Palestinian security personnel prepare to seal a tunnel, used to smuggle arms, during an operation on the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza strip May 5, 2007. (GAZA)

New Report of Terrorist Camp in South Africa

New Report of Terrorist Camp in South Africa
Jamestown Foundation/John Solomon
Reports of paramilitary camps, extremist activities and extraordinary renditions of jihadi suspects in the Republic of South Africa continue to raise concern that the country is used for terrorist support activities (Terrorism Monitor, March 15). In mid-March, Barry Gilder, coordinator of South Africa’s National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, indicated that terrorists with links to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan were increasingly spending time in the country (South African Press Association, March 13). His remarks made clear that South Africa, due to political and historical reasons, is unlikely to be a target of attacks, but rather a safe haven where support infrastructures might be available. Gilder also cited the terrorist use of the country’s banks and a pattern of illegally obtained South African passports ending up in the hands of al-Qaeda suspects or their associates in Europe (South African Press Association, March 13; Associated Press, July 27, 2004). In addition, Gilder indicated that the government is aware of the possible existence of small-scale training grounds used by terrorists.

Coinciding with the South African intelligence official’s remarks, a Johannesburg magazine featured an expose of an alleged jihadi training facility outside Port Elizabeth (Molotov Cocktail, March). James Sanders, who published a history of South Africa’s Secret Service under apartheid, wrote the feature and provided photographs of the property—including images of a rudimentary shooting range and makeshift mosque. Sanders claims that members of the Port Elizabeth-based Desai family own and run the facility, which became operational in the mid-1990s. Nazier Desai is named as the head trainer and his cousin Ahmed Seddick Desai as the financial manager. The report states that the Desais are in the process of building an Islamic boarding school with the capacity of housing 72 male students. Twice a week, Sanders writes, instructors from the school take students to the camp to receive combat training in self-defense and small arms, including illegal high-caliber handguns, R1 rifles and AK-47s.

[Read More]

France Puts On Some Pants

Socialism and Islamist Appeasement Thrown Into Trash Can In Europe.

“The U.S. can rely on the friendship of France” – Nicholas Sarkozy in his acceptance speech today.

Well it’s four years too late as far as Iraq goes, but further proof that Socialism and enemy appeasement do not work has come to the fore in France.

What is notable in this election was the frightening display of the self-destructive, cowardly nature of the Leftist mind. The typically nervous little socialist he was running against had the following two things to say in the days before the election: 1. We can’t elect Sarkozy because he doesn’t like domestic Muslim terrorists and so they will riot as a response ( never fight the enemy, always appease ) and 2. Sarkozy’s election will be “like a punishment from God” because of Sarkozy’s “bad character”, ie because he chooses to allow conflict with enemies as an option to appeasement. The job of Leftism is to destroy democratic capitalist societies from within. Therefor it is important to make them militarily weak in order to allow for outside domination by more powerful Leftist countries. Unfortunately for the Left, there is no more Soviet Union, so the only outisde entities that they are setting the West up to be dominated by, are Jihadist.

Posted by Pat Dollard 10 Comments

Gore Propaganda in British Schools Faces Legal Challenge

On Wednesday last week, yes the day before the British local elections when nobody was looking, the combined weight of the Education and Environment Ministries started to send out their Secondary Schools Climate Change Pack.

This kit contains,

DVD copy of An Inconvenient Truth
DVD containing four short films commissioned by Defra:
Tomorrow’s Climate, Today’s Challenge
My CO2
Diaries of the Climate Change Champions
The Carbon Cycle animation by Climate Change Champion Sofia Selska
A leaflet on the Sustainable Schools Year of Action
Links to comprehensive online guidance on how teachers can use these resources in the classroom.

