Monday, April 11, 2011

20 Canadians have joined Somali terror group: official

Islamist fighters loyal to al-Shebab perform military drills at a village near Mogadishu, Somalia on Feb. 17, 2011. The group has been recruiting men from Canada and other Western countries.
Abdurashid Abdulle/AFP/Getty Images

Islamist fighters loyal to al-Shebab perform military drills at a village near Mogadishu, Somalia on Feb. 17, 2011. The group has been recruiting men from Canada and other Western countries.

Stewart Bell, National Post · Apr. 10, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 11, 2011 11:08 AM ET

TORONTO — About 20 Canadians have travelled to Somalia to join Al-Shabab, a federal official said two weeks after a Toronto man was arrested as he was allegedly leaving to enlist in the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group.

As many as three of the Canadians may have been killed so far, the official added, although such deaths are hard to verify because of the armed conflict and the lack of a diplomatic corps in Somalia.

The figures suggest the scale of Canada’s problem with Al-Shabab recruitment is comparable to that experienced by the United States and Europe, which also have sizable populations of ethnic Somalis.
The Al-Shabab threat was underscored late last month when police arrested Mohamed Hersi at Toronto’s Pearson airport. The RCMP alleged he was on his way to Somalia “to join Al-Shabab and participate in their terrorist activities.”

The 25-year-old former Toronto security guard, who is scheduled to have a bail hearing on Wednesday, was the first Canadian to be charged with terrorism offences related to Al-Shabab, but the group has been actively recruiting members in Canada for at least two years.

In 2009, six Somali-Canadians left Toronto for Somalia, where federal authorities suspect they joined the group. One was later eulogized on an extremist Internet forum, which said he had died in battle.

“It’s difficult for the RCMP to know how many people have left the country to join Al-Shabab as some are reported missing and others are not,” said Sergeant Marc Laporte, the RCMP spokesman for Ontario. “Some are reported to the police of jurisdiction and others are reported to the RCMP,” he said. “It is also difficult to put an actual number as most of these individuals don’t express their intent before leaving.”

A major counter-terrorism investigation underway in Toronto is trying to identify Canadians who have joined Al-Shabab and how they are being recruited. Most appear to be young Somali-Canadians drawn to al-Qaeda’s violent ideology.

Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, said he was only aware of about a dozen cases, including two Ottawa men and a Toronto youth who trained with Al-Shabab and has since returned to the city.

“I haven’t run into those kinds of numbers,” Mr. Hussen said. “It seems a little high … but you know what, we’re always behind the security guys, they’re always ahead of us in terms of information. I wouldn’t rule it out, I wouldn’t put it past these guys to recruit 20 people or more.”

Al-Shabab, which means The Youth in Arabic, has been using a mix of terrorism and insurgency to impose Taliban-like Islamist rule in Somalia, which has been without an effective government for more than two decades. The group’s tactics — suicide bombings, roadside bombs, political assassinations and a pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden — have landed the group of international terrorist lists, including Canada’s. Using an Internet propaganda campaign, Al-Shabab has attracted hundreds of foreigners, among them Canadians, who have flocked to Somalia to join what they claim is a global jihad against the West.

“Islamist extremists are radicalizing and recruiting Somali-Canadian youths within Canada to travel to Somali for jihad training,” reads a de-classified 2010 Canadian intelligence report released under the Access to Information Act.

The RCMP is concerned about the potential for violence in Canada should the Al-Shabab recruits return home with the indoctrination and the weapons training necessary to carry out terrorist attacks. A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report recently obtained by the National Post under the Access to Information Act calls foreign travel an “important part in the radicalization process” of Islamist extremists.

“Those who have jihad experience are often transformed by it and return to their home countries enthused with a zeal to convince others to share their new-found desire to defend Islam,” reads the report, marked Secret. “This combination of enthusiasm, charisma and … tales of jihad can be a potent mix that can be used to draw the vulnerable into violence. The influence that these veterans can have in their communities is significant.”

Mr. Hersi was arrested as he was about to board a flight to London and Cairo. He has been charged with attempting to participate in terrorist activity and counseling a person to participate in terrorist activity.
The arrest followed a six-month joint investigation by the Toronto Police Service and RCMP called Project Severe. Last month, arrest warrants were issued for two Winnipeg men accused of traveling to Pakistan for terrorist training.

sbell@nationalpost.com
 April 11, 2011

MEDIA CONTACT:  352-371-2487 or 352-871-2680
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Dearborn, Michigan PRESS CONFERENCE, April 22, in front of America's Largest Mosque:

The Islamic Center of America
19500 Ford Road, Dearborn, MI

on Friday, April 22, 2011; 5pm - 8pm


We will be talking about jihad, sharia, and the radicalization of Moslems in America. 

Participating with us, will be Ahmed Abaza, of The Truth TV, and Rabbi Nachum Shifren of Los Angeles, CA.

Along with Frank Fiorello, founder of OOTD:
 
"We are holding a demo about the middle east and the peace process by exposing some lies about Isreal/Palestine relations. We are also in protest to the thousands of people worldwide who dying because of jihad."
 
 
Mission: Protect our country from the rise of radical Islam and the implementation of Sharia law.




