ISLAM: MARONI, NEW 'MOSQUE' EVERY 4/5 DAYS IN ITALY

ROME, DECEMBER 5 - There are two mosques in Italy which are just that: in Milan and in Rome. However, every 4/5 days a mosque is opened in the form of an Islamic cultural centre. So said in an interview Italy's Interior minister, Roberto Maroni. "Every four or five days, mosques are opened as cultural centres like the one in Macherio", he said, referring to the centre mentioned by the two Moroccan citizens arrested in Milan and accused of preparing attacks in Italy, "where there is prayer, teaching of the Koran and provision of food and drinks", even with public contributions, added the minister, drawing attention to the fact that the Milan centre is a not-for-profit organisation. Respecting the rules when opening such centres "goes for all Italians and all the more so for those who are not Italian", said Maroni, inviting councils and police to "make thorough checks".

If the story of how an Islamic group denied Islamic burial to the Mumbai bombers last Monday was so important, why isn't this one? If the Mumbai burial story was evidence that at least some Muslims reject the jihad ideology (which it may indeed have been), isn't this story evidence that at least some Muslims, right here in the United States, accept it? And shouldn't that be something to which at least some people are paying attention?
When the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust refused the Mumbai jihadists an Islamic burial, it made the news everywhere. Muqtedar Khan brought it up to me on the BBC the other day, and in response I pointed out that this gesture would have had much greater significance if not for the fact that Islamic jihad terrorists who have carried out suicide attacks and other attacks against Israel have been treated as heroes and given Islamic burials on numerous occasions.

But in any case, will this story get the same attention from the people who were so heartened by the denial of Muslim burial to the jihadists in India? After all, this is a story about an Islamic jihad-martyrdom bomber being given a Muslim burial in the United States -- and if that isn't enough, add in the little fact that the FBI seems to have pitched in (at taxpayer expense?) to bring his remains back into the country.

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (FOX 9)—One of the five men suspected to be a suicide bomber who killed himself and 29 others last October in Somalia, was buried Wednesday at a Burnsville Cemetery.
FOX 9 has learned DNA tests have confirmed Shirwa Ahmed was one of five suicide bombers who killed himself and 29 others last October in northern Somalia.
He is also a Minnesotan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The FBI helped return Ahmed's remains to his family.
At a Twin Cities cemetery in Burnsville Wednesday afternoon, the suspected suicide bomber was laid to rest.
Shirwa Ahmed, 27, was given a traditional Muslim burial.
Family and friends did not wish to talk about the circumstances of his death.
Community activist Omar Jamal is one of the few who will.
“Honestly I look at him seriously as a victim and not as a criminal, I think of him as a young victim," says Jamal....
Uh huh. Meanwhile, we learned last week that Shirwa Ahmed may have been recruiting jihad terrorists among Muslims in Minneapolis:

An investigation into terrorism recruiting among young Somalis leads to Minnesota. Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis is believed to have killed himself in a suicide bombing in Somalia last month. However, investigators fear he may have left a deadly legacy of recruiting other young Somalis to leave Minnesota and join terrorist groups in Somalia.
His high school pictures show a clean cut young man and neighbors at his Minneapolis apartment say lately 26-year-old Shirwa Ahmed had a thick beard.
"He doesn't talk to people," one neighbor said. [...]
In recent months a dozen young Somalis, some as young as 17, have left the Twin Cities, apparently headed back to Somalia where a civil war rages.
Omar Jamal, a local Somali activist, said the families of the young men are frightened.
"The families didn't think, it never crossed their mind, that their kids would have gone to Somalia either to blow themselves up or to join the holy war," said Jamal.
Sources tell WCCO the group suspected of recruiting the young Twin Cities men is know as al-Itihadd al-Islamiya, or AIAI, an organization with known ties to Al-Qaeda. [...]
Canjemi said the Twin Cities Somali community has been a ripe recruiting ground for AIAI for years.
"I believe this recruiting continues on a daily basis," he said.
According to national reports Al Qaeda is enjoying resurgence in Somalia. The FBI said the U.S. government continues to be involved in an active outreach to young Somalis to keep them from being courted by radical groups.
Which may be why the FBI helped bring Ahmed's body back to the States. But will the kuffar's ever-present willingness to help really keep young Somali Muslims in Minneapolis from joining the jihad?

