The new progressive way: Teaching religion is schools is bad... unless it's Islam

Parents Pull Son from Class Because School Is Teaching Islam.

(Breitbart) Parents of a boy enrolled in Manhattan Beach Middle School are pulling their son out of class because the school is teaching children the ten[e]ts of Islam, Los Angeles news station KTLA reports.

The father said, “The audacity of this school, to think that they can sit these children down and teach ’em whatever religion they please; it’s preposterous. This is illegal, basically. You can’t teach religion in schools any more, but apparently, in this particular school, at least, that’s not the case.”

Parents said they discovered that what their children were learning about Islam was more about the tenets of the faith than the history of the religion, according to KTLA. One question asked the students to write down teachings from the Koran.

[...]

The parents talked to the principal, but the school refused to change the schoolwork, prompting the parents to remove their son from the class. The school would not respond to questions from KTLA.

There's a difference between teaching about religions in the context of their place in history and historical events and demanding that students imbibe and then regurgitate the dogma of a particular religion.

For some reason, the left gravitates to the most violent and inhumane religion out there. It's like they feel kinship, or something.

Congo crowd kills man, eats him after militant massacres

Holy crap.

BENI Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - A crowd stoned to death a young man in northeast Congo on Friday before burning and eating his corpse, witnesses said, in apparent revenge for a series of attacks by Ugandan rebels.

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Halloween 2014

After losing 1,000 men in Syria, Hezbollah builds ‘security zone'

(Times of Israel) Almost six months have passed since the last suicide bombing on the streets of Dahiya, the Shi’ite quarter of Beirut and a Hezbollah stronghold. After a number of lethal attacks from radical Sunni groups, including the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, on Iranian and Hezbollah targets, it appears that the Shi’ite organization has managed, with considerable effort, to stop the attacks, if only temporarily

There are several reasons for this success, including Hezbollah activities on the Syrian side of the border, and Lebanese Army raids on terrorist strongholds.

But a major cause for the stabilized security situation in Shi’ite areas is the “security zone” Hezbollah has created on the Syria/Lebanon border. It features a series of permanent bases built by the organization in recent months in order to prevent the flow of Sunni terrorists into Lebanon. These outposts are situated primarily in the central sector of the border. In part, this is because the movement of vehicles to the north and to the south is difficult, and can be monitored and controlled by Hezbollah without a round-the-clock presence.

The center of the border was seen as especially problematic by Hezbollah, and the organization recognized that this was the area that had to be closed off and secured, and that random patrols or observation from afar would not suffice. Hezbollah understood it needed to focus on this sector 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This led to the decision to build permanent bases overlooking the entire sector, similar to Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon until 2000.

According to various estimates, 1,000 Hezbollah fighters are stationed within the outposts alone. Add to that figure another 4,500-5,000 operating in Syria and battling the opposition forces there. Patrols around the central sector head out from these outposts, and there is also an effort to enlist local collaborators who can provide real-time intelligence.

The fighters are protected by fortifications and earthworks, and they are supported by a complex logistical effort, which includes food, clothing, and arms which arrive in an orderly fashion.

In other words, this is not the 1990s Hezbollah, and not even Hezbollah from the last decade. The Shi’ite organization no longer operates solely as a terrorist or guerrilla group. It does that as well, but Hezbollah has adopted the modus operandi of nothing less than a conventional army in its efforts to keep Sunni fighters out of Lebanon.

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UN: Foreign Fighters in Terror Groups Growing on an 'Unprecedented Scale'

Obama's terror strategery.

(Newsmax) A new United Nations report says the world is facing a challenge of foreign fighters in terror groups on an "unprecedented scale," with about 15,000 in Syria and Iraq alone.

The report by a panel of experts monitoring al-Qaida and the Taliban, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, has been submitted to the U.N. Security Council.

The panel says fighters from more than 80 countries working with al-Qaida associates in Syria and Iraq "form the core of a new diaspora that may seed the threat for years to come," and that domestic terrorism could rise as fighters return to their home countries.

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Persecution, torture, murder: Iran blasted on human rights ahead of UN hearing

Public executions in Iran are often witnessed by children and are meted out for offenses such as
homosexuality and drug possession. (Courtesy: Iran Human Rights)

(Fox News) On the eve of Iran's defense of its human rights record Friday before a key United Nations panel, a lawyer for the woman executed in the Islamic Republic over the weekend for allegedly killing her attempted rapist accused the regime of widespread torture and murder.

A UN-appointed human rights advocate had already prepared a voluminous account of Tehran's egregious transgressions, including persecution and imprisonment of religious minorities, alarming numbers of executions and systematic disregard of due process by Saturday, when Reyhaneh Jabbari, a 27-year-old woman who had spent the last seven years in prison, was hanged. Jabbari became an international symbol of the regime's brutality, with the UN and rights groups such as Amnesty International decrying her death sentence. Jabbari's execution served to punctuate this week's hearings, including the independent forum in Geneva on Thursday and a procedure today before a UN Human Rights Council panel.

[...]

At least three American citizens are believed to be held in Iraq, including Pastor Saeed Abedini, a Boise, Idaho, married father of two who went back to his homeland to help establish a secular orphanage and was imprisoned for proselytizing; Amir Hekmati, a U.S. Marine who went to visit an ailing grandparent and was arrested and accused of being a spy and Robert Levinson, a former FBI and DEA agent who disappeared while investigating a cigarette -smuggling ring in the Kish Islands and is now believed to be the longest-held hostage in American history. Iran denies it is holding Levinson, but the State Department says it is.

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Report: 92% of Marine Casualties in Afghan War Occurred Under Obama

(CNSNews.com) -- As U.S. Marines withdraw from Operation Enduring Freedom (the Afghanistan war), CNSNews.com's database on casualties shows that 418 Marines have given their lives in the conflict and that 92% of those casualties, 385 deaths, have occurred since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

[...]

In the 13 years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,226 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country. Among those, 418, or 18.8 percent, were U.S. Marines.

From January 20, 2009 to the end of 2009, 68 Marines died in Operation Enduring Freedom. The next year, 2010, accounted for most of the Marine casualties: 165 Marines lost their lives in Afghanistan that year. In 2011, 78 Marines died in Afghanistan; in 2012, 58 Marines died; in 2013, 8 Marines died; and in 2014, another 8 Marines died.

These 385 Marines who died in Afghanistan after President Obama took office equal 92.1 percent of the 418 Marines who have died in the entire thirteen-year duration of the war.

Sergeants and Specialists in the Army represent nearly half--49.6 percent--of all U.S. casualties of the Afghan War, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.

There have been 731 Army sergeants who have died in Operation Enduring Freedom. This includes the ranks of sergeant, staff sergeant, sergeant first class and master sergeant--and comprises 32.8 percent of the total 2,226 troops who have died in the war.

There have been 374 Army specialists who have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, which is 16.8 percent of the total casualties.

1,631 of the casualties in the Afghan War have been Army personnel, accounting for 73.3% of all U.S. casualties. After the Army, the Marines had the highest number of casualties at 418.

