newspaper op-ed pages and in the blogosphere, an Arab-American activist told an audience at Tulane University on Feb. 19.

-A quick search and you will see the opposite is true, articles, newspapers and even Hollywood go out of their way to cover the crimes of Islam.

That’s a significant shift, said Hussein Ibish, founder of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership in Washington, D.C.
-He has a right to his opinion no matter how incorrect it may be.

Decades before 9/11, Hollywood handed Americans the perceived wisdom on Arabs as passionate, hyper-sexed, irrational and cruel. Movies such as Rudolph Valentino’s 1921 silent classic “The Sheik” and turn-of-the-century thrillers such as “The Rules of Engagement” portrayed Arabs only as terrorists, Ibish said.
-This is basic misdirection and meaningless. Most Americans are not going to research how Arabs were depicted prior to 9/11. It also fails to mention the differences between “Arab’s” and Muslims. It fails to mention that the American reaction to Arab terrorism on 9/11 can not be ignored or explained away as simple racism. By tossing the Arabs as victim’s card he actually distracts from his victim status and angers Americans at the comparison and indifference to our American victims.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, however, Hollywood has backed off. In the meantime, Ibish said, commentators and politicians on the right — and a few on the left — have replaced film stereotypes with hours of air time devoted to misrepresenting Islam and fueling suspicion about American Muslims.
-Well, I do what I can. I would do more but I have to earn a living.

Ibish, formally trained as a literature scholar at the University of Massachusetts, works in public policy. He described his foundation as one that trains Arab-American leaders to describe their values to the broader culture in easily understood American terms. He appeared as part of a university symposium on relations between the U.S. and Muslims.
-This is the credibility baseline. He went to college so he is smart got it, I am soooo not impressed. Education alone doesn’t make for good moral character or accuracy.

Ibish is an occasional guest on cable talk shows, often recruited to represent an Arab-American point of view in some cultural or civil liberties conflict. He has had at least a couple of sharp exchanges with the Fox News Network’s Michelle Malkin. One, in May, turned on whether the Kansas City International Airport was right to install a faucet so Muslim cab drivers could wash their feet before prayer.
-Michelle Malkin is hot. The foot wash flab was ridiculous all US airports already have suitable facilities for Muslims to wash their feet, they are even placed close ground level, we call them commodes. Just try not to wet the area around them. Have some compassion for others.

Since 9/11, he said, commentators such as Malkin, Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz have transferred old anti-Arab stereotypes to Islam, in a stream of “incredibly bigoted commentary” that would not have been tolerated before then.
-Would you like cheese with that whine?

“This is what explains the collapse of the good name of Islam,” he said.
-Well not as much as 1350 years of oppressively violent history, or the more modern examples of honor killing, enslavement, pedophilia, terrorism and bigotry by Islamic leadership.

Dearborn Wal-Mart Going Dhimmi !!!

Gee… Arabic-speaking staff, falafels, Islamic greeting cards… Dearborn, Michigan… It all adds up — Wal-Martistan!!!

“Excuse me, I’ll have to get my manager to scan anything non-halal… Oh, wait! My manager is Muslim, also… Sorry, you’ll have to put that item back…”

Arab-America’s Store

Wal-Mart stocks falafel, olives and Islamic greeting cards to attract Dearborn’s ethnic shoppers.
By Keith Naughton | NEWSWEEK
Mar 10, 2008 Issue

Big Bizaar: Arabic-speaking staff can guide customers to the Middle Eastern goods

As Arwa Hamad strolls a new Wal-Mart, an eight-foot display of olive oil stops her in her tracks. “Oh, wow,” she says, marveling at the sight of so many gallons of Lebanese extra virgin. “We could go through one of these in a week in my house.” Around the corner, row upon row of gallon jars of olives—from Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Lebanon—soak in deep hues of purple, red and green. “Look at the size of these olives,” says the stay-at-home mother of three and native of Yemen. Hamad, 34, has shopped at Wal-Mart before, but never one like this. She is overcome with nostalgia as she spots Nido powdered milk and Al Haloub Cow, canned meat she calls the “Arabic Spam.” “My father loves this,” she says. “People from war-torn countries, this is what you lived on when you couldn’t go out of the house to shop.” This Wal-Mart, though, isn’t in a war zone. It’s in Dearborn, Mich., home to nearly a half-million Arab-Americans, the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East.

As America changes, so does the store where America shops. In Dearborn this week, the world’s largest retailer opens a store like no other among its 3,500 U.S. outlets. Walk through the front door of the 200,000-square-foot supercenter and instead of rows of checkout counters, you find a scene akin to a farmers market in Beirut. Twenty-two tables are stacked high with fresh produce like kusa and batenjan, squash and eggplant used in Middle Eastern dishes. Rimming the produce department are shelves filled with Arab favorites like mango juice from Egypt and vine leaves from Turkey used to make mehshi, or stuffed grape leaves. A walled-off section of the butcher case is devoted to Halal meats, slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law (when a Wal-Mart manager noticed the pork section was too prominent he ordered it moved, since Muslims don’t eat pork). In the freezer case, you’ll find frozen falafel. You can also pick up a CD from Lebanese pop singer Ragheb Alama or buy Muslim greeting cards.