European human rights court upholds French headscarf ban

Funny how accommodations related to Islamic practices are so often the only "human rights" Islamic groups seem to be concerned with. Fortunately, the European Court of Human Rights grasped in this case that Muslims' "right" to display religious symbols does not outweigh that of any other groups, which would have set a disastrous precedent in light of sharia restrictions on the use of non-Islamic religious symbols. Moreover, the "right" to go excessively above and beyond the accepted norms of "modesty" in a society is just not in the same league with actual human rights issues where life, limb, and freedom of thought and speech are at risk -- which, of course, is the case in so many instances under Islamic law.

Europe's human rights court today threw out a complaint by two French Muslim girls who were expelled from their school for refusing to remove their headscarves during sports lessons.
France, which takes secularism in state schools very seriously, passed a law in 2004 banning pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at school after a decade of bitter debate about Muslim girls wearing headscarves in class.
"The court observed that the purpose of the restriction on the applicants' right to manifest their religious convictions was to adhere to the requirements of secularism in state schools," the European Court of Human Rights said.
The two girls were 11 and 12 when they were expelled in 1999. After French courts ruled against them, they complained to the European court that their school had violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education.
The court, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, rejected both complaints by a unanimous ruling of seven judges.
It said the school had done its best to balance the interests of the girls with respect for France's secular model, and their expulsion was a consequence of their refusal to respect rules of which they had been properly informed.
It also said they had been able to continue their education by correspondence classes.
Interesting word choice:
The French veil debate divided a nation torn between its deep attachment to secularism and the need to accommodate Europe's largest Muslim minority. It also raised questions about how the influence of Islam was changing Europe.

Lego terrorist toy "sparks outrage among Muslims"

"Disgust At 'Lego' Terrorist Toys,"

A range of Lego-style fighting figurines - including an Islamic terrorist militant - has sparked outrage among Muslims.The toy mini-figures, made by American Will Chapman, includes a masked terrorist bandit with an assault rifle, grenade launcher and belt of explosives.
Shocked by the playthings, British Muslim organisation the Ramadhan Foundation has branded the figurines "absolutely disgusting".
Chief executive Mohammed Shafiq said the figures were "glorifying terrorism".[...]
Father-of-three Mr Chapman boasts on his website that his nine-year-old son gave him the idea for the range.
The site advertises 31 different Lego-style weapons, weapons packs and 10 miniature militant figurines.
Other fighters in the range include World War Two troops, US marines - and a Nazi SS officer.
A spokesman for Lego UK said they were "not associated" with the toys being sold by BrickArms, "which have been customised without LEGO UK's knowledge or permission."
He added Lego is "committed to developing toys which enrich childhood by encouraging imaginative and creative play - and does not endorse products that do not fit with this philosophy."

British missionary couple in Muslim African country face months in jail "hell hole" after being charged with "sedition"

Out to overthrow the government of Gambia?

Their whole focus has been teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ," remarked a family friend. But that's just it: proselytizing Muslim does, in fact, amount to sedition, that is, creating fitna, "civil strife," in Dar al-Islam.
"British missionary couple in Muslim African country face months in jail 'hell hole' after being charged with sedition,"