UKIP Peer Lord Pearson asked the government to halt the process, and having had the request rejected suggested that this pack also include the Channel 4 film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. This suggestion too was rejected, despite the fact that it would have made the government’s proposal legal under the 1996 Education Act, which states,

407. – (1) The local education authority, governing body and head teacher shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils while they are-
(a) in attendance at a maintained school, or
(b) taking part in extra-curricular activities which are provided or organised for registered pupils at the school by or on behalf of the school,
they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views.

So may I offer my utmost congratulations to Stuart Dimmock of Kent who has asked for a High Court injunction against this piece of transparent lack of balance.
H/T: Ian P over at PJC Journal

The making of a terrorist

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MSPNYBC00M3MTQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/05/06/nrterr06.xml

Hail Mauritania! An unheralded experiment in Arab democracy.

Hail Mauritania! An unheralded experiment in Arab democracy. by James Kirchick 05/07/2007, Volume 012, Issue 32 Americans are right to be worried about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. In Egypt, elections have done little to loosen five-term president Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power or to stop his plans for turning power over to his son Gamal upon retirement. Whatever degree of democracy exists in Lebanon is threatened by Syria’s not-so-secret meddling, and dour headlines about Iraq fill international newspapers on a daily basis. But now, in a remote corner of the Arab world, an elected government has suddenly bloomed. On March 25, in the rural, undeveloped, west African nation of Mauritania (population: 3,270,000), Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, a sometime government minister, defeated rival Ahmed Ould Daddah, a prominent economist, in a runoff election for the presidency. Both sides campaigned vigorously and participated in a live, televised debate. Ould Daddah even had his own website, an impressive feat in a country where agriculture accounts for half of the population’s livelihood. Election observers from the European Union, African Union, and Arab League–as well as non-profit civic groups like the U.S. government-funded National Democratic Institute–all praised the process as free and fair. Turnout for preliminary balloting on March 11 was 70 percent, and it remained high at 67 percent for the March 25 runoff. Parliamentary elections and a referendum on the country’s new constitution had been held last year. All of these ballots went off without a hitch. Abdallahi was sworn in April 19 and claimed that the peaceful transition to democratic rule makes Mauritania “an undisputable model of a peaceful ending to a monolithic era.” Unfortunately, coverage of this noteworthy international development has been scant. The good news out of Mauritania contrasts starkly with democracy efforts elsewhere on the continent. In Zimbabwe, on the very same day as the Mauritanian general election, President Mugabe unleashed a torrent of violence against peaceful protestors holding a prayer meeting outside the capital city of Harare. This he followed with a nationwide crackdown on the opposition, in which his secret police abducted hundreds of democracy activists from their homes for brutal beatings and interrogations. Zimbabwe watchers may take heart from the fact that Mauritania used to be as turbulent. From 1984 until 2005, Mauritania was ruled by Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, a military dictator. His government actively discriminated against minority black Africans and black Moors. He survived an attempted coup in 2003, but in August 2005, while he was visiting Saudi Arabia for the funeral of King Fahd, a group of soldiers calling itself the Military Council for Justice and Democracy took control of the government and announced their plans for a democratic transition. “The armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime under which our people have suffered much over the last several years,” the coup leaders said in a statement issued upon taking control. The military named Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall head of the transition government, promising elections soon. Vall vowed not to run for office himself and barred members of the junta from participating in the election. Mauritanians, given their country’s history, had reason to be skeptical. But events over the next two years showed the coup leaders meant what they had said. Taking shelter in Niger, Ould Taya fulminated against the coup, calling it “senseless,” and tried to order the military to restore his premiership. But even his own political party renounced him. The African Union initially suspended Mauritania from the organization and the United States at first condemned the coup, but now both have waxed enthusiastic about the progress Mauritania has made. Abdallahi, the new president, had served briefly as a minister under Taya, but was later imprisoned on corruption allegations. From 1989 until 2003 he lived in exile in Niger. Nevertheless, opponents seized on his association with the previous dictatorship during the campaign. The tactic was perhaps inevitable, given that Abdallahi’s rival, Ould Daddah, had been a vocal critic of the regime and was imprisoned multiple times for his dissidence. But rather than contest the election and pledge to undermine it–a common tactic among electoral losers in fledgling democracies–Ould Daddah has committed himself to seeing his country’s peaceful transition succeed. As the American journalist James Martin, who was present for the first round of balloting, wrote in the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly, “Mauritania’s official transition to democracy has given many hope that real reform may now become possible in the largely desert country and that its experiment in democratic rule will serve as an example to the rest of the region.” Publicizing the good news out of Mauritania should be an urgent task of the State Department. The Mauritanians’ success–notably, on their own terms and with little foreign intervention–at establishing the basis of a democratic society in a country that formally outlawed slavery only in 1980, should serve as a challenge to those who claim that democracy is bound to fail in the Arab and Muslim world. Now Iraqis and others can look to the west coast of Africa for an example of Arab liberalism in action. James Kirchick is assistant to the editor-in-chief of the New Republic.