Founder and President of Stand Up America Now,
Dr. Terry Jones

For more information, please contact us at 352-371-2487 or info@standupamericanow.org  
 

Please financially support us:
www.standupamericanow.org

Brazilian school massacre perpetrated by Muslim

The media is doing their best to silence this story. From sheikyermami, Jihad in Rio (Revisited).
Eleven students shot dead in a school in Rio de Janiero. The man may have been mad, but his choice of faith is interesting: Islam
The young man is a Muslim who converted to Islam some time ago. (Al Arabiya)
The gunman’s sister, Rosilane Menezes, said in an interview with Radio Band News, that her adoptive brother was strange, reserved and had no friends. “He was so focused on things related to Islam and had let his beard grow long. It was weird, was on the internet all day reading issues and it was very strange, very secretive,” she said. (Andrew Bolt)
His sister said “he appeared to have got closer to Islam and spent all his time on the internet
I had to go to Al Arabiya to find out that he was a convert to Islam, that the letter said that Islam was the true religion and that the letter glorified terrorism and suicide bombings. (Elder)
Muslim Burial Demands:
“You should first know that the impure cannot touch me without gloves, only the chaste or those who lost their chastity after marriage and were not involved in adultery can touch me without gloves, or, in other words, no fornicator or adulterer can have direct contact with me, nor anything that is impure can touch my blood, nothing impure can have direct contact with a virgin without his permission, those who prepare my burial should take off all my clothes, wash me, dry me and wrap me totally naked in a white sheet that is in this building, in a bag that I left in the first room on the first floor, after they have wrapped me in this sheet they can put me in my coffin…”
Brazil has a history of hiding acts of Islamic terrorism in the country.

Berkeley forum: U.S. one of easiest places to conduct Islamic finance

The comment below was tweeted by Abdullah Nana coming out of the fourth annual Islamic Finance Forum at UC-Berkeley.

Abdullah Nana
Michael McMillen: The US is one of the countries where it is the easiest to conduct Islamic finance. .over 700 Ijara transactions in America
Ijara is an “Islamic finance technique used to finance the acquisition of assets on terms compliant with Sharia,” (source) and is marketed readily in the U.S.
Another tweet, placed a New York state Democrat at the forum on Islamic finance, far from his constituents.

Abdullah Nana
Met a US senator in person for first time and had conversation. NY Senator Kevin Parker is attending forum and sitting in front of me.

Connecting the dots, we pointed out in January that Kevin Parker, a New York Democrat introduced a bill to allow Islamic sharia financing in the state.


Then last week, Parker parroted terror-linked CAIR, possibly partnering with the Hamas-linked group, to oppose hearings on post-9/11 security in NY.

It’s no surprise Berkeley would be promoting Islamic sharia law, but it is alarming that Berkeley Law is partnering with Zaytuna College knowing the history of the school and its founders like Zaid Shakir, from DtN:
Shakir is known for having expressed his desire to see the United States eventually become — “not by violent means, but by persuasion” — a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law. “Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country,” he said.
In Shakir’s view, organizations such as Hamas and al Qaeda are pursuing manifestly legitimate objectives.
And from a previous post, Muslim behind first accredited Islamic college in U.S. says OK for Muslims to attack Ft Bragg:
A Council on American-Islamic Relations adviser and regular speaker at its events has suggested Islamic law permits Muslims to attack C-130 military transport planes carrying the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, N.C., according to a stunning new book exposing Washington-based CAIR’s inner workings.
Radical Islamic cleric Zaid Shakir, a frequent guest speaker at CAIR events, tells his Muslim audiences: “Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad.”
Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft.
“Islam doesn’t permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people,” Shakir once told a Muslim audience. However, “If you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that’s something else.”
The 82nd Airborne Division’s elite paratroopers fly out of Fort Bragg, N.C., which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw’s district. Shaw is CAIR’s new chairman.
The recording of the lecture, which Shakir gave earlier this decade to a Muslim audience in the San Francisco Bay area, was obtained by the authors of the bestselling “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”
This is how it happens. Collusion among leftist universities, ethically-challenged politicians, terror-linked Islamic groups and the sharia-promoting organizations they operate. The left and their cohorts in the media will repeatedly lie and tell you sharia is no threat and non-existent in the U.S.
Get involved, before it’s too late.

U.S. taxpayers to fund $20m remake of Sesame Street…for Pakistan

Hat tip to Jihad Watch and Weasel Zippers, via from BBC News, US to fund $20m remake of Sesame Street for Pakistan.” 

The United States is funding a Pakistani remake of the popular TV children’s show Sesame Street.
In a new effort to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, USAID – the development arm of the US government – is donating $20m (£12m) to the country to create a local Urdu version of the show.
The project aims to boost education in Pakistan, where many children have no access to regular schooling.

The show is to be filmed in Lahore and aired later in the year.

“The programme is part of a series of ventures that is aimed at developing the educational infrastructure in the country,” Virginia Morgan, a spokesperson for USAID, told the BBC.

“Education is one of the vital sectors that need help in Pakistan.”

The show will be set in a village in Pakistan – rather than the streets of New York – with roadside tea shop and residents sitting on their verandas.

The remake will star a puppet called Rani, the six-year-old daughter of a peasant farmer, with pigtails and a school uniform, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

The Rafi Peer group has been a leading light in Pakistani theatre for nearly 30 years. The group has been in the news in the past for its off-the-cuff productions – but also for the threats it has received.
In 2008 its highly popular World Performing Arts festival in Lahore was bombed. Although no-one was injured, the attack set back the arts in what is regarded as the country’s cultural capital…