In the 13 years of the Afghan war, there have been 98 Navy casualties and 79 Air Force casualties, equaling a combined 8 percent of the total U.S. casualties.

Hezbollah operative targeted Jews, Israelis in Peru

Muhammad Amadar with wife and friends (Foto: La República)

Lebanon-born Mohammed Amadar, arrested by local authorities after Mossad tip-off, found with TNT, detonators.

(Times of Israel) Peruvian authorities arrested a suspected Hezbollah operative in the capital Lima earlier this week on suspicion that he was planning attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.

The man, Mohammed Amadar, a Lebanese citizen, was apprehended in the street by anti-terror police, Haaretz reported Thursday, citing the local La Republica newspaper.

A search of his apartment discovered TNT, detonators and flammable substances.

The suspect had been gathering intelligence on places frequented by Israeli hikers and on Jewish institutions. Authorities said they were questioning Amadar to learn more about his intended targets.

According to the report, Amadar arrived in Peru in November 2013 and married a woman with both Peruvian and American citizenship just two weeks later. The couple left for Brazil and then planned to return to Peru in July this year.

Peruvian authorities were tipped off to Amadar’s alleged activities by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and he was questioned after returning to Peru. Authorities kept him under constant surveillance, discovering that neither he nor his wife worked, but received Western Union money transfers, a method often used by Hezbollah.

In July 2012, an explosion outside an airport on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the bomber. Thirty-five people were wounded. Two years later Bulgarian authorities identified the bomber as 23-year-old Mohamad Hassan El-Husseini, who was born in Lebanon.

Last year, Bulgaria accused Hezbollah of mounting the attack. It identified two Lebanese plotters as Meliad Farah, 32, who holds Australian citizenship, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, a Canadian citizen. Neither has been arrested.

Netanyahu vs. Obama

I've been on the battlefield many times. I risked my life for the country and am not prepared to make concessions that endanger our state. »
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 29, 2014

» in the rise in support for the State of Israel among the American public, support that has reached an all-time high. »
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 29, 2014

A soldier is a "Chickeshit". Pajama-boy is a man.

This is how the Obama Administration sees the world.

Report: Syrian air strikes kill over 200 civilians, 'a third of them children', in 10 days

For some reason, the UN has no plans to send in investigators on a fact-finding mission.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Bombing runs by the Syrian air force over the past 10 days have killed at least 221 civilians, a third of them children, a group monitoring Syria's civil war said on Thursday.

The intensifying offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces has heightened concerns among his opponents that he may be taking advantage of US-led air raids on Islamic State insurgents to regain territory elsewhere in the country.

Since October 20 the Syrian military has staged at least 769 attacks including barrel bombings in many areas of Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and more than 500 people have been wounded.

Islamic State jihadists kill 220 Iraqis from tribe that opposed it

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State militants executed at least 220 Iraqis in retaliation against a tribe's opposition to their takeover of territory west of Baghdad, security sources and witnesses said.

Two mass graves were discovered on Thursday containing some of the 300 members of the Sunni Muslim Albu Nimr tribe that Islamic State had seized this week. The captives, men aged between 18 and 55, had been shot at close range, witnesses said.

The bodies of more than 70 Albu Nimr men were dumped near the town of Hit in the Sunni heartland Anbar province, according to witnesses who said most of the victims were members of the police or an anti-Islamic State militia called Sahwa (Awakening).

Palestinian Government Calls for War, Obama Maintains Silence

Calls for ‘day of rage’ against Israel on Friday as fears of intifada grow.

US tax dollars at work. Let's reward them with another billion in jizya.

(WFB) The Palestinian government has called on its “fighters” to launch a “day of rage” against Israel on Friday that will include armed attacks in Jerusalem, a move that has sparked fears that widespread riots could wreak havoc on the holy city.

Israeli authorities shut down access to Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque late Wednesday following the shooting of a Jewish citizen by Palestinian terrorists.

Israel’s call to block access to the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem’s Old City—the first such closure since 1967—led the Palestinian government to call for armed resistance and accuse Israel of declaring war.

“Fatah calls to its fighters and to the masses of the Palestinian people to aid the Al-Aqsa Mosque and occupied Jerusalem,” the Palestinians’ main political party said in a statement published Thursday and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

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US-Based Muslim Brotherhood Group Mourns Death of Terror Leader Convicted of 61 Counts of War Crimes

ICNA president Naeem Baig (left), Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghulam Azam

(Clarion Project) The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is again showing its affection for the radical Jamaat-e-Islami group of Pakistan and Bangladesh, a group that it derived from. ICNA was the first to publicly mourn the death of a Jamaat-e-Islami leader and to defend his record, eliciting harsh criticism from some Muslims online.

Jamaat-e-Islami is essentially a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both are Islamist groups with a history of support for terrorism and who intend to use electoral means to implement Sharia governance. Bangladesh is prosecuting Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. [...]

It mourns the death of Ghulam Azam, who led the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh from 1991 to 2000. He was in prison after being convicted by a Bangladeshi tribunal on 61 war crimes charges.

Azam was the Ameer of the East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami during Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. He is accused of working with the Pakistani military in its offensives that killed an estimated 3 million people and resulted in the rapes of about a quarter-million women, according to various press accounts.

The Daily Star recounts his role in the atrocities as the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing formed pro-Pakistan militias. Its account includes a picture of Azam with Pakistani general known as “Butcher of Baluchistan.”

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Palestinian SodaStream Boycott Leads To Hundreds Of Unemployed West Bank Arabs

(Inquisitr) As one famous Israeli politician once said, “The Palestinians never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity,” and the recent SodaStream debacle, involving Scarlet Johansson, was no exception to that rule.

There has been controversy for a while now, surrounding the SodaStream factory in the West Bank, a territory which is disputed between Israel and the Palestinians, since their 1967 war.

A campaign against the SodaStream factory was launched by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, (BDS) which works to ruin prospects of peace in the Middle East, by unhelpful boycotts, such as the SodaStream one.

While the group works to isolate the Jewish State what it actually does, as this case proves, is to cause unnecessary trouble and the loss of hundreds of Palestinian jobs for the workers from surrounding Palestinian towns who were employed by the company. [...]

The boycott is clearly counter-productive, no matter what your view on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute of land is, as it has directly caused a massive loss of income for hundreds of Palestinians who cannot travel over 100 Kilometres to the relocated SodaStream factory in Israel.

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Islamic State jihadists kill 600 Iraqi prisoners in Mosul

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants from the Islamic State carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi prison inmates when they seized the country’s second-largest city of Mosul in June, an international rights group said on Thursday.

Some 600 male Shiite inmates from Badoosh prison outside Mosul were forced to kneel along the edge of a nearby ravine and shot with automatic weapons, Human Rights Watch said in a statement based on interviews with 15 Shiite prisoners who survived the massacre.

The New York-based watchdog added that the Shiite prisoners were separated from several hundred Sunnis and a small number of Christians who were later set free. A number of Kurdish and Yazidi inmates were also killed, they said.

The prisoners had been serving sentences for a range of crimes, from murder and assault to nonviolent offenses.