Dems are running on fumes

Clarice Feldman
The Washington Post notes that the Dems are out of gas and running on fumes:

The “Six for ’06″ policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research.
The Senate struck out on its own, with a broad overhaul of the rules on lobbying Congress.
Not one of those bills has been signed into law. President Bush signed 16 measures into law through April, six more than were signed by this time in the previous Congress. But beyond a huge domestic spending bill that wrapped up work left undone by Republicans last year, the list of achievements is modest: a beefed-up board to oversee congressional pages in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, and the renaming of six post offices, including one for Gerald R. Ford in Vail, Colo., as well as two courthouses, including one for Rush Limbaugh Sr. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

If we could harness the Levin-Pelosi-Waxman-Reid wind, we might become energy independent, but we can’t  voters are noticing that this new Congress is stalled.

What Did You Do in the War on Terror, Daddy?

By Clarice Feldman

Democrats in Congress are insisting that funds budgeted for intelligence be diverted to the study of global climate warming.  

That was the last thing I read before my head hit the pillow and probably explains the nightmare that followed:
October 30, 2008,Washington (AP) Nuclear devices have caused untold havoc in Los Angeles, New York. Chicago and Washington, D.C. Operating on an emergency broadcasting network from a hidden location outside the Capital, the President declared a State of Emergency. National Guard troops and emergency medical teams are aiding local police and fire departments in emergency evacuations of all three cities. Homeland Security is directing supplies to evacuation centers but do not believe supplies can reach those trapped inside those cities for several days.
“It is not yet certain who was behind the attacks but the markings on two devices which failed to detonate were in Farsi,” said unnamed sources inside the Langley, Virginia Frank Church memorial bunker of the  Climate Intelligence Agency, the former Central Intelligence Agency, renamed last year  as part of the Intelligence Authorization Bill passed by the Democratic Congress.  “At least we think it was Farsi, he added, explaining, “we had to replace all our Farsi speakers with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David under the new law.”
The attack happened as the Agency head was meeting with Area Studies professors in Durham North Carolina to issue a joint proclamation accusing white male athletes of systematically raping the planet and using more than their allotted share of carbon dioxide emissions. “All the huffing and panting and busing from one event to another places them just under bovine flatulence in the scale of polluters,” charged Jennifer Broadhurst, Chair of the Professors for Fair Share Emissions, a public interest group.
Former Vice-President Gore had been scheduled to address the meeting but his Gulfstream Jet was stalled on the ground in Kyoto because of an unexplained problem respecting the credit card he was using to pay for the carbon offsets for the trip.
In the Congressional bunker at another undisclosed location, Congressman Henry Waxman said, “As soon as we can dig our way out of this, I am holding hearings to determine whether the outing of Plame is behind this massive intelligence failure.”  He indicated he’d been in contact with Richard Clarke who asserted that he had warned the President that “someday, somewhere, somehow, something bad was going to happen.”
Senator Schumer demanded to know, “Who is responsible for this?” He hinted that a subpoena of Karl Rove’s emails to the RNC and a voter in Boise made reference to a Persian Cat.  “I can’t prove it, but a circumstantial case could be made that this shows he knew what was about to befall us and kept quiet to effect the election.”
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President issued a statement from her headquarters blaming Bush, “When we voted for this the President should have known it was stupid and stopped us. If we’d known now what we should have known then if we’d read the intelligence reports we were given we wouldn’t have passed this. A leader would have called us into the Oval Office and read it out loud to us.”*
There was no word from the Republican nominee who reportedly had rolled up his sleeves and joined the rescue party in the Capital.
 From ABC News Political Radar blog:

ABCNews’ Eloise Harper reports: After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq.  A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war.
Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, “Did you read it?!”  Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed.  This exchange went back and forth about three times.
The woman sat down and Clinton explained, “If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority.” Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq.

Clarice Feldman is an attorney in Washington, DC and a frequent contributor to American Thinker.

West should not fear facing “radical” Islam: Blair

From AFP, Berlin:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair says a decade in office has taught him that the West should not be afraid of standing by its values in facing up to radical Islam.“The West must show that it believes in its own values,” Blair told journalists from several European newspapers, including yesterday’s edition of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung of Germany, as he prepares to announce his departure from Downing Street.

“We must show the Muslim world that we let our values apply to everyone. That’s why Guantanamo (Bay) is an issue for people,” Blair said, in comments translated from German.

“But we are also on the defensive because we are not energetic in contradicting the opinion of radical Muslims who want to convince us that terrorism somehow has something to do with our behaviour.”

Blair has long been in favour of binding predominantly Muslim Turkey to the European Union to create a bridge between Europe and the Muslim world. He conceded that Turkey has a long way to go before it is ready to join the EU, but said it would be a “disgrace” if Europe’s club of nations went back on its promises to the Turks.

“I firmly believe that Europe should offer a place to Turkey. But I also know that beforehand complicated problems must be resolved.”

“Most importantly,” the Prime Minister continued, “is the fundamental hostility at the heart of Islam toward the non-Mulsim world. Until this fact is appreciated, sound policy with respect to Islam will be impossible. We must understand – however uncomfortable the truth may be – that Islam presents an existential threat to Western civilization that cannot be mitigated or negotiated away. We are in a struggle for our lives that can only be won through great sacrifice and hardship and the jettisoning of many widely-held but misleading conceptions of the world. As I prepare to leave office, I say to my fellow countrymen and to all those in the West who cherish their heritage, the time to stand up and be counted is now. We are called today to the banner of our forbears who defended the European heritage against centuries of Muslim attack. With the help of Almighty God, we shall make them proud!”

Oh, wait. He didn’t say that last bit.

Jihadists smash mobile phones and cassettes, order tribesmen to grow beards

You there, grow a beard. Now! Sharia Alert. “Islamists smash mobile phones,” from Gulf Daily News:

KHAR, Pakistan: Some 200 gun-toting Islamist militants smashed car cassette players and mobile phone cameras yesterday and ordered tribesmen in a Pakistani region to grow beards, part of a drive to impose Taliban-style values.

The militants took up positions beside a road near Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal region in northwestern Pakistan, and stopped and searched passing vehicles.

“They smashed cassette players running music and mobile phones fitted with cameras,” a driver said.

He said the militants also urged clean-shaven tribesmen to grow beards.

A government official in Bajaur confirmed the incident but did not say whether authorities planned any action against the militants.

Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt, bordering Afghanistan, is known as a hotbed of support for the militants and critics say the government’s influence there has weakened considerably since the authorities signed peace deals with the militants.

Progressive Pakistanis have become increasingly shocked by the boldness with which religious radicals are spreading their influence in other parts of the country and have demanded firm action by the government against them.

Militants attacked music shops with explosive devices in the town of Charsadda in neighbouring North West Frontier Province, destroying at least five.