With No Evidence Delhi Police Tagged 10 Innocents as Terrorist; Detained and Released All
New Age Islam News Bureau
10
May 2016
Photo: With no evidence Delhi police tagged 10 innocents as Terrorist; Detained and released all
• Bin Laden’s Son Urges Jihadist Unity in Syria
• Radicalism Emerges From Failed Islamic Countries: VP Kalla
• Kenya Closing Refugee Camp That's 'Breeding Ground for Terror'
India
• With No Evidence Delhi Police Tagged 10 Innocents as Terrorist; Detained and Released All
• Deoband, Barelvi Clerics Meet, Talk Unity against ‘Common Enemy’
• No Muslim should object to Bharat Mata chant: Azmi
• Bareilly’s Islamic Email, App Find Rapid Global Popularity
• RSS special cell to engage with Muslim youth prone to IS designs
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Arab World
• Bin Laden’s Son Urges Jihadist Unity in Syria
• Tens of Terrorists Killed in Syrian Air Attacks near Khan Tuoman
• Syrian Air Force Destroys ISIL's Special Forces HQ in Deir Ezzur
• Senior Islamic State leader in Iraq, Abu Wahib, 'killed' by US airstrike
• Syrian Army, Hezbollah Push ISIL back from more Heights Northeast of Damascus
• Whistleblower Reveals Addiction of Saudi Crown Prince
• ISIL Militant Sentenced to Life Imprisonment in UAE
• Syrian Army, Allies to Retake Khan Touman, Other Areas from Terrorists Soon
• Iran in Talks with Russia on Exports of Heavy Water
• Saudis Continue to Breach Ceasefire in Yemen
• S-300 Delivered to Air Defense Base, Iran to Inaugurate Production Line of Own Defense Shield
• IRGC Navy Commander: Iran to Mass-Produce Speedboats Cruising at 80 Knots
• ISIL Bomb-Making Workshop in Raqqa Found by Kurdish Fighters
• New Mass Grave Unearthed in Dara'a Province
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Southeast Asia
• Radicalism Emerges From Failed Islamic Countries: VP Kalla
• Indonesia's Muslim Techies Take On ISIS
• Indonesia Calls On Islamic Leaders to Promote Tolerant Islam
• Indonesia, Algeria to strengthen ties in religious partnership
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Africa
• Kenya Closing Refugee Camp That's 'Breeding Ground for Terror'
• Mogadishu Attack: Police and Civilians Killed In Terrorist Attack, Civilians Shot By Police
• Muslim Dignitaries meet in their 4th Congress
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South Asia
• 99 Militants, 8 Policemen Killed Amid Surging Violence in Afghanistan
• Hamidullah Was Aware Of Rabbani Assassination Secrets: Jamiat-e-Islami
• 5 militants killed, 2 wounded in Kunduz airstrike
• Afghan forces rescue Gilani’s son 3 years after he was kidnapped in Pakistan
• Afghan forces facing terrorists supported by neighboring intelligence: Stanikzai
• Ghani off to Tajikistan as CASA-1000 expected to be inaugurated
• Salang chosen for TUTAP based on development and economic rationality: Ghani
• Bangladesh set to hang top Islamist amid tight security
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Mideast
• Turkey’s Elite Force Stages Raid against Islamic State Fighters in Syria
• Israel Patrols Its Southern Border as ISIS Lurk in the Sinai Peninsula
• Talks to Repair Israeli-Turkish Ties Must Await New Government - Envoy
• Two police officers killed in Turkey’s east
• Domestic drones to be used against terror: Top commander
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Pakistan
• Mustafa Kamal Vows to Name Eight Altaf Aides Linked With RAW
• Recruitment of Muslim Sweepers Affects Cleanliness at KP Hospitals
• Two policemen killed in explosion outside Balochistan University
• Five TTP militants arrested near Sutlej
• Police find ‘missing’ Chinese engineer in Lahore mosque
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Europe
• Phone Tap Led Police to Belgian Islamic State Cell, Court Hears
• One Dead, 3 Injured after Stabbing near Munich
• London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Religious Extremism, Brexit and Donald Trump
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North America
• Donald Trump Says Sadiq Khan Would Be 'Exempt' From A US Muslim Ban
• Paul Ryan Says U.S. Must Admit Muslim Migrants, Sends Kids to Private School that Screens Them Out
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
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With no evidence Delhi police tagged 10 innocents as Terrorist; Detained and released all
May 10, 2016
New Delhi: A day after releasing four Muslim youths of 10 the Delhi Police (Special Cell) released remaining 6 they detained for alleged links to the ‘Jaish-e-Mohammad’ on Sunday.
All of them are from poor families .
After questioning them for three days, police said they found no evidence to show that the 10 were involved in plotting a terror strike.
The move to release 10 detainees suspected of links with Jaish-e-Mohammad was welcomed by their families and preachers, who praised the police’s decision of thoroughly probing them instead of making hasty arrests.
However, sources added that two of the 10 youths are still under the scanner for calls and messages they exchanged with Sajid. All 10 are being counselled by a Maulana, Abdur Raziq, and a psychiatrist. The law of the land is being explained to them and they are being told how they were being fed a `doctored’ version of the Koran and jihad, sources said.
Police would keep them under surveillance, tracking their movements through manual and electronic means for the next one year, cops said.
They were picked up last Tuesday and Wednesday . Police had also arrested three other men , Sajid, Sameer and Shakir for conspiring to carry out terror strikes in NCR.
Special Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, Arvind Deep, told The Indian Express that the men had revealed they were angry at the system, which made them vulnerable to terror groups seeking new recruits.
Of the 13 who were detained by police last week, three will remain in police custody including Sajid whom police claim to be ‘ JeM module head’.
Police also claims that Sajid was planning to carry out terror strikes in NCR.
siasat.com/news/no-evidence-delhi-police-tagged-10-innocents-terrorists-released-all-956911/
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Bin Laden’s son urges jihadist unity in Syria
May 10, 2016
The son of Al-Qaeda’s late founder Osama bin Laden has urged jihadists in Syria to unite, claiming that the fight in the war-torn country paves the way to “liberating Palestine”.
“The Islamic umma (nation) should focus on jihad in Al-Sham (Syria) … And unite the ranks of mujahedeen there,” said 23-year-old Hamza in an audio message posted online
“There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilised against Muslims,” he said.
His undated message comes after Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also urged jihadists in Syria to unite, despite his continued rejection of the rival Islamic State (IS) group and its proclaimed caliphate.
“The matter of unity today is one of life and death,” Zawahiri said in an audio message posted online on Saturday.
“Either you unite to live as Muslims with dignity, or you bicker and separate and so are eaten one by one,” he added, according to SITE Intelligence monitoring group.
Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front is a rival of IS, which is an Al-Qaeda offshoot whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014 declared an Islamic caliphate across territory seized in Iraq and Syria.
Bin Laden’s son said Syria is the “best battlefield” leading to “liberating Al-Quds”, the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
“The road to liberating Palestine is today much shorter compared to before the blessed Syrian revolution,” he said.
US intelligence officials have said that Hamza was the favourite son of the 9/11 mastermind who had been grooming him to take over as Al-Qaeda’s leader.
siasat.com/news/bin-ladens-son-urges-jihadist-unity-syria-956843/
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Radicalism Emerges From Failed Islamic Countries: VP Kalla
Tue, May 10 2016
Radicalism movement arise from Islamic countries that have failed to develop and exacerbated with the internal conflict that spreads to other countries, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday.
He noted recent history which showed that radicalism that apparead from failed Islamic countries such as Al Qaeda that started in a failed Afghanistan and later, Islamic State ( IS ) that derived amid the chaos in Iraq and Syria, Kalla said in his opening remarks at the International Summit of the Moderate Islamic ( ISOMIL ) in Jakarta.
The failures of Islamic countries that lead to radicalism rooted from two points, the tyranny of the government and the public's anger towards the government itself.
"We know the condition in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, how the leaders of the government do not value their own citizens. So big countries invade those countries on the reason of democracy," Kalla told audience on Monday as quoted by Antara news agency.
The destruction inside the failed countries had become the cause for citizens to become concerned about the future of their homeland, such conditions then become the beginnings for radicalism which eventually became terrorism, Kalla added.
Therefore, there are increasing needs among Islamic countries to unite and address issues of radicalism and terrorism.