Before separating them, the gunmen herded up to 1,500 inmates onto trucks and drove them to an isolated stretch of desert about 1.2 miles from the prison, the survivors said. After taking several hundred away in trucks, they forced the Shiites to form one long line along the ravine edge and then count their number in the line before showering them with machine-gun fire.

“A bullet hit my head and I fell to the ground, and that’s when I felt another bullet hit my arm,” one survivor said. “I was unconscious for about 5 minutes. One person was shot in the head, in the forehead, it (the bullet) went out the other side, and he fell on top of me,” the statement quoted him as saying.

Before the shooting started, he added, he kissed the men on each side “because we knew we were going to die” and “after we said goodbye to each other, I took my daughter’s picture and kissed it, and I prayed to God to save me for her, because I have no one else.”

Between 30 to 40 prisoners survived, most by rolling into the valley and pretending to be dead, or from being shielded by the bodies of other prisoners, they said. Several wounded men died while trying to crawl away.

Israel Withdraws Ambassador to Sweden

(INN) Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman has recalled Israel's ambassador to Sweden Isaac Bachman Thursday, following the Swedish government's decision to officially recognize "Palestine" as a state.

Stockholm's foreign minister announced the decision to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as "the State of Palestine," less than a month after the government announced its intention to make the controversial move.

Liberman issued a withering statement in response, accusing the Swedish government of being unable to grasp the intricacies of Middle Eastern geopolitics.

"The decision of the Swedish government to recognize a Palestinian state is a deplorable decision which only strengthens extremist elements and Palestinian rejectionism," Israel's top diplomat said in a statement.

"It is a shame that the Swedish government chose to take this declarative step which causes a lot of harm and offers no advantage," he said,

In a dig at Stockholm's left-wing government, he added: "The Swedish government must understand that relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA and that they have to act with responsibility and sensitivity."

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nachshon told AFP about the decision, saying "this indeed reflects our irritation and annoyance at this unhelpful decision which does not contribute to a return to negotiations."

'Treated like cattle': Yazidi women sold, raped, enslaved by ISIS

Erbil, Iraq (CNN) -- Jana was a 19-year-old in her final year of high school, with dreams of becoming a doctor. Then, ISIS came to her village last August, and her world collapsed.

She described to me in chilling detail, how the jihadis first demanded that members of her Yazidi religious minority convert to Islam. Then they stripped villagers of their jewelry, money and cellphones. They separated the men from the women.

A United Nations report explained what happened next. ISIS "gathered all the males older than 10 years of age at the local school, took them outside the village by pick-up trucks, and shot them."

Among those believed dead were Jana's father and eldest brother.

A different fate lay in store for the women.

Jana described how girls like herself were separated from older women, then bussed to the city of Mosul.

There they were put in a big three-story house with hundreds of other young women. The men of ISIS came periodically, and chose up to three and four girls at a time to take home with them.

"These women have been treated like cattle," explained Nazand Begikhani, an adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government on gender issues.

"They have been subjected to physical and sexual violence, including systematic rape and sex slavery. They've been exposed in markets in Mosul and in Raqqa, Syria, carrying price tags."

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By modern leftist feminist standards, better to be cattle in ISIS territory than a free and equal woman in Israel. Because the real War on Women™ is Hobby Lobby fighting to insure only 16 of the 20 contraception mandates on Obamacare... but selling women at auctions with price-tags slapped on their foreheads is a cultural more.

The Embarassing, Sophomoric Malice of Obama-Administration Foreign Policy

(NRO) So, a “senior Obama administration official” called the prime minister of Israel — our closest ally in the Middle East and one of the few nations in the region that is not (a) imploding or (b) actively funding or supporting terrorists — “a chickenshit.” While that word has rocketed around the globe, other descriptions of Benjamin Netanyahu include, “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’” And let’s not forget the worst word of all, “coward.”

Behold, the beautiful and delicate rhetorical stylings of our cultural and political elite. They’re the improvisational jazz musicians of American diplomacy, always ready with just the right word to solidify alliances, avoid unnecessary confrontation, and reassure Americans they know exactly what they’re doing in the face of bloody violence.

This is what happens when the academic Left runs American foreign policy.

For those who’ve lived under a rock for the past four-plus decades, the American academy has been characterized by two prime impulses: one substantive, the other stylistic. First, there’s the substantive claim that the problems of the world can largely — if not entirely — be traced back to America’s sins and the sins of our Western allies, most notably Israel. These sins have caused the peoples of the world to accumulate a long list of “legitimate grievances,” and the problem of anti-American or anti-Israeli violence is therefore best dealt with by dealing with the underlying grievance. Thus the fury at George Bush and the steadfast belief that it was American foreign policy and not a particular strain of Islamic theology that fanned the fires of jihad. Thus the fury at Israel when it asserts its right of self-defense, even to the point of blaming the rise of the Islamic State on Israeli/Palestinian relations, when the Islamic State is fighting its wars against Shiites, Kurds, Yazidis, and Americans.

Next, there’s the sophomoric, malicious style of campus rhetoric, where stigma is the preferred method of argument. It’s hard to overstate the propensity towards name-calling even of “elite” academics, and the culture of the academy is one where groupthink is enforced and reinforced through vicious rhetoric. Their opponents can’t be merely wrong. Instead they are racist, bigoted, homophobic, or — despite professed love of the disabled — “Aspergery.” The arrogance is overwhelming, and the fake tough-guy posture of name-calling elitists is laughable to everyone but themselves.

(By the way, have you noticed how much the elite drop profanity into conversations and commentary to signify how darn angry and serious they are? There’s nothing like a cursing nerd to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies — or friends.)

It should go without saying that this is no way to govern a great nation. So far the Obama administration’s legacy is one of bruised friendships and empowered enemies. The Islamic State rampages, Hamas restocks (with the help of American humanitarian aid), Boko Haram kidnaps, the Taliban advance, Russia owns new/old ground in Europe. And amidst the ruin of their foreign policy, the intellectual and emotional infants in the Obama administration hashtag away, mustering up their anger and fury to sling schoolyard insults at a close ally. All while doing their best to defer the hardest fighting against emerging enemies to the Oval Office’s next occupant.

Bravo. You truly have “reset” American foreign policy. You must feel so proud.

Report: Syrian helicopter bombs displaced persons camp, many dead, including women and children

No international outcry.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian army helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a displaced persons camp in the northern province of Idlib, camp residents said on Wednesday, and video footage appeared to show charred and dismembered bodies.

Footage posted on YouTube showed corpses of women, children and burning tents while people scrambled to save the wounded. "It's a massacre of refugees," a voice off camera said.

"Let the whole world see this, they are displaced people. Look at them, they are civilians, displaced civilians. They fled the bombardment," the man's voice said.

A man in another video of the Abedin camp, which houses people who had escaped fighting in neighboring Hama province, said as many as 75 people had died.

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Egypt blockades Gaza, gives residents on Gaza border 48 hours to leave

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian authorities on Tuesday ordered residents living along the country’s eastern border with the Gaza Strip to evacuate so they can demolish their homes and set up a buffer zone to stop weapons and militant trafficking between Egypt and the Palestinian territory, officials said.