A British missionary couple face up to two years in an African hell hole jail after being charged with sedition in The Gambia.
David and Fiona Fulton were arrested last Saturday in the West African Muslim country, and have been separated and held in custody, according to sources.
The couple have been jailed over claims they had been speaking out against the government of president Yahya Jammeh, who has ruled Africa's smallest country with an iron fist for 14 years.
Mr Fulton, 60, who is originally from Troon, Ayrshire, was being held in the country's notorious Mile II prison - a high security jail outside the capital Banjul, described as a tough former colonial jail built during the days of the British Empire.
His wife Fiona, 46, was is understood to be in police custody with the couple's adopted two-year-old daughter Elizabeth.
She has been treated well by police officers who have run errands to buy nappies - but there were growing fears for her husband's safety.
A friend, who did not want to be named said: 'Fiona has been treated well. We are not sure about David. We don't think he's fared quite as well. He's not eating.'
The couple are being held until they are able to raise bail of £125,000 and meet other conditions.[...]"Bail"...or in Islamic parlance, Jizya.
Mr Fulton is chaplain to the Gambian army and carries the rank of major, while his wife looks after terminally ill people and visits women in their homes and in hospital.[...]
As well as ministering for the army, Mr Fulton also has a ministry on the river, which involves reaching immigration outposts and villages only accessible by boat.
The Westhoughton Pentecostal Church website states: 'This is a major challenge, as it involves a 10-day trip up river every month.
'But by God's grace he sees many won for the Lord from Islam and animism.'Hence the charge of "sedition" -- encouraging Muslims to apostatize, a crime punishable by death
The Gambia, one of Africa's smallest countries, is predominantly Muslim but has a significant Christian community, and indigenous beliefs are also practised.
A report in the International Herald Tribune said the Fultons were paraded on state television on Wednesday and charged in court in the capital, Banjul, yesterday.
The prosecution reportedly accused the couple of writing letters to individuals and organisations to 'bring into hatred or contempt, to excite disaffection against the President of the Republic and the government of The Gambia'.
The newspaper said the couple pleaded not guilty and the case was adjourned until December 16.
President Jammeh, who believes he has herbal treatments that can cure AIDS, has tolerated little dissent since he seized power in a 1994 military coup.
Since taking over as a young army lieutenant he has won three widely criticised multi-party elections.
A concerned friend of the couple added: 'While we are free to speak out, in Gambia you cannot.
'As a chaplain part of David's job is to provide comfort to all sorts of people, people high up and people low down - and people who have perhaps fallen out of favour.
'I don't know of anything they have done that could be called sedition. Their whole focus has been teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.'
Pastor Martin Speed, of Westhoughton Pentecostal Church in Bolton, Greater Manchester, said the couple had visited Christians at his church to talk about their work.
'The work he is doing is not political,' Pastor Speed said.
'He's sharing his Christian faith with people. There does seem to be a growing difficulty of Christians in the country of Gambia. We are really concerned about the situation.'

Darfur: Anonymous "gunmen" beat aid workers in accordance to sharia

“Although the workers complied without resistance to demands for money, the attackers assaulted them up before leaving the scene.” This, of course, is in perfect harmony with sharia law. According to the tafsir (exegesis) of prominent Muslim scholar, Al-Zamakhshari, Koran 9:29 means that "the jizya shall be taken from them [Christians and Jews] with belittlement and humiliation. The dhimmi shall come in person, walking not riding. When he pays, he shall stand, while the tax collector sits. The collector shall seize him by the scruff of the neck, shake him, and say Pay the Jizyah! and when he pays it he shall be slapped on the nape of the neck."

Darfur, 5 Dec. (AKI) - Two gunmen equipped with assault rifles and a hand grenade stopped a humanitarian convoy in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, beat up the aid workers and stole money in the latest of a long series of such assaults that are impeding relief operations, the United Nations reported.
The non-governmental organisation convoy of three vehicles with six local staff was stopped in South Darfur on its way from Nyala, the provincial capital, to the Kalma camp, the joint UN-African Union mission in Darfur or UNAMID said in a statement.
“Although the workers complied without resistance to demands for money, the attackers assaulted them up before leaving the scene.”
“Three out of the six workers were reportedly severely beaten and taken to the local hospital, where their condition is listed as stable and non life-threatening.”
Initial reports suggest that the assailants were informed of the workers’ movements and that they were transporting cash intended for the payment of salaries for the Kalma camp staff.
“If proven right, these suspicions would point to an act of banditry," UNAMID added.
UNAMID, slated to reach 26,000 personnel but now only 10,500-strong, is being deployed throughout Darfur in an effort to bring peace to a region where more than five years of fighting between Government forces, allied Janjaweed militia and rebel groups have killed an estimated 300,000 people and driven another 2.7 million from their homes.