More Jihad Madness

PARIS -- French police investigating plans by a group of Islamic extremists to attack targets in Paris discovered last month that the group was recruiting French citizens to train in the Middle East and return home to carry out terrorist attacks, sources familiar with the investigation said.

One French official said the extremists were using a virtual "underground railroad" through Syria to spirit European and Middle Eastern citizens into and out of Iraq. A senior French law enforcement official, who declined to be quoted by name because he was speaking about classified information, said French citizens had undergone terrorist training at camps in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

"There's always been an enormous jihad zone to train people to fight in their country of origin," the official said. "We saw it Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and now we're seeing it in Iraq."

What's new, he said, is that the French cell under investigation "is linked with networks in Iraq, right now, through an individual based in Syria. Now we're finding camps in Syria and Lebanon, and it's the same pattern, training in explosives and chemical weapons, which is an obsession of the jihadists."

In a recent television interview, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the terror risk for Paris "very high," adding, "We know that there are about 10 young Frenchmen in Iraq, ready to become kamikazes."

"One asks himself why a certain number of young French people are in Pakistan in religious schools," Sarkozy said. "It's not normal that an individual who lives in our neighborhoods leaves all of a sudden for four months in Afghanistan, three months in Syria. We want to know who is going where, for how long, and when they come back."

**Here we see the tolerance islam shows for other faiths in action:

CAIRO, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A young man stabbed a nun and a man in a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on Wednesday, police sources in the city said.

The man shouted "God is great" when he burst into St. George's Coptic church in the city on Egypt's northern coast.

Some 1,000 Muslims last week held a protest outside the church because they said it had put on a play which was offensive to Islam.

**Makes you wonder whats going on in Afganistan?...KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A former regional governor who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the Taliban's reign was elected to the Afghan parliament last month, officials said Tuesday as results from two provinces were finalized....

Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, who was the Taliban's governor of Bamiyan province when the fifth-century Buddha statues were blown up with dynamite and artillery in March 2001, was chosen to represent the neighboring province of Samangan, according to results posted by the U.N.-Afghan election organizers. Election law did not bar former Taliban officials from participating in the Sept. 18 polls.

**Tolerance and support for womens rights:

A survey by a university in Turkey has shown almost 40% support for the practice of "honour killing". ...

It questioned 430 people, most of them men. When asked the appropriate punishment for a woman who has committed adultery, 37% replied she should be killed.

Twenty-five percent said that she deserved divorce, and 21% that her nose or ears should be cut off.

The survey group was small but the results are a reminder that "honour killing" - a practice where women are murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their family - still has significant support in parts of Turkey.

**And from the US of A...BALTIMORE (AP) -- Despite questions about the credibility of a threat to detonate vehicles full of explosives, officials said they had little choice but to close one of the busy tunnels underneath Baltimore's harbor and partially shut down the other for nearly two hours.

One person who may have been connected to the threat was arrested on immigration charges, a law enforcement official said.

The FBI had found no evidence to corroborate the threat by Tuesday evening, said agent Kevin Perkins of the FBI's Baltimore field office....

Shortly before the tunnels were reopened, authorities made about a half-dozen raids in the Baltimore area, said city Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm.

Four people were arrested on immigration charges at businesses with Middle Eastern connections, said a federal law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

One of them was arrested as a result of information supplied by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was heading the tunnel investigation, the source said. That arrest, made at a pizza shop, may be connected to the threat, the source said.

** Be carefull of how you treat people as you wont be top dog forever...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of murder and torture as his long-awaited trial began Wednesday with the one-time dictator arguing about the legitimacy of the court and scuffling with guards.

The first session of the trial lasted about three hours, and the judge ordered an adjournment until Nov. 28. ...

Saddam — holding a copy of the Quran he brought with him into the session and held throughout — replied quietly, "I said what I said. I am not guilty," referring to his arguments earlier in the session.

Amin read out the plea, "Innocent."

The confrontation then became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room. When two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.

They tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute.

**Even Trinidad gets it...The bombs was described as being of ‘low density’, however it was reported that 7 people were injured due to the explosion outside the popular nightspot, ‘Smokey and Bunty.’ The frequently attended nightspot was literally yards away from the St. James Police station....

Detectives had received information prior to Friday’s events concerning the possible threat to the Port of Spain. Cedric Neptune, President of the Police and Welfare suggested that the police were on high security alert; however he was not at liberty to disclose any further information to the press.

There have now been five arrests in connection with Friday’s bombing, one of whom is affiliated with the local militant Muslim group, otherwise known as Jaamat-al Muslimeen....

There have been a series of bomb attacks on Trinidad. The 11th July on Frederick Street, Port of Spain saw 15 causalities, 10th August on George Street showed no casualties, and 10th September only one person suffered minor injuries.

** The Jihadist Islamonazis show there respect for the law...DHAKA (Reuters) - A trial court judge in northeastern Bangladesh was wounded in a bomb attack by a suspected Islamic militant, police said on Wednesday.

The attack on Tuesday came a day after police charged two top Islamist militant leaders for masterminding serial bombings in the country over past two months.

District Judge Biplab Goshwamy was hurt when the homemade bomb exploded as he just got out of a car in front of his house in the city if Sylhet, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital Dhaka.

Police said people chased and caught the bomber and recovered a live bomb from him. "We suspect him to be a militant of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen," Police Superintendent Sardar Rafiqul Islam told reporters.

Found this on clarity & resolve(link on sidebar) and thought it was brilliant.

Meanwhile in Middle America...

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