The measure comes four days after Islamist fighters attacked an army post, killing at least 31 soldiers in the restive area in the northeastern corner of the Sinai Peninsula. After the attack, Egypt declared a state of emergency and dawn-to-dusk curfew there. Authorities also indefinitely closed the Gaza crossing, the only non-Israeli passage for the crowded strip with the world.

The buffer zone, which will include water-filled trenches to thwart tunnel diggers, will be 500 meters (yards) wide and extended along the 13 kilometer (9 mile) border.

Army officers spoke to the affected residents in person and initially gave them a 48-hour ultimatum to leave, but put that on hold after they protested, officials said. Residents groups are now negotiating with local officials to see if they can extend the deadline.

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Kerry: Muslims wage jihad because they need jobs

Clueless idiot.

(CNSNews.com) – The response to Islamist extremism, which “exploits a legitimate and beautiful religion,” must include offering alternatives to young people who lack opportunities and “feel oppressed,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.

“The challenge of our generation is going to be to deal with religious radical extremism, which exploits a legitimate and beautiful religion that is being totally distorted, has nothing to do with what they purport to be pursuing, and nevertheless captures the minds of some of our young people – even in America,” Kerry told staff at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.

He noted that more than 100 Americans have traveled to the region to fight with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), while more had done so from European countries, Australia and elsewhere.

“And so we have to push back. We’re not going to win this exclusively through our efforts on the ground in this coalition with kinetic efforts,” he said, referring to the U.S.-led coalition’s military operations against the jihadist group. “We’re going to win this with ideas.”

Kerry then picked up a theme he raises periodically, linking the allure of jihadist terrorism to a lack of opportunities among frustrated young people.

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Austria: 14-year-old Turkish national would be jihadist detained on terror suspicions

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian authorities have detained a 14-year-old boy who was allegedly planning to travel to Syria and had researched on the internet how to build bombs, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The boy, a Turkish national who has lived in Austria for about eight years, was taken into custody late on Tuesday.

"He admitted he had plans to go to Syria and searched the internet for plans on how to build explosive devices," said Michaela Obenaus, spokeswoman for prosecutors in St. Poelten, the capital of Lower Austria province. "There is suspicion of participation in a terrorist organization."

Obenaus said the boy had expressed sympathy with Islamic State militants fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Authorities have to decide within two days whether they will extend his detention by a further two weeks. The age of criminal responsibility starts at 14 in Austria.

Authorities are already investigating cases relating to around 150 people who have traveled from Austria to join militant groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Some have already been killed, while media have speculated for months about the fate of two teenage girls from Bosnian families who reportedly traveled from Vienna to Syria to marry Islamist fighters. The 15- and 17-year-old girls are listed as missing persons on the Interpol website, which also shows one of them wearing a veil with Islamic writing covering her face.

Other European countries are also struggling to prevent radicalized youngsters traveling to the Middle East.

Egypt to revoke citizenship of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar and hundreds of other Palestinians

(JPost) Egypt plans to revoke the citizenship granted by former president Mohamed Morsi of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar and 800 other people, mostly Palestinians, an Egyptian newspaper reported.

Security sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the committee established to review all of the decisions issued by Morsi such as freeing prisoners and granting citizenship finished its work, submitting a report to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb.

The report called for revoking the citizenship of around 800 people that did not meet the conditions necessary, including Palestinians that were nationalized based on fraud and forgery in their documentation.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, claimed the sources, requested a detailed report on the rumored granting of citizenship of up to 13,000 Palestinians under Morsi. Sisi wants to know whether members of extremist Islamist groups were also nationalized.

In addition, the Ministry of Interior is reviewing all gun licenses issued under Morsi’s reign, which includes a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders that are imprisoned and awaiting trial. The Ministry has begun canceling these licenses, said the sources.

Ex- Obama admin official: Obama's National Security Council is like "beehive ball soccer"

(Business Insider) Politico Magazine editor Michael Hirsh asked on Monday whether the Obama administration was full of a "team of bumblers" on the foreign policy and national security sides.

At the heart of the criticism is the charge that the Obama White House is too insular and often doesn't have a strategy.

According to House Armed Services Committee staffers who spoke to Hirsh, there is often a lack of coordination among the White House, Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon. And the general feeling is that the administration's National Security Council, which has beefed up to 300 members from 50, is reacting to a series of crises, rather than being proactive with a coherent strategy.

"There is a sense that the NSC is run a little like beehive ball soccer, where everyone storms to wherever the ball is moving around the field," one former administration official said.

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NYT's Thomas Friedman Is In Urgent Need Of Psychiatric Evaluation

This is truly bizarre:

(INN) “The Israeli right today, led by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, has some really strong arguments for maintaining the status quo,” writes New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman in his latest column. He also admits that the terrorist militias operating on Israel's northern and southern borders do not inspire risk taking, but thinks the Jewish state should take risks anyway, and that in the long run, the arguments against this “are deadly for Israel as a Jewish democratic state.”

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Obama White House: Palestinians trying to kill Jews are not terrorists

(WFB) The Obama administration insisted Monday that a Palestinian who was killed by the IDF while attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli civilians is not a terrorist.

The Palestinian, a teenager with U.S. citizenship, was shot on Friday and buried this weekend wearing a green Hamas headband. The Obama administration said in a statement on Friday that it “expresses its deepest condolences to the family.”

At a State Department briefing today, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked spokesman Jen Psaki whether it is appropriate to offer deepest condolences to the family of someone killed while attempting to carry out an attack on civilians.

“There are reports … that [the Palestinian teenager] was throwing Molotov cocktails at cars on a highway, and I’m wondering, if that is the case, would you still have been so speedy in putting out a statement and offering your condolences to the family?” asked Lee. “The argument that is being made by some in Israel is that this kid was essentially a terrorist, and you don’t agree with that, I assume,” Lee continued.

“Correct, we don’t,” replied Psaki. Lee then asked whether the fact that the teenager was buried wearing a Hamas headband was “of concern at all.” Psaki replied, “I just don’t have any more on this particular case.”

USA Today's Susan Page: Obama White House "more dangerous" to the media than any other in history

(WP) At some point, a compendium of condemnations against the Obama administration’s record of media transparency (actually, opacity) must be assembled. Notable quotations in this vein come from former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who said, “It is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering”; New York Times reporter James Risen, who said, “I think Obama hates the press”; and CBS News’s Bob Schieffer, who said, “This administration exercises more control than George W. Bush’s did, and his before that.”

USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page has added a sharper edge to this set of knives. Speaking Saturday at a White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) seminar, Page called the current White House not only “more restrictive” but also “more dangerous” to the press than any other in history, a clear reference to the Obama administration’s leak investigations and its naming of Fox News’s James Rosen as a possible “co-conspirator” in a violation of the Espionage Act.

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Exercising as much control as possible over his environment is a symptom of Obama's personality disorder. The most "transparent" administration ever was obviously an inversion of the truth, similar to "smidgens".