The existence of Muslims, which reaches 1,6 billion people and spread across 57 countries, should be a force to spread the goodness of Islam, the vice president said.
"If all problems could be solved with a conference, I'd think of course it'd be easy. However, to solve the problems in the Islam world is not as easily solvable in a conference, but needs unity and strength from us all," he said.
Summit chair KH Ma'aruf Amin, who is also the Indonesian Ulema Council ( MUI ) chairman, said the conference had an important role to protect the moderate preach in a world with growing number of extremist groups.
The International Summit of the Moderate Islamic is held for the first time in Jakarta in the effort to influence public policy in solving issues of radicalism and terrorism.
The summit, held in Jakarta on May 9 to 11, gather around moderate Islamic clerics from 33 countries as well as a number of ambassadors from Islam countries, with the aim to create peace in the Middle East.
thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/10/radicalism-emerges-from-failed-islamic-countries-kalla.html
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Kenya Closing Refugee Camp That's 'Breeding Ground for Terror'
Tue, May 10 2016
A United Nations refugee camp from which hundreds of Shariah-compliant Somali migrants are sent to the United States every month for permanent resettlement has been ordered shut down by its host country.
The government of Kenya has said “no more” to the burgeoning refugee movement that has been spilling across its borders since the 1990s.
It announced it will take action to close two camps, including the Daadab camp near its border with Somalia that is considered one of the world’s largest refugee centers, housing 328,000 Somalis. The other at Kakuma houses 190,000 refugees from South Sudan.
The Kenyan government also disbanded its Department of Refugee Affairs, which worked with humanitarian organizations for the welfare of the refugees.
“The message is clear; we are closing the camps and we will not accept more refugees in the country,” Mwenda Njoka, interior ministry spokesman, told DW.com.
Njoka added that the new regulations were primarily aimed at Somali refugees, who are coming from a nation with an active jihadist uprising being carried out by al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida.
The government said the camps have been a drag on its economy and a threat to its national security.
Human rights groups have responded with condemnation.
But the government, which threatened to shut down the camps a year ago after al-Shabab terrorists launched an attack on a group of 147 Christian students at a Kenyan university, appears determined to follow through this time in the face of enormous pressure from leftist human rights groups to keep the camps open.
Kenyan Interior Ministry official Karanja Kibicho called Dadaab a “breeding ground” for al-Shabab terrorist fighters and Kenya has been trying to close it down since 2013. But the United Nations and its army of human rights activists counter by saying the Kenyan government has never presented any proof that terror attacks are actually being launched from the camp.
On Friday, Kenyan officials said the international community should take responsibility for the needs of the refugees. That could mean the United States and other wealthy countries will be saddled with the burden of taking in even more Somali refugees than they are currently absorbing.
Kenya has hosted refugees since 1991 in response to people fleeing Islamic-inspired civil wars in neighboring East African countries.
But with no end in sight to those wars the burden on Kenya has been crushing. Not only in terms of national security but economically and environmentally.
“Imagine the environmental impact of 600,000 indigent human beings with their trash and sewage and water needs all in one place in Africa? You can’t just dismiss that,” says Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog.
The U.S. already takes in 700 to 750 Somali refugees per month or about 8,000 per year and has taken more than 132,000 since 1983. The arrival of 10,000 Syrian refugees this year has also sparked heavy criticism and resistance from more than a dozen states, making it difficult for the Obama administration to fulfill its goal on time, although it says it does not need the permission of state governments to seed U.S. cities with refugees.
Obama plans to resettle 85,000 foreign refugees in the U.S. this fiscal year from all countries.
As soon as the refugees arrive in some U.S. towns they are brought into the fold of the far left groups and Muslim groups such as CAIR, the Council for American-Islamic Relations.
In St. Louis for instance, CAIR recently put on a luncheon for newly arrived Syrian refugees providing food boxes and other essentials along with information about the area, even sending a bus to come pick them up and drop them off at the event.
“CAIR is just trying to co-opt them quickly, bringing them into the political system, to just suck them into the local mosque the local political scene,” Corcoran said. “The Syrians were somewhat frightened, they didn’t know what this was all about.”
Refugees are given a green card within one year of arrival and placed on a fast track to full U.S. citizenship within five years.
The largest chunk of funding for the refugee program flows to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It has a budget of 2.2 billion for 2017, but that does not count the massive welfare expenditures required by refugees. No less than 91 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps, according to government statistics.
The Somali government has also been working in recent months to encourage Somalis who have left the country to return and rebuild the nation. Signs of an increasingly stable government have been talked about in diplomatic circles for months but al-Shabab still carries out periodic deadly attacks.
“The Somali government is gradually trying to encourage everyone to come back to Somalia, and that would be tough on Somalia but it would push out al Shabab,” Corcoran said. “In Somalia you have all these clans warring against each other so they don’t ever advance their society because they don’t stop fighting each other. So we’re taking them into Western societies, the U.S., Canada, Britain, Sweden. That’s what it boils down to is we’re taking them because they can’t get along with each other.
“But if Somalia wants to bring back it’s people, then why are we still taking them to the U.S?”
That’s a question every American ought to be asking their congressmen and congresswomen, she said.
According to the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Processing Center database, Kenya is in the top three countries from where the U.S. gets its refugees. The numbers for the first seven months of fiscal 2016 are as follows:
Malaysia (4,694)
Kenya (3,280)
Turkey (2,692)
All three of the top refugee processing countries – Malaysia, Kenya and Turkey – involve primarily Muslim refugees.
And the U.S. takes Somali refugees from other places besides Kenya. They come from Malaysia, Malta, Austria, Turkey and just about anywhere to which Somalis have fled.
If the Kenyan camps are indeed closed down, Corcoran believes that will lead to a surge of even more Somalis coming to the U.S.
Human rights activists told DW.com that they want Kenya to integrate its refugees rather than keep them holed up in camps.
Closing the camps and sending the refugees back would be “reckless,” they said.
“But integrating 328,000 Shariah-compliant Somali refugees into a largely Christian Kenya would prove more than reckless. It would amount to national suicide,” Corcoran said.
“That’s just like wiping your own country out, to integrate that many people, and then they would eventually become voting citizens of Kenya. Pretty soon there would be no Kenya because they would outvote the Kenyans,” she said.
“We’re going to see enormous changes in Europe in the next decade or two because of this same trend.”
“The government of the Republic of Kenya, having taken into consideration its national security interests, has decided that hosting of refugees has to come to an end,” said a statement released by Kibicho, the Interior Ministry official.
Kibicho said the voluntary repatriation process of sending Somali refugees back to Somalia has been very slow.
wnd.com/2016/05/kenya-closing-refugee-camp-thats-breeding-ground-for-terror/
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India
With no evidence Delhi police tagged 10 innocents as Terrorist; Detained and released all
May 10, 2016
New Delhi: A day after releasing four Muslim youths of 10 the Delhi Police (Special Cell) released remaining 6 they detained for alleged links to the ‘Jaish-e-Mohammad’ on Sunday.
All of them are from poor families .
After questioning them for three days, police said they found no evidence to show that the 10 were involved in plotting a terror strike.
The move to release 10 detainees suspected of links with Jaish-e-Mohammad was welcomed by their families and preachers, who praised the police’s decision of thoroughly probing them instead of making hasty arrests.
However, sources added that two of the 10 youths are still under the scanner for calls and messages they exchanged with Sajid. All 10 are being counselled by a Maulana, Abdur Raziq, and a psychiatrist. The law of the land is being explained to them and they are being told how they were being fed a `doctored’ version of the Koran and jihad, sources said.
Police would keep them under surveillance, tracking their movements through manual and electronic means for the next one year, cops said.
They were picked up last Tuesday and Wednesday . Police had also arrested three other men , Sajid, Sameer and Shakir for conspiring to carry out terror strikes in NCR.
Special Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, Arvind Deep, told The Indian Express that the men had revealed they were angry at the system, which made them vulnerable to terror groups seeking new recruits.
Of the 13 who were detained by police last week, three will remain in police custody including Sajid whom police claim to be ‘ JeM module head’.
