Date: 8/3/2005
RELENTLESS HOT PURSUIT OF MUSLIM TERRORISTS IN EUROPE. Today's news (August 3, 2005) on BBC Television. -----------------------------------------/// Muslim leader urges hijab caution /// Dr Zaki Badawi, head of the Muslim College in London and chairman of the Council of Mosques and Imams, issued the advice amid a wave of race attacks. /// There were 269 crimes in three weeks after the 7 July bombings, compared with 40 in the same period of 2004. /// Dr Badawi said "a woman wearing the hijab... could suffer aggression from irresponsible elements". /// Most of the hate crimes reported were verbal abuse and minor assaults, but damage to mosques and property with a great "emotional impact" also occurred, police said. /// Dress is meant to protect from harm, not to invite it /// Dr Zaki Badawi/// 'The hijab is part of my faith' /// Dr Badawi said: "In the present tense situation, with the rise of attacks on Muslims, we advise Muslim women who fear being attacked physically or verbally to remove their hijab so as not to be identified by those hostile to Muslims. /// "A woman wearing the hijab...could suffer aggression from irresponsible elements. Therefore, she ought not to wear it. Dress is meant to protect from harm, not to invite it." /// He said the Koran justified abandoning the hijab, saying it should help Muslim women be "identified and not molested", but if it led to harassment the ruling was it should not be worn. /// Dr Badawi is seen as a progressive Muslim leader who has advocated integration between Muslims and British society for decades. /// / 'Communities retreating' /// Met Police Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur said he had never seen so much anger among young Muslims. /// Counter-terrorism powers are not targeting any community in particular but are targeting terrorists /// Hazel Blears/// Home Office minister/// Communities were frustrated by the increased use of stop-and-search and the new "shoot-to-kill to protect" policy for suicide bombers, he said. /// "There is no doubt that incidents impacting on the Muslim community have increased." /// And he warned: "It can lead to these communities completely retreating and not engaging at a time when we want their engagement and support." /// Mr Ghaffur said there were 68 "faith hate" crimes in London alone, in the first three days after the 7 July attacks which killed 52. /// Racial profiling /// A spokesman for the Muslim Safety Forum, an umbrella group which works closely with the police, said the figures reflected a recent increase in calls to their members about abuse and attacks. /// "It's something we've been saying for a few weeks now but it's good to see senior police managers have got up and actually said it," spokesman Tahir Butt said. /// "Although police are talking about a zero-tolerance policy the test is how effective that is at ground level when you go in and report a crime." /// Faith hate crimes are currently prosecuted under anti-racism legislation, but a bill to create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred is currently going through Parliament. /// The bill, which has attracted criticism, has passed its Commons stages but is set to get a rocky ride in the Lords. /// The figures emerged as Home Office minister Hazel Blears held the first in a series of meetings with Muslim community groups. /// They come amid concerns that young Muslims are being targeted by police in stop-and-search operations. /// Ahead of the meeting, Ms Blears pledged that Muslims would not be discriminated against by police trying to prevent potential terror attacks. /// 'Stretched' /// She insisted "counter-terrorism powers are not targeting any community in particular but are targeting terrorists". /// She also opposed racial profiling, saying stop and searches should be based on good intelligence, not just skin colour. /// Mr Ghaffur also said the specialist unit dealing with serious and organised crime had lost 10% of its staff to the bombings inquiry. /// As a result proactive work on major murder inquiries had "slowed to a trickle". /// "The Met is stretched," he said. "There may be longer term implications if this level of activity continues." /// ========================== /// A man has been charged under the Terrorism Act in relation to the failed bomb attacks in London on 21 July. /// Ismael Abdurahman, 23, of Newport Street, Kennington, south-east London, is the first person to be charged in connection with the incidents. /// He is accused of withholding information that may have helped catch a person involved in terrorism. /// Mr Abdurahman, who was arrested on 28 July, will appear before Bow Street Magistrates' Court on Thursday. /// The allegation is understood to relate to the Shepherd's Bush bombing, with suspect Osman Hussain currently being held in Italy. /// Mr Abdurahman was charged with "having information that he knew or believed might be of material assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person in the UK for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism, failed to disclose that information as soon as reasonably practicable to a constable". /// Police also said a man held in Brighton on 31 July has been released without charge. /// There are a further 14 people being held over the attacks and in the UK. /// Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the 21 July attacks - which also saw explosions at Oval and Warren Street stations and on a bus in Shoreditch - were intended to kill. /// Meanwhile there is set to be a massive police presence in London on Thursday, a fortnight since the failed 21 July attacks and four weeks since the deadly 7 July bombs./// A reported 6,000 officers, many armed, will patrol London's streets and transport network. /// British Transport Police will bring in extra officers from outside the capital and undercover officers will be on Tube trains and buses in an effort to spot any bombers. /// Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Rome has insisted reports that the British police are unhappy with the level of co-operation from the Italian authorities are untrue. /// One of the Italian investigating magistrates, Pietro Saviotti, told state radio RAI: "The process for extradition is in course and at the same time we are carrying out careful checks to verify any possible crimes committed in our state. I believe these two requirements are perfectly compatible. /// "I would not say we are talking about days, but about weeks before Issac can be extradited." /// xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx =========== See Bodhi tree: a few plans, and cement floor and wilderness: http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/india/buddhist.html ============= 1. JAISA RAJA, WAISI PRAJA JAISA BAAP, WAISA BETA. COROLLARY: If the rulers are corrupt thugs, unscrupulous thieves and traitors of firest degee, the the subjects will not have access to free