Months ago, when Sheryl Atkisson claimed that someone in the government hacked into her laptop, every left-leaning hack accused her of either being a wacko or an attention whore. Given what we've seen of Obama, it certainly now looks plausible.

From day one, this administration has been all about huckstering. It's been Greek columns and snake oil while selling their version of socialist utopia and a necessarily weaker America. To do this you need to weaken as well as co-opt the media so the masses will swallow the shit sandwich with a smile.

George Orwell even wrote a few books about it.

Former Australian Army chief: 'Get ready for 100-year war with Islam'

Former Australian Army chief underlines homegrown jihad threat and warns 'terrorists only have to be lucky once'.

(Daily Mail) The former Chief of the Australian Army, professor Peter Leahy, has warned that Australia needs to prepare itself for a century-long war, both overseas and at home, against radical Islamic militants.

Currently the director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra, professor Leahy told Daily Mail Australia that as a liberal, secular society, Australia is perceived as 'the far enemy' by radical Islamic groups and individuals, and would no doubt continue to be targeted.

'We are already affected in that there are places that would be wise for us not to travel to and there have been terrorist bombings in places that we do travel to, as we can see from 9/11 and both of the Bali bombings,' Mr Leahy said.

'We've even had bomb plots here in Australia and thanks to police and intelligence agencies, have been able to stop those threats.

'But terrorists only have to be lucky once.'

Mr Leahy told The Weekend Australian that the war against radical Islam was likely to last for nearly 100 years.

'Australia is involved in the early stages of a war which is likely to last for the rest of the century,' he said.

'We must be ready to protect ourselves and, where necessary, act pre-emptively to neutralise the evident threat. Get ready for a long war.'

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Egypt blames Palestinians for terror attack that killed 30

Egypt blames palestinians for terror attack that killed 30 http://t.co/54GSDqOWV5
— mallen (@mallen2010) October 26, 2014

Dashing Hamas hopes of a détente with the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt closed its borders to a high-ranking Hamas delegation to talks with Israel on Sunday, accusing Palestinians of involvement in a deadly terror attack in Sinai Friday. The Hamas delegation had been set to resume indirect talks between the Palestinians and Israel over a long-term Gaza ceasefire on Monday, but those talks were canceled.

Sissi said on Saturday that “foreign hands” were behind a suicide car bombing that killed over 30 soldiers at a checkpoint near the northern Sinai town of el-Arish, declaring a three-month state of emergency in the peninsula. But Egypt’s deputy interior minister, Samih Bashadi, was more specific on Sunday, accusing “Palestinian operatives” of involvement in the attack.

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Belgium University Demands Students Cancel Anti-Semitic Event

The president of the University de Liege in Belgium condemned a planned anti-Semitic event.

(TheJP) The president of the University of Liege in Belgium said he was “appalled” at philosophy students for staging a mock Gaza-themed initiation ritual of newcomers.

The invitation to the event, scheduled for Tuesday, was couched in an anti-Semitic language, reading ‘’your goal is to avoid the big bad Jew,” according to the European Jewish Press..

“You’ll be walking in the shoes of a little Palestinian. The goal of your evening is to avoid the big bad Jew and reclaim your home,’’ the invitation stated.

University’s president Albert Corhay demanded the cancellation of the event and added that students involved will be summoned in the coming days.

In a statement, the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium declared: “The student body has a tradition of humorous initiations. Here, however, we are dealing with something else: a Manichaean and anti-Semitic vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Afghan cleric jailed for 20 years for raping 11-year-old girl

He should've been hanged, not jailed.

(SMH) An Afghan cleric has been jailed for raping an 11-year old girl, after the child confronted her attacker in court despite fierce family opposition.

The 20-year sentence was passed by a court in Kabul on Saturday, and came just weeks after five men were hanged for the gang-rape of four adult women.

Activists say the girl had been taken to a women's shelter for safety after members of her family threatened to kill her for bringing "dishonour" on them.

The Women for Afghan Women says the girl was raped in May by Mohammad Aminullah Barez, a mullah who taught religious studies at her mosque school.

Kurdish women bravely fighting Islamic State, shaming Arab men

Kurdish women bravely fighting #IslamicState, shaming Arab men. http://t.co/V1QKN1ORgB #KURDSagainstISIS pic.twitter.com/JMS1tc9ma2
— Anne Bayefsky (@AnneBayefsky) October 19, 2014

Ottawa shooting: 'Sergeant-at-arms shot suspect at point-blank range after diving around pillar'

(The Independent) The “terrorist” who killed a Canadian soldier was shot dead around a pillar by Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms as he hid in an alcove, it has emerged.

Kevin Vickers, 58, confronted Michael Zehaf-Bibeau alone and shot him at point-blank range while risking his life, CBC reported.

The attacker, who had already killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial, had exchanged fire with guards at the entrance of the central block and ran down the Hall of Honour.

He passed a room where the Prime Minister was meeting MPs and another room of politicians, shooting at both doors as he passed.

Mr Vickers was in his office when he heard gunshots and grabbed his automatic pistol and ran out into the passage, where his security team told him Zehaf-Bibeau was hiding around a pillar just metres away.

Witnesses told CBC News that the sergeant-at-arms immediately ran to the other side of the pillar, where he was within touching distance of the gunman and could see his firearm poking out.

In one motion, sources said he dived to the floor around the pillar, shooting Zehaf-Bibeau in mid-air as he fell to the ground.

He emptied all his ammunition and was followed by his security team, who also fired at the gunman.

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Clashes in northern Lebanon kill 5, wound others

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese troops battled Islamic militants in the northern city of Tripoli for a second day Saturday, with five people killed and more than a dozen wounded in the clashes, the Lebanese army and state media said.

An army statement said troops surrounded the gunmen in Tripoli's old market, exchanging fire and wounding several of them. It said it also had detained some of the fighters and seized weapons and ammunition, although some gunmen were able to flee the area.

The fighting came two days after troops killed three militants and detained a local leader in a raid in the northern Dinniyeh region. One of the three killed was Abdul-Qadir Akkoumi, a Lebanese soldier who announced in a video released earlier this month that he had defected and joined the Islamic State group, the army said.

"It was a very fierce night," said a Tripoli resident who asked that his name not be published because of security concerns. Speaking by telephone, the man said the city's streets were mostly empty Saturday and people avoided going near the historic market where the fighting was concentrated.

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Clashes in Jerusalem but flashpoint Palestinian terrorist's funeral delayed

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli police clashed with Palestinians across east Jerusalem Saturday ahead of a potentially explosive funeral that was delayed for a day and tight security conditions imposed.

Relatives of Abdelrahman Shaludi, the Palestinian driver who ploughed into a Jerusalem crowd on Wednesday, killing an Israeli baby, were told to be ready to bury him Sunday night, their lawyer said.

The internment, near Jerusalem's Old City walls, will take place at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) and must be finished by midnight, only 20 mourners will be permitted to attend and they will have to submit their names to police in advance, attorney Mohammed Mahmud said in a statement.

Police branded as a "terror attack" the incident Wednesday in which Shaludi, 21, from east Jerusalem's flashpoint Silwan neighbourhood drove at high speed into a crowd of Israelis.