Police also claims that Sajid was planning to carry out terror strikes in NCR.
siasat.com/news/no-evidence-delhi-police-tagged-10-innocents-terrorists-released-all-956911/
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Deoband, Barelvi clerics meet, talk unity against ‘common enemy’
Tue,10 May 2016
In a move seen as a sign of reconciliation between two dominant schools of Islamic thought, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, a noted Barelvi cleric, Monday paid a surprise visit to Darul Uloom Deoband, the seminary of the Deobandi school of thought. Khan interacted with the rector of the seminary, Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani, and emphasised the need for unity to fight the “common enemy”. The meeting took place as both clerics accused the government of deliberately trying to target Muslim men and drive a wedge between community members.
“This is the time for unity. We are as Indian as anybody else and we will do everything to protect the unity and integrity of the country. At the same time, we will not allow any forces to malign and sideline this vast community,” Khan said in Deoband.
He was in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband to meet the family of Shakir Ansari, one of the three boys arrested by the Delhi Police for their suspected ideological leaning towards banned terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
After visiting the family, Khan took a surprising detour to Darul Uloom Deoband. The Barelvi and Deobandi school of thoughts have had differences over theological issues which in some instances have also led to violence. Even though the clerics from both sides interact with each other, it is very rare for a person from either side to visit the other’s seminary.
Khan claimed that the visit was necessitated due to the prevalent atmosphere in the country where Muslim men were being targeted. “We might have some differences on religious issues, but we are united when our community faces any trouble. We will not allow any body to take advantage of our trivial differences…Officers influenced by RSS ideology are trying to malign the image of Muslims and Islam by arresting Muslim clerics in unfounded terror charges. But, they will not succeed in their designs…While sticking to our religious beliefs, we should get united to fight the common enemy. This is the only way out,” he said.
Khan holds sway among Barelvis as he is the descendant of Ahmad Raza Khan, a Hanafi jurist who is known to have started the Barelvi movement. Both the movements are named after towns in Uttar Pradesh — Deoband and Bareilly. While the Deobandi movement is known to be aligned with Wahhabism and is seen as puritanical and more austere, the Barelvi movement, in contrast, defends a more traditional South Asian version of the faith centered on Sufi mysticism. Community watchers have claimed that the move of these two schools of thoughts coming together is in reaction to the increasing “anti Muslim policies” of the BJP government. “There is a growing fear and perception amongst the community that it is being targetted and attempts are being made to divide it. The recently held Sufi conference was seen as a way of creating rift between the community. This meeting is significant as a message is being sent that it will be difficult to drive a wedge between the community now,” said Syed Zubair Ahmed, editor, Muslim Mirror.
indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/deoband-barelvi-clerics-meet-talk-unity-against-common-enemy-2792503/
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No Muslim should object to Bharat Mata chant: Azmi
May 10, 2016
Lucknow: Chief of the Samajwadi Party's Maharashtra unit Abu Asim Azmi on Monday said Muslims should have no objections over chanting 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'. Describing the controversy over the issue as a deliberate attempt of the saffron brigade to whip up communal passions, Azmi said people in India cannot object to chanting of Vande Mataram or practice of rituals like breaking of a coconut to mark an auspicious beginning.
"I have spoken to several senior clerics of national repute on the issue and none of them said a Muslim cannot chant 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'," said Azmi, talking to TOI in Lucknow on Monday. "Prominent clerics of the country confirmed there was nothing wrong in chanting the pro-nation slogan," he said.
Azmi, who is a sitting SP MLA in Maharashtra assembly, said the issue was being raised by the BJP and some other political outfits who identify themselves as the voice of Indian Muslims though they have no support base beyond the pocket boroughs they belong to. "These parties are dancing to the tune of the BJP," he said in an obvious reference to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaddudin Owaisi.
This is the first time any senior SP leader has spoken on the issue since it surfaced in March. SP has maintained a studied silence on the issue particularly after renowned Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband issued a a fatwa against chanting of Bharat Mata Ki Jai by Muslims.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/No-Muslim-should-object-to-Bharat-Mata-chant-Azmi/articleshow/52196706.cms
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Bareilly’s Islamic Email, App Find Rapid Global Popularity
May 9, 2016
Bareilly: An Islamic email service, started by a Bareilly-based social and religious organisation only six months ago, now boasts of more than 28,000 subscribers from across the world. This free service informs subscribers about upcoming festivals and what should be done or avoided during them. Also, an app for poetry and literature from the Dargah Aala Hazrat here, launched on Friday, has acquired rapid global popularity.
The app, called 'Markaz Ki Awaz', has racked up an impressive 10,179 downloads by Monday evening, with considerable global interest in it. Using the app, people can read poetry, literature and Fatwas issued by Imam Ahmed Raza, founder of the Barelvi movement.
Maulana Hafiz Tauheed Ahmad Khan Razvi, general secretary of Tehseeni Foundation which began the Islamic email service said, "I was running an Islamic SMS service to inform people about religious matters. However, I realised that the era of text messages is over and, therefore, started an Islamic email service. I knew that the service would generate a good response but was surprised when it became a hit abroad also. Due to the overwhelming response, we are planning to launch an app before the beginning of Ramzan."
In the past six months, the Islamic email service has registered over 28,000 subscribers from across the world. Of these, over 3,000 subscribers belong to different countries, including South Africa, New Zealand, Mauritius, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. "We send emails to subscribers informing them of the history, dos and don'ts of upcoming festivals. If any subscriber has any query, we address it also," said Razvi.
He added, "As the festival Shab-e-Barat is approaching, we told our subscribers that they should ask youngsters to refrain from showing stunts during the procession."
Praising this service, a subscriber, Arsala Fatima, who is a teacher said, "I came to know about this service through a poster. It has made my life easy as I do not have to approach any religious leader in case of any query as I receive all the information I need at my home itself. After my recommendations, my parents and siblings have also subscribed to this service."
Similarly, 'Markaz Ki Awaz' has become an instant hit among followers of the shrine. "The app is connected with four radio channels of this shrine. On the first channel, people can listen to live programmes held across the world of Mufti-e-Azam Allama Akhtar Raza Khan, the chief cleric of this shrine and his son Maulana Asjad Raza Khan, who is also Bareilly city qazi," said Nasir Qureshi, media coordinator.
The second radio channel is dedicated to poetry while on the third channel, people can pose their questions directly to Akhtar Raza Khan who will pass fatwas. People can listen to taqrir (Islamic speeches) of renowned Barelvi clerics on the fourth channel. Followers can also access the literature and fatwas of Aala Hazrat Imam Ahmed Raza in his lifetime.
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RSS special cell to engage with Muslim youth prone to IS designs
Tue,10 May 2016
In order to prevent youth from joining dreaded terror outfits like the Islamic State (IS), the RSS-affiliated Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM) is planning to engage with them by establishing a special cell.
According to MRM office-bearers, its 'Don't join IS' cell will counsel the vulnerable youth against falling prey to the designs of such outfits. It will also rope in ulemas (Muslim religious scholars) to put its message across. The MRM is the only niche organisation in the Sangh Parivar for the Muslim community.
Four youth from Kalyan near Mumbai had fled to Syria to fight for the IS. Security agencies had also prevented some such attempts by arresting youth and de-radicalising them.
The critics of RSS, however, point to how the organisation's ultra nationalist agenda was pushing sections of the community to beyond the margins and into their own cocoon.
"In our national executive meeting held in Nagpur in April, there was a suggestion that an awareness programme be conducted among the youth, considering that some of them are getting attracted to organisations like the IS, apart from Maoist groups... and that the MRM set up a cell in this regard," said senior MRM and RSS functionary Virag Pachpor.
"This will be a permanent cell for creating awareness among the youth, especially Muslim youngsters. Awareness needs to be conducted... about Islam being against terrorism," he stressed.
Details of the functioning of the cell and the way in which the ulema can be involved in it were being worked out.
"The youth are already patriotic. This must be forced and built upon... to reduce the IS influence, patriotism must be encouraged," said Irfan Ali Peerzade, national co-convenor, MRM. He added that they planned to reach out to Muslim youth on campuses of minority educational institutions.
"All Indians are born patriotic. But our need is to grow more patriotic," Peerzade stressed, pointing to the need to appeal to the upwardly mobile aspirations of the community.
"Efforts have been made for influencing youngsters through social media. They (IS) think of India as a barren ground to churn out such elements," noted All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Imtiaz Jaleel, adding that the number of Indian Muslims influenced by such organisations, however, is miniscule in comparison with their population.