INFORMATION, open JUSTICE nor to a NON DYNASTIC democrtatic government. Furthermore, it will be same Seculariam that will be valid in LAHORE and DELHI. It will not be one version for the Muslim masters snd the other for the defested, suppressed Hindu serfs and slaves. If the father is a BOFORS CHOR, corrupt loafer who imported his FOREIGN woman from the "gutters" of ITALY, the son will be a goondah, badma'ash, MAFIA Don and importrer of a woman from a country notorious for DRUGS trade, that is, COLUMBIA, but NOT a Buddhist country like China or Japan nor a Hindu country like Nepal or even his own BHARAT. Such a misfortune of Partitioned India will never go away by giving vent to our anger and frustrtion by simply wring and speaking, but by PEOPLE POWER. Peoppe POWER is how governkents topple, rulers beheaded or mjade to sit on donkey and taken through streets of the capittal. . On Septemebr 27, 2001, Rahul GAndhi, MP East Africa's terror ties By Joseph Winter BBC News website The news that three of the suspects held in connection with the failed London bombings on 21 July were born in East Africa has once again put the region in the spotlight. They are not being linked to any militant activities in their countries of birth, but connections between East Africa and Al-Qaeda have long been established there. There are frequent reports of terror cells operating in East Africa, especially in Somalia, a fiercely Muslim country with no functioning government. Indeed the United States takes the threat of terror attacks coming from East Africa so seriously that it has set up an anti-terror task force, of almost 2,000 men, in Djibouti to monitor the region. The region's links to al-Qaeda date to 1991, when Osama Bin Laden set up training camps in Sudan, before moving to Afghanistan. More than 220 people died in 1998 when the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up, in attacks which the US says Bin Laden ordered. One of those indicted for these bombings, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, from the Comoros Islands, just off the East African coast, has never been caught and is thought to remain in the region. And in 2002, 13 people were killed when suicide bombers targeted an Israeli-owned hotel near the Kenyan resort of Mombasa. Hours later, a missile narrowly missed a plane carrying Israeli tourists back home from the Indian Ocean resort. United Nations officials say that those who carried out these attacks passed through Somalia and may also have purchased their weapons in the open-air arms bazaar in the capital, Mogadishu. Lawless By definition, it is very difficult to know what is going on in a country without a government. There is no-one to stop a terror group from setting up in one of Somalia's many sparsely populated areas - as long as they have enough money and local links to smooth their passage. Radical Islamic preachers are among the groups which have tried to fill the vacuum left by the absence of government. On the streets of Mogadishu, almost all women and girls wear a tightly-wrapped veil covering their necks and all their hair. Some cover their entire faces, with just a narrow slit in front of their eyes. Before Somali descended into anarchy in the early 1990s, women were much more relaxed in their dressing. Preachers have told people that Islam offers the answer to their many problems and sharia courts have been set up to try and dispense some justice based on Islamic law. As society has moved towards a more extreme version of Islam, it is quite possible that some groups have gone much further. And there is no shortage of young men who see violence as their only way of earning a living. 'Biggest threat' Last month, the think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report accusing groups linked to al-Qaeda of carrying out a series of targeted assassinations of prominent security officials and aid-workers. Many of those killed have expressed support for Abdoulahi Yusuf, the man elected by exiled MPs to become Somalia's new president. If there are any terror groups operating in Mogadishu, it would not be in their interests for an effective authority to be set up for the first time in 14 years. One diplomat who deals with Somalia says that "dozens of Islamic terrorists" remain active in the country. "They are one of the biggest threats to the new government," he says. Mr Yusuf has a track record of moving against alleged terror groups when he was president of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in north-eastern Somali. Al-Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists, Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counter-terrorism networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest International Crisis Group He fought al-Itihad al-Islamiya, named as a terrorist group by the US and alleged to have links to al-Qaeda, and expelled them from his territory, with help from Ethiopia, where the group had also staged attacks. Following his election last October, Mr Yusuf promised to make fighting terror groups one of his priorities. But he has still not been able to move to Mogadishu because of security fears. 'Shadowy conflict' Some former warlords are opposed to his plans to set up a government elsewhere in the country, while Islamic groups have threatened a "Jihad" or Holy War against any foreign troops who are sent to bring stability and protect Mr Yusuf and his government, as he has requested. Most Somalis strongly deny the presence of any terror groups in their country but they are very angry with the US-led invasion of Iraq, which they see as the latest US attack on Muslims. These view are held by one of al-Itihad's former leaders, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who operates freely in Mogadishu and preaches in the mosque opposite his home. He strongly denies that terror training camps exist in Somalia but does have sympathy for the "Muhajadeen who are fighting back" against attacks by the US and their allies around the world. Mr Aweys accuses the US of paying Somali warlords to kidnap those it accuses of being terrorists and spiriting them out of the country. US officials said they had "no information" on these claims but most Somali-watchers accept they are true. Such abductions were mentioned in the ICG report: "In the rubble-strewn streets of the ruined capital of this state without a government... al-Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists, Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counter-terrorism networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest waged by intimidation, abduction and assassination." /// It is a long way from Mogadishu to London but while Somalia lacks a strong government, it could easily be used by groups to destabilise its neighbours and countries much further afield. =============================== ..............................000000000
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