Three-month-old Haya Zissel Braun was killed and six others injured.

Shaludi was shot dead by police as he fled on foot.

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VIDEO: Two #ISIS fighters were fixing their flag on a hill in #Kobane, when US jets made a little statement

Two #ISIS fighters were fixing their flag on a hill in #Kobane, when US jets made a little statement https://t.co/xTrPULC7xt
— Mudar Zahran (@Mudar_Zahran) October 25, 2014

Now THAT'S Funny: Racist BDS Activists Try to Put Pig’s Head in Kosher Food, Put it in Halal Instead

(FPM) It’s not anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Zionism. No wait, it’s still anti-Semitism.

The Communist ANC was always anti-Semitic despite the presence of Jews within its ranks, but that had never stopped the actual Communist Party in the USSR. Lately its level of anti-Semitism has gotten a bit much.

A concert at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa featuring Israeli saxophonist Daniel Zamir turned ugly Wednesday night when members of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) group began to sing, “dubula e juda” (“shoot the Jew”) as concert attendees were entering the music hall

The SA Jewish Board of Deputies wrote a letter to the African National Congress on Sunday to act against hate speech on a Twitter account that was believed to belong to the ANC Youth League.

“We were appalled to learn that earlier that day (Sunday) via a Twitter site presumably used by the ANCYL, namely @ANCYLVote2014, a message calling for the killing of Jews was tweeted,” the board said in its letter.

And it keeps on getting more blatant, even by the standards of the blatantly racist BDS movement.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel took another step into open antisemitism today when student activists in South Africa placed the severed head of a pig in the kosher meat section of a Woolworths store in Cape Town. The shocking gesture was aimed, the perpetrators said, at preventing “people who will not eat pork to pretend that they are eating clean meat, when it is sold by hands dripping with the blood of Palestinian children.”

Just to get that blood libel in there… in case it was a little too ambiguous. BDS South Africa retweeted this, but then claimed that it isn’t responsible.

But the telling tell is all the way at the end.

It is unacceptable that people, especially those who claim to believe in God to buy products from supporters of Israel. We will not allow people who will not eat pork, to pretend that they are eating clean meat, when it is sold by hands dripping with the blood of Palestinian children. Woolworths is NOT Kosher. We cannot allow food like this to be called halaal or Kosher. It is dirty food – the dirtiest food. We have placed the pigs head in Woolworths to show these people of God that Woolworths is Haraam and it is not Kosher.

Haraam is a Muslim Arabic term. So we’ve got someone who is Muslim or Muslim influenced placing a pig’s head. That’s the sort of thing Muslims claim is a hate crime when done to them.

But apparently they’re fine handling pigs when doing it to others. Except being racist idiots, they did it to themselves.

A Woolworths representative confirmed that the incident had occurred but clarified that while the tweets allege that the pig’s head was placed in the kosher section of the store, the area depicted in the tweets is in fact the halaal food section.

Genius.

According to the Congress of South African Students though, “We are not being bombastic when we say will bring the supporters of Israel pigs – we are being revolutionary.”

I think they’re being literal. Literal bigots.

Israel Concludes Long-Delayed Missile Deal with India

Warship firing a Barak missile.

(The Tower) A long-delayed missile deal between Israel and India has been completed, according to a report in Ha’aretz yesterday,

The purchase deal was approved by India’s cabinet committee on security matters, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the Times of India.

Under the plan, India will take delivery of 262 Barak 1 missiles over the course of about five years, starting in December of 2015. These will be deployed on the country’s 14 battleships, which have suffered from dwindling missile supplies in recent years, according to the Indian navy.

Ha’aretz describes the deal as “as a significant step by the new government in India; one which could advance diplomatic relations as well as military ties” with Israel. The current deal is estimated to be worth $144 million. Israel is also currently developing the more advanced Barak 8 missile in collaboration with India.

Modi’s election this May as prime minister of India was viewed as a harbinger of stronger ties with Israel. Since diplomatic ties between the two countries were established in 1991, trade has boomed and now exceeds $6 billion annually. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Modi last month in New York, Netanyahu said that “the sky is the limit” for ties between the two nations.

Iran hangs woman for killing rapist

Today, Iran hanged Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, for the stabbing/killing OF HER RAPIST. So far, 250 hanged in Iran in 2014. pic.twitter.com/N9dPPh7oO4
— Josh Smith (@ThisIsJoshSmith) October 25, 2014

(NCRI) The Iranian regime’s henchman hanged Reyhaneh Jabbari after being sentenced to death for stabbing an agent of the regime’s intelligence that tried to sexually abuse her.

Ms. Reyhaneh Jabbari, a decorator, was in prison for the past seven and a half years.

In a deceptive scheme, Morteza Abdulali Sarbandi, an agent of the Iranian regime's notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) intended to abuse her. Reyhaneh was forced into defending herself by stabbing the agent.

The henchmen of the clerical regime placed Reyhaneh under savage tortures to extract forced confession.

Reyahneh's mother, Ms. Sholeh Pakravan was informed late on Friday that her daugther might be executed. She met with her dauther for one hour. Authorities at the prison refused to give any information to Reyhaneh's family about where she would be transferred for execution.

Finally, early morning on Saturday Reyhaneh was hanged as a nearly one hundred people including her mother and family friends were gathered outside Gohardasht prison in the city of Karaj.

NYC police commissioner: Hatchet attack was terror

NEW YORK (AP) — A brazen daylight hatchet attack against a group of police officers on a busy New York street was a terrorist act by a reclusive Muslim convert who ranted online against America but had no clear ties to international extremists, the police commissioner said Friday.

Police were examining Zale Thompson's computer for clues about a motive for the Thursday assault that left one of the officers seriously injured and ended with Thompson being killed by police. Police Commissioner William Bratton said Thompson's browsing history included organized terror groups, beheadings and the shooting in Canada earlier this week that officials there have called a terrorist attack.

Thompson was not on any watch lists, and officials found no indication he sought any training or affiliation to any groups.

Still, Bratton said he was comfortable calling it a terrorist attack.

"This was a terrorist attack, certainly," Bratton said.

[...]

Thompson, 32, had once served in the U.S. Navy and had a history of run-ins with the law over domestic violence in California in 2003 and 2004, police said. In recent postings on social media, he ranted about injustices in American society and oppression abroad, but the postings didn't point to any affiliation with a terror group or direct influence of radical Islam, they said.

Security video and witness accounts appeared to leave no doubt that Thompson purposely targeted four rookie New York Police Department officers who were in uniform and on foot patrol in a bustling Queens commercial district.

Moments before the attack, the bearded suspect was seen on a street corner crouching down to pull the hatchet out of backpack before he charged the officers and began swinging the hatchet with a two-handed grip, police said.

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Afghans hold protest after newspaper berates ISIS

(Kabul) In an opinion piece published last week in the English-language daily, the Afghanistan Express, journalist AJ Ahwar admonished Muslims for remaining silent in the face of Isis and the Taliban and their intolerance towards other religions and minorities such as homosexuals and Hazaras. He ended by proclaiming that:

"Human beings are more important than God."