"I do not think the situation is so alarming. (These are) few stray elements... A majority of Indians believe in Indianness, majority of Muslims believe in Indianness," he added, stating that "we dont feel the RSS needs to teach the Muslim youngsters about patriotism and nationalism."
"You are trying to dictate your agenda to all communities in the country... they are trying to create a sense of alienation in the community," Jaleel charged.
In a bid to deepen its outreach among Muslims, the MRM was established in 2002 at the behest of then RSS chief KS Sudarshan. It was initially called 'Rashtravadi Muslim Andolan-Ek Nayi Raah' and re-christened as the MRM in 2005.
Muslims form around 10.6% of Maharashtra's 11.23 crore population. However, only 2.2% of the community has completed education till graduation and the proportion is at a lower 1.4% for women. According to the Rajinder Sachar committee report, the share of Muslims in government services is just 4.4%. The community also suffers from regressive social practices like oral, triple talaq and low literacy and work participation of women.
dnaindia.com/india/report-rss-special-cell-to-engage-with-muslim-youth-prone-to-is-designs-2210806
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Arab World
Bin Laden’s son urges jihadist unity in Syria
May 10, 2016
The son of Al-Qaeda’s late founder Osama bin Laden has urged jihadists in Syria to unite, claiming that the fight in the war-torn country paves the way to “liberating Palestine”.
“The Islamic umma (nation) should focus on jihad in Al-Sham (Syria) … And unite the ranks of mujahedeen there,” said 23-year-old Hamza in an audio message posted online
“There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilised against Muslims,” he said.
His undated message comes after Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also urged jihadists in Syria to unite, despite his continued rejection of the rival Islamic State (IS) group and its proclaimed caliphate.
“The matter of unity today is one of life and death,” Zawahiri said in an audio message posted online on Saturday.
“Either you unite to live as Muslims with dignity, or you bicker and separate and so are eaten one by one,” he added, according to SITE Intelligence monitoring group.
Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front is a rival of IS, which is an Al-Qaeda offshoot whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014 declared an Islamic caliphate across territory seized in Iraq and Syria.
Bin Laden’s son said Syria is the “best battlefield” leading to “liberating Al-Quds”, the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
“The road to liberating Palestine is today much shorter compared to before the blessed Syrian revolution,” he said.
US intelligence officials have said that Hamza was the favourite son of the 9/11 mastermind who had been grooming him to take over as Al-Qaeda’s leader.
siasat.com/news/bin-ladens-son-urges-jihadist-unity-syria-956843/
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Tens of Terrorists Killed in Syrian Air Attacks near Khan Tuoman
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army's Bombers have carried out over 90 combat sorties over the terrorist groups' strongholds in Khan Touman battlefield in the Southern part of Aleppo province in the last 24 hours, inflicting a heavy death toll on the militants, battlefield sources said Tuesday.
"At least 100 terrorists have been killed and many more have been wounded in the Syrian fighter jets' strikes in Khan Touman battlefield," the sources said, adding, "Jeish al-Fatah's casualties have reached to 500 in the recent days."
Military sources announced on Monday that at least 400 terrorists were killed or wounded in the pro-government forces' offensives in the Southern part of Aleppo province in the last days.
"The entire anti-terrorism movements and offensives of the Syrian army and its allies are based on military logic and are not based on any emotional decisions, that is why the government forces are carrying out their operations in Khan Touman battlefield step by step," the sources told FNA, adding, "The most important matter is that the Syrian military forces have been capable of changing their positions in Khan Touman from defensive to offensive."
"The Syrian soldiers have prevented Jeish al-Fatah, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham from moving towards al-Zarbeh and the neighborhoods of Rashedeen 4 and 5 from the Western and Northeastern sides of Khan Touman," they added.
"At least three tanks and several vehicles of the terrorist groups have been destroyed in the past two-three days and the Takfiri terrorists' centers in Kahn Touman, al-Zarbeh, Damascus-Aleppo highway, al-Eis and Rashedeen 4 have been heavily bombed by the Russian and Syrian fighter jets," the sources went on to say.
"In the meantime, the Syrian army's artillery, missile and mortar units have been pounding the terrorists' position in Khan Touman battlefield to weaken the defensive abilities of the militants and pave the group for safer and easier ground operation," they added.
"The Syrian army tracked and targeted a US-made TOW anti-tank missiles launching-pad near Khan Touman, which ended in the destruction of the site and the killing of the entire militants in the site," the source said.
The Al-Nusra and units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) claim to have taken back Khan Touman, but government forces say they are still in charge of key centers and blocks in the town.
The Syrian army alongside the National Defense Forces and Hezbollah fighters regained full control over the town of Khan Touman in December. Ever since then the city has fallen back to the terrorists twice, with the second time being this weekend.
Following an unsuccessful truce that was repeatedly violated by the terrorist groups, the Al-Nusra Front - the Syria arm of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group - could relocate some 20,000 terrorists to Northern Aleppo via Turkey's soil to launch a large-scale attack on
pro-government positions in several key cities in Aleppo province, including Khan Touman in the Southwest.
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Syrian Air Force Destroys ISIL's Special Forces HQ in Deir Ezzur
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian fighter jets in fresh operations pounded the headquarters of ISIL's special forces in Deir Ezzur province, inflicting heavy losses on the Takfiri terrorists.
The ISIL's special forces headquarters was destroyed in the Syrian airstrikes and the Takfiri terrorists inside it were killed.
The Syrian air force also bombarded the ISIL's military positions in the cities of Al-Mayadeen and Albu Kamal as well as Badiya Khasham region in the Eastern part of Deir Ezzur.
On Monday, the Syrian warplanes, tipped off by intelligence agents, tracked and targeted a long convoy of ISIL's military and logistic vehicles East of Deir Ezzur South of the Euphrates River, inflicting major damage on the column.
The Syrian fighter jets, in several combat flights, targeted the ISIL vehicles near the villages of al-Kassarat and al-Mura'yeh, which ended in destruction of several machinegun-equipped vehicles, and the killing of at least 24 guards of the column.
Also on Sunday, the Syrian army continued pounding the ISIL's military positions in Deir Ezzur in Eastern Syria, and killed over a dozen Takfiri terrorists in a missile attack.
At least 17 ISIL terrorists were killed in the Syrian army's missile attack in Deir Ezzur province in Eastern Syria.
The ISIL's military and armored vehicles were also destroyed in the army's missile attack on their military positions.
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Senior Islamic State leader in Iraq, Abu Wahib, 'killed' by US airstrike
Tue, May 10 2016
A senior Islamic State leader in Iraq’s Anbar province has been killed by a coalition airstrike, according to the Pentagon.
Abu Wahib and three other Isis militants were killed when their vehicle was struck on 6 May in Rutba, according to Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman.
He said Wahib’s death was a blow to the group’s leadership.
A senior US official said it was an American airstrike.
Cook said Wahib was a former member of al-Qaida in Iraq and has appeared in Islamic State execution videos.
“ISIL leadership has been hit hard by coalition efforts and this is another example of that,” he said, using another acronym for Isis.
“It is dangerous to be an Isil leader in Iraq and Syria nowadays.”
There have been unconfirmed reports in the past suggesting Wahib was targeted by strikes, but this is the first time the Pentagon has said he was killed.
Wahib started working with al-Qaida in Iraq before being detained by US forces in 2009. He was transferred to an Iraqi prison following the US withdrawal in 2011 and broke out in 2012.
Barack Obama will meet with his National Security Council on Tuesday morning to discuss US efforts to fight Islamic State militants, the White House said.
“The session is the latest in a series of NSC meetings in recent months convened at the White House and at key departments and agencies, including the CIA, the Department of State and the Department of Defense, on our campaign against the terrorist group,” it said in a statement.
theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/senior-islamic-state-leader-in-iraq-abu-wahib-killed-by-us-airstrike
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Syrian Army, Hezbollah Push ISIL back from more Heights Northeast of Damascus
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army troops and the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters continued to drive back the ISIL terrorists from more territories in Qalamoun mountain nearly 40 kilometers to the Northeast of the capital Damascus and took back several hilltops in the region.
The Syrian government forces, in a several hours of non-stop battle, advanced significantly against the ISIL terrorists in Jaroud Qareh in Qalamoun mountains, which ended in the killing of several militants and the recapture of several hills.
The Hezbollah fighter stormed the ISIL centers near the village of Shamsiyeh and Anid Ma'ber, which claimed the lives of 19 terrorists and destroyed four military vehicles mound with anti-aircraft machineguns.
Earlier reports said that the Syrian army units in Eastern Ghouta blew up a tunnel dug by terrorist groups, killing all the militants positioned in the tunnel.
The 700-meter-long tunnel was dug in Bala region in the Eastern territories of Damascus province and its detonation inflicted major losses on the terrorists.
All militants inside the tunnel were killed and their weapons and ammunition were destroyed as a result of the blast.
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Whistleblower Reveals Addiction of Saudi Crown Prince
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- Saudi whistleblower Mujtahid, who is believed to be a member of or have a well-connected source in the royal family, revealed that the country's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef is addicted to narcotics.
"Muhammad bin Nayef is addicted to drugs and has been treated several times in Europe when his father was alive," Mujtahid wrote on his tweeter page on Monday.
He also said that the al-Saud family is under the influence of major drug cartels.
"What is announced about discovering and seizing drugs in Saudi Arabia is less than 10 percent of the real amount of narcotics trafficked into the country because most of the drug traffickers enjoy immunity in Saudi Arabia," Mujtahid said.
Every two days, on average, the Saudi government executes someone for drug-related offenses — while its own princes are caught in airports with tons of drugs.
Saudi prince Abdel Mohsen bin Walid bin Abdulaziz was caught in an airport in Lebanon last October with over two tons of drugs.
Lebanese security found 40 suitcases full of more than 4,000 pounds of amphetamine pills and cocaine on the prince’s private plane, which was on its way to Saudi capital city Riyadh. It was the largest smuggling operation ever foiled by Beirut International Airport security.
In fact, just hours after the Saudi prince was caught with thousands of pounds of drugs, a Pakistani drug smuggler was executed by the Saudi government.
Roughly half (47 percent) of people executed in Saudi Arabia are killed for drug-related offenses, according to Amnesty International. From August 2014 to August 2015, Amnesty documented 175 Saudi executions, an average of one every two days.
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ISIL Militant Sentenced to Life Imprisonment in UAE
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- A UAE national, who proclaimed himself as one of ISIL terrorist group's leaders in the country, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting terrorist attacks in Abu Dhabi, local media reported.
Mohammed Hashemi, 34, has been sentenced by the country's Federal Supreme Court to life in prison for a number of terror offenses, including preparations to blow up Yas Marina Circuit, the venue for the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix, and an Ikea shop, the National newspaper reported.
In addition, Hashemi was accused of plotting an assassination, making bombs and financing Al Qaeda, according to the media outlet.
In July 2015, the UAE authorities executed Hashemi's wife for killing a US nursery teacher at Boutik Mall on Reem Island. Hashemi was arrested on November 21, 2014.
The UAE is part of the US-led coalition, which has been bombing ISIL positions in Syria and Iraq since 2014. The ISIL is a terrorist group outlawed in the United States, Russia and numerous other countries.
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Syrian Army, Allies to Retake Khan Touman, Other Areas from Terrorists Soon
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined superiority of the Syrian army and its allies over the terrorist groups, and said the recently-occupied regions, including Khan Touman, will be won back soon.
"The situation in Khan Touman is a tactical change and development and doesn’t have any strategic effect on the entire battlefield (of Syria)," Salami told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday.
Noting that Iran is certain about the future of the war in Syria, he said, "We consider the Syrian government as a part of the resistance front and we are in full control of the situation."
Salami underscored that the Syrian forces and their allies will make their best efforts to take back Khan Touman and other areas occupied by terrorists in recent days.
He also said that the situation in the battlefield and political scene in Syria is moving to the opposite direction of what the interfering powers, including the US, Europe and their regional allies want.
The Al-Nusra and units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) claim to have taken back Khan Touman, but government forces say they are still in charge of key centers and blocks in the town.
The Syrian army alongside the National Defense Forces and Hezbollah fighters regained full control over the town of Khan Touman in December. Ever since then the city has fallen back to the terrorists twice, with the second time being last weekend.
Following an unsuccessful truce that was repeatedly violated by the terrorist groups, the Al-Nusra Front - the Syria arm of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group - could relocate some 20,000 terrorists to Northern Aleppo via Turkey's soil to launch a large-scale attack on pro-government positions in several key cities in Aleppo province, including Khan Touman in the Southwest.
In relevant remarks on Sunday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani underlined that the recent events in Syria's Khan Touman region showed correctness of Tehran's concerns about recruitment and strengthening of terrorist groups during the ceasefire in Aleppo.
"Since truce plan was put forward, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which didn’t oppose it in principle, reminded of its structural problems," Shamkhani said, addressing the newly-elected Iranian legislators in Tehran.
He referred to the occupation of Khan Touman region in Aleppo by terrorist groups in recent days, and said, "This event showed that the concerns raised by Iran were fully correct and based on the realities on the ground and that ceasefire would be merely an opportunity for the recruitment and reinvigoration of the terrorist groups by the governments which support them."
Military sources announced on Sunday that at least 400 terrorists have been killed or wounded in the pro-government forces' offensives in the Southern part of Aleppo province in the last two to three days.
"The entire anti-terrorism movements and offensives of the Syrian army and its allies are based on military logic and are not based on any emotional decisions, that is why the government forces are carrying out their operations in Khan Touman battlefield step by step," the sources told FNA, adding, "The most important matter is that the Syrian military forces have been capable of changing their positions in Khan Touman from defensive to offensive."
"The Syrian soldiers have prevented Jeish al-Fatah, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham from moving towards al-Zarbeh and the neighborhoods of Rashedeen 4 and 5 from the Western and Northeastern sides of Khan Touman," they added.
"At least three tanks and several vehicles of the terrorist groups have been destroyed in the past two-three days and the Takfiri terrorists' centers in Kahn Touman, al-Zarbeh, Damascus-Aleppo highway, al-Eis and Rashedeen 4 have been heavily bombed by the Russian and Syrian fighter jets," the sources went on to say.
"In the meantime, the Syrian army's artillery, missile and mortar units have been pounding the terrorists' position in Khan Touman battlefield to weaken the defensive abilities of the militants and pave the group for safer and easier ground operation," they added.
"The Syrian army tracked and targeted a US-made TOW anti-tank missiles launching-pad near Khan Touman, which ended in the destruction of the site and the killing of the entire militants in the site," the source said.
Reports said earlier today that Syrian and Russian Air Force strikers, in a fresh series of joint combat flights, targeted the terrorist groups' positions in a key neighborhood of the town of Kahn Touman in the Southern part of Aleppo province and inflicted heavy death toll on the militants.
Strongholds of the Takfiri terrorists in al-Rashedeen neighborhood's Southern farms were massively targeted by the Syrian and Russian fighter jets.
The terrorists suffered a heavy death toll and their military equipment sustained major damage in the attacks.
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Iran in Talks with Russia on Exports of Heavy Water
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi announced that his country is holding talks with the Russians to sell them 40 tons of its excess heavy water.
"Negotiations in this regard are underway and (their results) will be announced in due time," Salehi told FNA on Tuesday.
Also asked about the latest developments in heavy water sales to the US, he said, "The heavy water supply was due to be delivered to the US but we exercised caution after the US blocked $2bln of Iran's assets (referring to a recent court ruling by the US Supreme Court which authorized the transfer of $2 billion of Tehran's frozen assets to the families of the victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut)."
"As long as this issue is not resolved, we will negotiate on ways of payment (for the heavy water supply to the US) and other things in a bid to gain confidence," Salehi said.
His remarks came after Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari announced last week that Tehran will dispatch its cargo of heavy water to the US only when Washington makes the payment.
"The United States showed an illogical and illegal attitude towards the seizure of Iran Central Bank's assets under the recent US court ruling and it ruined the Islamic Republic's trust in the US actions," Jaberi Ansari told reporters in Tehran.
Noting that the AEOI is responsible for the heavy water contract with the US, he said, "All necessary executive measures have been planned by the Organization to ensure receiving its money and the AEOI will pursue the case in a way that the agreement and contract is implemented properly."
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Saudis Continue to Breach Ceasefire in Yemen
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Saudi army and its mercenaries continued their ceasefire violations on Tuesday and conducted a number of attacks on Ansarullah fighters and civilians in different provinces, a military official said.