Well, that went down with the locals who let's be honest, have remained silent on the ugliness which is written into the DNA of Islam. Which is why they protested today in their hundreds outside one of the biggest mosques in Kabul, demanding his head. One of his detractors, Fazl Hadi Wazin, an Islamic scholar at Salam University, opined:

“The government must stop the people who insulted the prophet, the Qur’an and Islam, and prevent them from leaving the country.”

Another protested:

“The newspaper said God can’t control people and that God is unwise.”

With another stating:

“They need to be executed so humans know that you cannot insult the religion of Allah.”

And there lies the reason why Islam and Muslims cannot be trusted in the civilised world. They cannot accept the truth and make anything and everything into an attack against their prophet Mohammed.

Lebanese clashes see 2 killed

(Tripoli) Lebanon's army clashed with Sunni gunmen in the northern city of Tripoli, killing at least two gun totting idiots. Friday's fighting occurred just one day after Lebanese soldiers killed three men and arrested several others during a raid on an apartment in the northern town of Asoun.

At least six soldiers - including an officer - were wounded in Tripoli. It seems there is never a dull day in Lebanon nowadays.

29 people killed in Benghazi

(Libya) Units of the Libyan army, reinforced by armed supporters of retired Major General Khalifa Hafter, carried out raids targeting homes of Islamic militia leaders in the city of Benghazi yesterday, resulting in the deaths of 29 people, bringing the total for this week alone for the city to over 149 people killed.

It seems that nowhere in the Islamic world is safe from the grim reaper.

Tunisian police end stand off with terrorists, shoot dead 5 women

(Tunis) A lucky arrest of 2 armed men in Tunisia this week quickly resulted in them gleaning the address of their hideout, and when police surrounded it and demanded the occupants quietly surrender it the capital, they were met by a hail of bullets and the Tunisian version of "Come and get me, Copper" which saw 1 policeman killed.

Unlike in the West where the liberals demand we send in negotiators, social workers and in the UK delivery men from KFC, the Tunisians went in guns blazing and were shocked to find the jihadists inside the building were nearly all... women who all fired back. In one case, the female firing back held her infant child in her arms as a shield. 6 dead terrorists later (5 of which were women) the police went home.

While the Tunisians supported their armed forces, the British apologists for Islamic terrorism, the bBC, had this to say:

The killing of five women and the wounding of a child will cast a shadow over Sunday's parliamentary elections, BBC Arab Affairs Editor Sebastian Usher reports.

Eygpt bomb blast kills 29

(Sinai) You can always tell when it's Friday in the Islamic world as that is the day that deaths spike. Today was no exception when the followers of Allah set off a huge car bomb in the town of El Arish not far from the border with Gaza, killing 26 soldiers. A gun attack just after murdered another 3, and the liberals keep on telling me that Islam is a peaceful religion.

27-year-old Muslim in court in Australia for consummating his marriage to a 12-year-old

(Sydney) A 27-year-old Lebanese student has been charged with having sex with a 12-year-old girl whom he 'married'. Apparently, her father married her off because he wanted to stop her from 'committing a life of sin'. For looking out for his daughter as such he has been charged with procuring a child under 14 for unlawful sexual activities, and being an accessory before the fact to sexual intercourse with a person under 14. The mullah who married the unhappy couple pleaded guilty to solemnising the marriage and was fined $500.

It seems that the 27-year-old rapist who needed an interpreter in court (immigrants in the West believe that by pretending to being not able to speak the lingo results in a much more lenient sentence) was only found out when he tried to become the child's legal guardian so as to be able to claim benefits.

What is it about Islam and paedophilia?

British shop refuses to serve soldier, claims it was a mistake and that they are the real victims

(St Helens) When 27-year-old Duane Fahy popped into a newsagent to buy a pack of cigarettes in St Helens, the shop refused to serve him. Why, they claimed that Fahy and his friends (all in uniform) looked under 18 years of age. They then changed their story and claimed they presumed it was against the law to serve cigarettes to soldiers in uniform.

Unlucky for Irfan Patel, who works at the shop, other customers took umbrage with how he was refusing to serve British soldiers and started protesting. That's when Allah's favourite shop workers claimed that they were the victims and that they had been racially abused.

What is it about intolerant Muslims playing the victim-card for the repercussions of their actions?

CNN: NYC police concerned hatchet attack on police officers motivated by radical Islam

Just in: Alarming video of man charging NYPD officers w/hatchet. 2 injured, attacker was killed by police https://t.co/N6rYH5mJMb
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 24, 2014

#NYC police concerned #hatchet attack motivated by radical Islam after viewing attacker's social media - @jimsciutto pic.twitter.com/52BSZ29qRQ
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) October 24, 2014

New York (CNN) -- A man charged at four New York police officers with a metal hatchet Thursday, hitting two of them at a time of high alert for authorities concerned they might be targeted in the United States and Canada.

The suspect was hiding behind a bus shelter as if he was waiting to attack the officers, according to a law enforcement official, who said it almost appeared as if he was stalking them.

He struck one officer in the right arm and another in the head, police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. The two officers who weren't hit then shot at and killed the attacker.

The law enforcement official identified the suspect as Zale H. Thompson, who had a criminal record in California and had been discharged from the Navy for misconduct, according to the source.

The police officer who was struck in the head remains in critical but stable condition.

Authorities are looking to see if the unprovoked attack, in the New York borough of Queens, is tied to recent calls by radicals to attack military and police officers, law enforcement officials say.

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Boko Haram jihadists kidnap 25 girls from northeast Nigeria

Right after they promised to release 200 kidnapped back in May.

YOLA/ABUJA (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram militants kidnapped at least 25 girls in an attack on a remote town in northeastern Nigeria, witnesses said, despite talks on freeing over 200 other female hostages they seized in April.

John Kwaghe, who witnessed the attack and lost three daughters to the abductors, and Dorathy Tizhe, who lost two, said the kidnappers came late in the night, forcing all the women to go with them, then later releasing the older ones.

The attack cast further doubt on government reports that it has secretly reached a temporary ceasefire with the rebels in order to secure the release of more than 200 schoolgirls they are holding hostage.

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Top Iranian Official: Obama is ‘The Weakest of U.S. Presidents’

Adviser to Iranian president mocks Obama’s ‘humiliating’ presidency.

(WFB) The Iranian president’s senior advisor has called President Barack Obama “the weakest of U.S. presidents” and described the U.S. leader’s tenure in office as “humiliating,” according to a translation of the highly candid comments provided to the Free Beacon.

The comments by Ali Younesi, senior advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, come as Iran continues to buck U.S. attempts to woo it into the international coalition currently battling the Islamic State (IS, ISIL, or ISIS).

And with the deadline quickly approaching on talks between the U.S. and Iran over its contested nuclear program, Younesi’s denigrating views of Obama could be a sign that the regime in Tehran has no intent of conceding to America’s demands.

“Obama is the weakest of U.S. presidents, he had humiliating defeats in the region. Under him the Islamic awakening happened,” Younesi said in a Farsi language interview with Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.

“Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama’s era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran,” Younesi said.