"The Saudi forces pounded people's houses in different parts of Yemen today," Ansarullah commander Ali al-Houthi told FNA.
He reiterated the Saudi enemy has not ceased its attacks on the Yemeni civilians over the past year.
Al-Houthi underlined that at least 10 people were killed and 10 others were injured in the Saudi-led airstrikes on people's houses in Imran province.
The Saudi fighter jets also struck the Ansarullah-controlled Anad Camp in Ma'rib province, he added.
He said that the breaches of the ongoing but shaky ceasefire also continued in Ta'iz and al-Jawf provinces.
On Thursday, several sources said that the Saudi Air Force had launched several air raids over the capital city of Sana'a, causing damage in a number of residential areas.
"In addition to bombing Sana'a, the Saudi Air Force also targeted the Ansarullah-controlled Anad Camp and a number of districts in Ma'rib province, killing a number of civilians and fighters," the sources added.
Recently, the Yemeni Peace Talks in Kuwait have been put on hold after the Saudi-backed pro-Hadi delegation walked out of the meeting.
The United Nations is attempting to get the parties to return to the negotiation table in spite of their substantial disagreements; however these attempts have been unsuccessful so far.
The Saudi army and its mercenaries have frequently been violating the ceasefire in Yemen in the course of this week, conducting a number of attacks on Ansarullah fighters and civilians in different provinces.
The Saudi-backed mercenaries also have been making attempts to advance toward the Central Security camp in Taiz province, and pounded the positions of the army and popular committees in Thubab city with their artillery fire.
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S-300 Delivered to Air Defense Base, Iran to Inaugurate Production Line of Own Defense Shield
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan announced that the Russian S-300 missile defense system delivered to Iran has been delivered to Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base, adding that the Iranian version of the defense shield called 'Bavar (Belief) 373' will be produced soon.
"The strategic S-300 defense system has been delivered to (Khatam ol-Anbia) air defense base," Dehqan said while visiting Khatam ol-Anbia's achievements in Tehran on Tuesday.
Moscow and Tehran signed a contract for the delivery of five battalion sets of S-300 PMU1 air defense missile systems in 2007.
Iran displayed the first S-300 air defense missile system imported from Russia in April.
A battalion of the S-300 missile defense system was showed off without displaying the missiles. Russia is due to deliver several more S-300 missile shields to Iran by the end of this year.
General Dehqan also announced that building of the home-made Bavar 373 defense shield is in its last stages, adding, "This defense system which can engage with multiple targets, including ballistic and cruise missiles, drones and warplanes, will be manufactured and its production line will be inaugurated this year."
Dehqan added that the long-range defense system can target several targets simultaneously.
He also visited Bavar 373 project.
Iran designed and developed its own version of the S-300 missile shield, known as Bavar 373.
The Iranian version has superior features over the original Russian model as it enjoys increased mobility and reduced launch-preparation time.
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IRGC Navy Commander: Iran to Mass-Produce Speedboats Cruising at 80 Knots
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi declared that the IRGC plans to mass-produce its modern speedboats which are capable of cruising at 80 knots (148 kilometers) per hour.
"We have been able to increase the speed of our military vessels which are equipped with missiles and torpedoes up to 80 knots and this speed was tested late winter and now we are after mass-producing them," Fadavi said in an interview with the state-run TV on Monday night.
"This is while the speed more than 35 knots is a dream for the world naval forces and the US vessels can cruise at a maximum speed of 31 knots," he added.
In relevant remarks in March, Admiral Fadavi had said that the IRGC has the only Navy in the world that could design and manufacture this type of boats cruising at 80 knots per hour.
Fadavi had said earlier this year that anti-ship cruise missiles and cannons were previously not available on speedboats, but the IRGC experts managed to mount them on the vessels.
He added that the military vessels, capable of cruising at the speed of up to 120 knots (222 kilometers) an hour, could now be designed and tested at the IRGC naval research laboratory. In the past, he said, Iran had to carry out such tests abroad.
The IRGC commander said the Navy plans to mass produce, within the next few months, speedboats that travel at a speed of 80 knots (148 kilometers) per hour, and are armed with missiles capable of striking targets at 100 kilometers (62 miles).
Last year, the IRGC equipped its speedboats with domestically designed and manufactured Ghader (Capable) anti-ship cruise missiles. Iran unveiled the home-made Ghader missile back in September 2011.
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ISIL Bomb-Making Workshop in Raqqa Found by Kurdish Fighters
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) discovered another ISIL workshop used for making bombs and road mines near the city of Sulouk in the Northern part of Raqqa province, the YPG sources said.
"The workshop's products were used by the ISIL terrorists in their attacks against the civilians in the region," a YPG commander said.
"The ISIL has had a long-term plan for planting explosive devices and road mines in residential areas," the commander added.
On Friday, the ISIL terrorist group executed a seven-year-old boy in Syria’s Northeastern city of Raqqa, human rights activists and eyewitnesses said.
"The ISIL has executed the child in the Naeem Square in the city of Raqqa, the main stronghold of the terrorist group in Syria," the sources said.
The activists said that ISIL terrorists executed the boy on charges of ‘insulting divinity’.
“ISIL police arrested the Muaz Hassan earlier this week in the city of Raqqa, after they heard him ‘cursing divinity’, while playing in the street with his friends,” the source quoted an ISIL member of Islamic Court as saying. “The act was considered an insult to the Caliphate, regardless of the age of the boy.”
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New Mass Grave Unearthed in Dara'a Province
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- The National Defense Forces (NDF) said that a mass grave of the Syrian civilians massacred by ISIL-affiliated terrorists has been found in the Western part of Dara'a province.
"The Syrian Army unearthed a mass grave of civilians around Tal Ashtareh in the Southern side of the town of Sheikh Sa'ad near the city of Nawa , who were executed by the terrorist group of al-Mothana that once ruled over the region," the NDF said.
"The bodies of some of the local civilians, who had been disappeared in a mysterious manner, have been found in the newly-uncovered grave," the NDF added.
The NDF went on to say that its forces in Nawa have been informed by the locals about more mass graves of unknown people near Tal Ashtareh.
Reports said on Monday that the Syrian Army troops destroyed another ISIL workshop used for making heavy ammunition in the Southern province of Dara'a.
The Syrian soldiers stormed the ISIL terrorists' large workshop for manufacturing rockets and mortar shells in Dara'a province, which ended in the destruction the workshop building and the machinery inside it.
Several members of the ISIL were also killed in the attacks.
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Southeast Asia
Radicalism Emerges From Failed Islamic Countries: VP Kalla
Tue, May 10 2016
Radicalism movement arise from Islamic countries that have failed to develop and exacerbated with the internal conflict that spreads to other countries, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday.
He noted recent history which showed that radicalism that apparead from failed Islamic countries such as Al Qaeda that started in a failed Afghanistan and later, Islamic State ( IS ) that derived amid the chaos in Iraq and Syria, Kalla said in his opening remarks at the International Summit of the Moderate Islamic ( ISOMIL ) in Jakarta.
The failures of Islamic countries that lead to radicalism rooted from two points, the tyranny of the government and the public's anger towards the government itself.
"We know the condition in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, how the leaders of the government do not value their own citizens. So big countries invade those countries on the reason of democracy," Kalla told audience on Monday as quoted by Antara news agency.
The destruction inside the failed countries had become the cause for citizens to become concerned about the future of their homeland, such conditions then become the beginnings for radicalism which eventually became terrorism, Kalla added.
Therefore, there are increasing needs among Islamic countries to unite and address issues of radicalism and terrorism.
The existence of Muslims, which reaches 1,6 billion people and spread across 57 countries, should be a force to spread the goodness of Islam, the vice president said.
"If all problems could be solved with a conference, I'd think of course it'd be easy. However, to solve the problems in the Islam world is not as easily solvable in a conference, but needs unity and strength from us all," he said.
Summit chair KH Ma'aruf Amin, who is also the Indonesian Ulema Council ( MUI ) chairman, said the conference had an important role to protect the moderate preach in a world with growing number of extremist groups.
The International Summit of the Moderate Islamic is held for the first time in Jakarta in the effort to influence public policy in solving issues of radicalism and terrorism.
The summit, held in Jakarta on May 9 to 11, gather around moderate Islamic clerics from 33 countries as well as a number of ambassadors from Islam countries, with the aim to create peace in the Middle East.
thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/10/radicalism-emerges-from-failed-islamic-countries-kalla.html
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Indonesia's Muslim techies take on ISIS
Mon, May 10, 2016
JAKARTA, Indonesia A group of Indonesian "cyber warriors" sit glued to screens, as they send out messages promoting a moderate form of Islam in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.
Armed with laptops and smartphones, some 500 members of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) – one of the world's biggest Muslim organizations – are seeking to counter the Islamic State group's extremist messages.
"We'll never let Islam be hijacked by fools who embrace hate in their heart," tweeted Syafi' Ali, a prominent member of the NU's online army, a typical message to his tens of thousands of followers.
They are trying to hit back at IS's sophisticated Internet operations, which have been credited with attracting huge numbers from around the world to their cause.
Internet propaganda is believed to have played a key role in drawing some 500 Indonesians to the Middle East to join IS, particularly among those living in cities where it is easier to get online.
The dangers of the growing IS influence in Indonesia were starkly illustrated in January when militants linked to the jihadists launched a gun and suicide bombing attack in Jakarta, leaving 4 assailants and 4 civilians dead.
It was the first major attack in Indonesia in 7 years, following a string of Islamic militant bombings in the early 2000s that killed hundreds.
'Wrestling with propaganda'
As well as firing off tweets, the NU members have sought to dominate cyberspace by establishing websites promoting the group's moderate views, an Android app and web-based TV channels, whose broadcasts include sermons by moderate preachers.
The initiative has been building momentum for a while but started to pick up pace a few months ago. A handful of cyber warriors operate from a small office in Jakarta, while the rest work remotely, and the group mostly communicate with one another over the web.
But it will be an uphill battle and the NU, which has been promoting moderate Islam for decades, conceded they have previously struggled to take on IS's hate-filled messages.
"NU has for a while wrestled with this radical propaganda," said Yahya Cholil Staquf, secretary general of the NU, which claims at least 40 million followers.
"Every time we defeated them, it didn't take long for them to regain their strength."
The online drive comes as the NU is set to take its campaign to promote their tolerant form of Islam onto the international stage this week, with a two-day meeting from Monday of moderate religious leaders from around the world.
They aim to showcase their particular brand of the Muslim faith, known as "Islam Nusantara", to counter the IS jihadists' radical interpretation of Islam.
Meaning "Islam of the Archipelago" – Indonesia is the world's biggest archipelago, comprising over 17,000 islands – it is accepting of diversity and stresses non-violence.
It grew up organically in Indonesia, as the religion entered the country gradually and had to mix with existing traditional beliefs such as praying at tombs, making it a naturally tolerant form of Islam.
Nowadays, most of the approximately 225 million Muslims in Indonesia practice a moderate form of Islam.
The NU wants to persuade Muslims from around the world to look for inspiration to Indonesia, where religious minorities and a multitude of ethnic groups mostly coexist harmoniously, rather than to harsher forms of Islam from the Middle East.
Fight the rising tide
The group nevertheless has a long way to go to fight the rising tide of IS propaganda.
Despite their good intentions, the NU cyber warriors appear amateur next to IS's well-funded set-up.
The jihadists, who control huge swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, have a sophisticated online operation, using social media, apps and slickly produced videos.
They send about 200,000 tweets a day into the United States alone, according to US officials. It even has its own news agency, Amaq, which is often the first to report that IS is claiming responsibility for attacks.
In Indonesia, there are two main ways that IS propaganda spreads – by supporters posting on websites and apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and Line, and through returnees from the Middle East preaching the group's radical ideology.
Most of the NU's online army are volunteers, often reaching into their own pockets to cover costs.
"ISIS has oil, while the only oil we have is for hair," Ali said, explaining the project's start was delayed for more than a year due to funding problems. Oil smuggling has been a key revenue source for IS.
Robi Sugara, a terrorism expert from NGO the Indonesian Muslim Crisis Center, welcomed the NU's online approach.
"It's a good strategy to make Google searches fill up with moderate Islamic content," he told AFP.
"The battleground for Islamic ideology has moved to the Internet, and by producing as many moderate websites as they can, they can keep more minds healthy."
rappler.com/world/regions/asia-pacific/indonesia/bahasa/englishedition/132593-cyber-warriors-islam-isis
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Indonesia calls on Islamic leaders to promote tolerant Islam
Mon, May 9 2016
Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Monday called on Islamic leaders to spread messages about a tolerant Islam to curb extremism that often springs from misinterpretation of Islamic teachings.
Speaking at the opening of the International Summit of the Moderate Islamic Leaders, Kalla said he believes that youths who don't have deep faith are susceptible to be militants, not for wealth or political cause, but rather as a "shortcut" to heaven.
"That's why the role of Islamic clerics is needed to do more to correct the misinterpretation," Kalla said. "We gather here today for that purpose, to produce the solution to curb radicalism in the form of terrorism, wars and conflicts."
He added that the existence of 1.6 billion Muslims spread across 57 countries should become a force to promote the goodness of Islam.
The meeting organized by Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, is expected to produce a message about the importance of promoting a peaceful Islam to combat radicalism worldwide.
More than 300 religious leaders from 33 countries, including clerics from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Iran are attending the three-day meeting.
Kalla said that extremism in the Middle East and radical acts in other parts of the world are the results of wars at home against authoritarian governments in the name of democracy, which caused the future of their people to fall in the darkness.
Therefore, he said, overcoming radicalism and terrorism requires the unity and integrity of the whole nations.
Kalla noted the need of moderate Islamic states, which are able to provide grace, goodness, and unite to the whole community.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has seen a spate of deadly attacks by Islamic militants including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. The smaller, less deadly strikes in recent years targeted government authorities, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces.
Eight people died in a Jan. 14 Jakarta attack including four militants, who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.
thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/09/indonesia-calls-on-islamic-leaders-to-promote-tolerant-islam.html
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Indonesia, Algeria to strengthen ties in religious partnership
Tue, May 10 2016
Indonesia and Algeria have agreed to strengthen bilateral relations in religious cooperation to help tackle radicalism and promote moderate Islamic teaching.
The two governments have agreed to immediately follow up the plan by drafting numerous programs to be implemented in the near future, Antara news agency reported.
The government has proposed to intensify cooperation in cleric exchanges as part of efforts to curb growing radicalism and fundamentalism in both countries, said Indonesian Ambassador for Algeria Safira Machrusah.
The dissemination of moderate Islamic values is considered a form of strategic cooperation between Jakarta and Algiers, since both countries have had similar experiences in facing the threat of terrorism.
"We need the support from Algerian ulemas to spread moderate Islamic teachings to the communities in both countries together," Safira said as quoted by Antara on Monday.
The plan was formulated during a meeting between Safira and Algeria Religious and Wakfs Minister Mohamed Aissa at the Algerian Religious Affairs Ministry.
Exchanging moderate ulemas could support plans to prevent radical teachings from growing in the community, in line with Algeria's efforts against all forms of terrorism, Aissa said.
Both Indonesia and Algeria have experienced terrorist attacks in their respective countries, with terrorists striking Jakarta in January, killing four civilians and four alleged terrorists. Meanwhile, Algeria is still struggling to eradicate terrorist groups that often launch attacks in the south of the country.
Moreover, Algeria also plans to provide scholarships for Indonesian students to study at the Imam Institute run by Algeria's Religious and Wakfs Ministry to improve the capacity of Indonesian ulemas and Imams, Aissa said.
In the meeting, Safira also expressed cooperation in religious tourism. The government expects Algeria to improve its management and maintenance of Islamic historical sites to attract Indonesian tourists and make Algeria the latest destination of religious tourism in the Middle East.
thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/10/indonesia-algeria-to-strengthen-ties-in-religious-partnership.html
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Africa
Kenya Closing Refugee Camp That's 'Breeding Ground for Terror'
Tue, May 10 2016
A United Nations refugee camp from which hundreds of Shariah-compliant Somali migrants are sent to the United States every month for permanent resettlement has been ordered shut down by its host country.
The government of Kenya has said “no more” to the burgeoning refugee movement that has been spilling across its borders since the 1990s.
It announced it will take action to close two camps, including the Daadab camp near its border with Somalia that is considered one of the world’s largest refugee centers, housing 328,000 Somalis. The other at Kakuma houses 190,000 refugees from South Sudan.