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'Bodies Strewn In Streets' As ISIS Jihadists Seize Iraq Village

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State wrested a Sunni Muslim village in western Iraq on Thursday from tribal defenders who put up weeks of fierce resistance, and the insurgents tightened a siege of the Yazidi minority on a mountain in the north.

The attacks showed Islamic State's continued operating resilience despite air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces aimed at defeating the ultra-radical Sunni jihadist group, which has captured large expanses of Iraq and neighboring Syria, beheaded prisoners and massacred people from other religious communities, and declared a medieval-style caliphate.

The Albu Nimr tribe had been fending off Islamic State (IS) since early October but finally lost the village of Zauiyat albu Nimr in the western province of Anbar overnight on Thursday.

A small Iraqi army unit was stationed in the village but evacuated by helicopter in the early hours of Thursday, along with leaders from the Albu Nimr, a tribal figure from the village told Reuters in Baghdad.

Residents said the bodies of tribal fighters and soldiers lay strewn in the streets of Zauiyat albu Nimr on Thursday, and the very few who survived the onslaught had been told by IS insurgents to drop their weapons and leave.

"Islamic State are out to purge the village of Bu Nimr members," said the tribal figure in Baghdad. “Sleeper cells inside the village have been assisting the Islamic State by providing the names and the locations of the houses of prominent resistance members.

"A list of 200 names that include the high officers in our village has been set and all of these names are to be killed.”

The fall of Zauiyat albu Nimr leaves remaining areas under government control in Anbar more vulnerable to seizure by IS, which overran the regional city of Hit early this month.

Islamic State holds much of western Anbar and is looking to isolate pockets of resistance, including the Ain al-Asad air base and the Haditha Dam.

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America's "Most Influential Muslim" Endorses Sharia Law

(The Clarion Project) This year’s issue of The Muslim 500 names Sheikh Hamza Yusuf as the most influential Muslim-American. He is often portrayed as a moderate, but he recently endorsed Sharia governance and heads an Islamist college in California with extremist faculty.

Yusuf is ranked as the 35^th most influential Muslim in the world by the publication. He is described as the “leading Islamic authority” in America. He is the current president and a senior faculty member of Zaytuna College in California.

He and 17 other Muslim-American leaders signed a letter condemning the tactics of the Islamic State terrorist group and offering theological rebuttals. It is a letter that earned them tremendous positive publicity by news outlets that didn’t notice that the letter endorsed the resurrection of the Caliphate and Sharia governance, specifically its brutal hudud punishments.

“Hudud punishments are fixed in the Qu’ran and Hadith and are unquestionably obligatory in Islamic Law,” point 16 of the letter states.

It also used vague language that could justify other acts of terrorism, such as attacks by Hamas on Israel. The condemnation of the Islamic State’s targeting of American journalists contains an exception that approves of jihad against reporters they view as dishonest.

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Harper calls a spade a spade: 'Terrorist' attack is 'grim reminder'

(CNN) "This week's events are a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said late Wednesday. "Let there be no misunderstanding: We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated."

The passport of suspected Ottawa shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was confiscated by Canadian authorities when they learned he planned to go fight overseas, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN's Susan Candiotti. The official said it was not clear when that happened.

Ottawa Parliament shooter identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a convert to Islam

OTTOWA (Reuters) - Canadian police are investigating a man identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau as a possible suspect in the shootings on Wednesday around parliament in Ottawa, a source familiar with the matter said.

Police said the male suspect in the attacks was dead but did not confirm he was Zehaf-Bibeau. Some U.S. government sources said the shooter was born Michael Joseph Hall but changed his name to Zehaf-Bibeau.

Two U.S. officials said that U.S. agencies have been advised that the shooter was a Canadian convert to Islam. One of the officials said the man was from Quebec.

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ISIS releases video showing Syrian woman being stoned to death, including by her own father

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A man and a woman have been stoned to death for adultery in separate executions in jihadist-controlled areas of Syria, a monitoring group reported on Tuesday.

The man was executed in Idlib province in an area controlled by Islamist groups including the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence on all sides of Syria's civil war.

It is the first documented case of a man being stoned to death for adultery since Syria descended into civil war in 2011 and hardline Islamic groups emerged as powerful players in areas that slipped from government control, the Observatory said.

The woman was executed in Hama province in an area controlled by Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq and is being targeted by U.S.-led air strikes, the Observatory said.

A video posted online appeared to show her execution. A bearded fighter is shown passing down the sentence in the presence of other gunmen and her father, who appears to approve of her execution.

Her hands and feet are then tied with a rope and she is forced to kneel in a pit. Covered head to toe, she begins to pray out loud as large rocks are seen striking her body. The video shows the logo of Islamic State.

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Meet the hero who shot down Parliament Hill gunman

Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers is pictured in the Senate chamber on
Parliament Hill in Ottawa in this file photo from June 3, 2011. According to
Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino, Vickers shot dead one of the suspects
in the Oct. 22, 2014 shooting incident on Parliament Hill. (Reuters)

CALGARY (Toronto Sun) - He’s being called a hero for shooting a rampaging gunman dead on Parliament Hill — and it may mark the first time Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers has ever fired a gun in the line of duty.

“This the first time in his career that he’s shot anyone,” said Erin, Vickers’ niece.

A retired RCMP officer who once served in Calgary, 58-year-old Vickers is known to most Canadians as the symbol of order at the House of Commons: a grey-haired man in a black hat and robes, often carrying the ceremonial sceptre of Canada over his shoulder.

On Tuesday, Vickers reportedly showed just how serious his role really is, the head of security for Canada’s government killing a gunman who charged into the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.

“To all in Ottawa, stay safe & strong. Thank God for Sgt at Arms Kevin Vickers & our Cdn security forces. True heroes…” tweeted Justice Minister Peter MacKay.

Julian Fantino, Canada’s Minister of Veterans Affairs, added his own tweet of gratitude: “I am safe & profoundly grateful to Sgt at Arms Kevin Vickers & our security forces for selfless act of keeping us safe.”

After the shooting, Vickers immediately contacted his family in New Brunswick to tell them he is safe — “I’m doing okay,” he said — but that hasn’t stopped them worrying about the emotional trauma that will follow, having being forced to pull the trigger for the first time.

“We’re always very proud of Kevin, but at this moment we are concerned about him — he had to make a very serious decision today,” said Mary, Vickers’ older sister.

“He’s always a natural leader. He would not have taken this decision lightly, and I can’t stress that enough — but he would always expect of himself to do what he would expect of the men and women under him.”

Raw footage of the Centre Block attack shows officers and guards moving cautiously down the hall before gunfire suddenly erupts, with dozens of shots echoing in the distance.

Various witnesses have credited Vickers with leading the security response and killing the infiltrator, a man who may have been the same cold-blooded murderer who gunned down an unarmed solider outside the national cenotaph moments before.

Anyone who thought Canada’s sergeant-at-arms role was an archaic novelty now understands the man holding the sceptre has a deadly serious job.

“It’s not ceremonial at all, and he has tremendous responsibility — and he wears it well,” said Mary.

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