The Kenyan government also disbanded its Department of Refugee Affairs, which worked with humanitarian organizations for the welfare of the refugees.
“The message is clear; we are closing the camps and we will not accept more refugees in the country,” Mwenda Njoka, interior ministry spokesman, told DW.com.
Njoka added that the new regulations were primarily aimed at Somali refugees, who are coming from a nation with an active jihadist uprising being carried out by al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida.
The government said the camps have been a drag on its economy and a threat to its national security.
Human rights groups have responded with condemnation.
But the government, which threatened to shut down the camps a year ago after al-Shabab terrorists launched an attack on a group of 147 Christian students at a Kenyan university, appears determined to follow through this time in the face of enormous pressure from leftist human rights groups to keep the camps open.
Kenyan Interior Ministry official Karanja Kibicho called Dadaab a “breeding ground” for al-Shabab terrorist fighters and Kenya has been trying to close it down since 2013. But the United Nations and its army of human rights activists counter by saying the Kenyan government has never presented any proof that terror attacks are actually being launched from the camp.
On Friday, Kenyan officials said the international community should take responsibility for the needs of the refugees. That could mean the United States and other wealthy countries will be saddled with the burden of taking in even more Somali refugees than they are currently absorbing.
Kenya has hosted refugees since 1991 in response to people fleeing Islamic-inspired civil wars in neighboring East African countries.
But with no end in sight to those wars the burden on Kenya has been crushing. Not only in terms of national security but economically and environmentally.
“Imagine the environmental impact of 600,000 indigent human beings with their trash and sewage and water needs all in one place in Africa? You can’t just dismiss that,” says Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog.
The U.S. already takes in 700 to 750 Somali refugees per month or about 8,000 per year and has taken more than 132,000 since 1983. The arrival of 10,000 Syrian refugees this year has also sparked heavy criticism and resistance from more than a dozen states, making it difficult for the Obama administration to fulfill its goal on time, although it says it does not need the permission of state governments to seed U.S. cities with refugees.
Obama plans to resettle 85,000 foreign refugees in the U.S. this fiscal year from all countries.
As soon as the refugees arrive in some U.S. towns they are brought into the fold of the far left groups and Muslim groups such as CAIR, the Council for American-Islamic Relations.
In St. Louis for instance, CAIR recently put on a luncheon for newly arrived Syrian refugees providing food boxes and other essentials along with information about the area, even sending a bus to come pick them up and drop them off at the event.
“CAIR is just trying to co-opt them quickly, bringing them into the political system, to just suck them into the local mosque the local political scene,” Corcoran said. “The Syrians were somewhat frightened, they didn’t know what this was all about.”
Refugees are given a green card within one year of arrival and placed on a fast track to full U.S. citizenship within five years.
The largest chunk of funding for the refugee program flows to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It has a budget of 2.2 billion for 2017, but that does not count the massive welfare expenditures required by refugees. No less than 91 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps, according to government statistics.
The Somali government has also been working in recent months to encourage Somalis who have left the country to return and rebuild the nation. Signs of an increasingly stable government have been talked about in diplomatic circles for months but al-Shabab still carries out periodic deadly attacks.
“The Somali government is gradually trying to encourage everyone to come back to Somalia, and that would be tough on Somalia but it would push out al Shabab,” Corcoran said. “In Somalia you have all these clans warring against each other so they don’t ever advance their society because they don’t stop fighting each other. So we’re taking them into Western societies, the U.S., Canada, Britain, Sweden. That’s what it boils down to is we’re taking them because they can’t get along with each other.
“But if Somalia wants to bring back it’s people, then why are we still taking them to the U.S?”
That’s a question every American ought to be asking their congressmen and congresswomen, she said.
According to the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Processing Center database, Kenya is in the top three countries from where the U.S. gets its refugees. The numbers for the first seven months of fiscal 2016 are as follows:
Malaysia (4,694)
Kenya (3,280)
Turkey (2,692)
All three of the top refugee processing countries – Malaysia, Kenya and Turkey – involve primarily Muslim refugees.
And the U.S. takes Somali refugees from other places besides Kenya. They come from Malaysia, Malta, Austria, Turkey and just about anywhere to which Somalis have fled.
If the Kenyan camps are indeed closed down, Corcoran believes that will lead to a surge of even more Somalis coming to the U.S.
Human rights activists told DW.com that they want Kenya to integrate its refugees rather than keep them holed up in camps.
Closing the camps and sending the refugees back would be “reckless,” they said.
“But integrating 328,000 Shariah-compliant Somali refugees into a largely Christian Kenya would prove more than reckless. It would amount to national suicide,” Corcoran said.
“That’s just like wiping your own country out, to integrate that many people, and then they would eventually become voting citizens of Kenya. Pretty soon there would be no Kenya because they would outvote the Kenyans,” she said.
“We’re going to see enormous changes in Europe in the next decade or two because of this same trend.”
“The government of the Republic of Kenya, having taken into consideration its national security interests, has decided that hosting of refugees has to come to an end,” said a statement released by Kibicho, the Interior Ministry official.
Kibicho said the voluntary repatriation process of sending Somali refugees back to Somalia has been very slow.
wnd.com/2016/05/kenya-closing-refugee-camp-thats-breeding-ground-for-terror/
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Mogadishu Attack: Police and Civilians Killed In Terrorist Attack, Civilians Shot By Police
MAY 9, 2016
Terror struck Somalia yesterday with the Mogadishu attack, where police and civilians were killed. At least three police officers and two civilians are dead, with more civilians wounded.
Authorities have confirmed that al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-aligned Islamic jihadist faction operating in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. The Mogadishu attack saw at least five people, including civilians, killed in a double-barreled strike on Mogadishu’s police station. Multiple gunmen shot at the police headquarters while a suicide bomber drove a car close to the building before triggering the deadly explosion. Mogadishu officials have said that three police were killed by al-Shabaab militants in the initial gun attack at the station, while the two civilians were shot dead by police officers responding to gunfire in a nearby street.
According to News 24, two gunmen and the suicide bomber also perished in the Mogadishu attack, and the police officers responsible for shooting two civilians dead have been arrested for questioning.
“Islamic jihadists killed three police officers in a bomb and gun attack on a police station in the Somali capital on Monday,” said their report on the Mogadishu attack. “A suicide car bomber and a gunman also died, as did two civilians, apparently shot by police responding to the attack claimed by Somalia’s al-Qaeda-aligned Shebaab. Other civilians were also wounded.”
Abdifatah Omar Halane, the spokesperson for the Mogadishu city administration, confirmed that three police officers died in yesterday’s attack, and the officers who shot two civilians have been arrested.
“The attack involved two Shabaab members, one of them driving a car loaded with explosives, and another tried to storm the police headquarters but was shot dead,” Halane added. “We have lost three policemen.”
Somalia’s famine-stricken capital is no stranger to terror strikes like yesterday’s Mogadishu attack, when police and civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Mogadishu at the city police station. Al-Shabaab militants launch regular attacks in Mogadishu with an aim to overthrow the city’s internationally-backed government.
A month ago, Al-Shabaab militants launched a bloody attack in Mogadishu in which three people, including a child, were killed in a car bomb blast outside a restaurant. The two Islamic jihadists involved in that Mogadishu attack were executed thereafter. In November, Al-Shabaab terrorists claimed responsibility for bringing down a Somalian jet using a laptop bomb planted prior to take-off. Mail & Guardian Africa reports that Shabaab rebels have extended their attack plots to neighboring Kenya as well as retaining an intensive terror campaign in Mogadishu.
“Shabaab rebels have carried out repeated attacks in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya as part of their fight to overthrow the country’s internationally-backed government, as well as the African Union troops supporting it, which include Kenyan soldiers,” reports M&G Africa. “Shabaab leaders have vowed to bring down the Somali government, which is supported by the international community and defended by the African Union’s 22,000-strong AMISOM mission.”
Journalists, government officials, businessmen, and politicians are frequently targeted by the East-Africa branch of militant Islamic extremists. In December last year, a Mogadishu journalist was killed when a car bomb planted by Shabaab detonated upon starting the engine.
“Hindiyo Haji Mohamed, a journalist with the national television station, SNTV, was returning home from university when the bomb detonated,” reported M&G Africa. “Mohamed’s late husband, also a journalist with the same television station, was killed in a suicide attack on a Mogadishu restaurant in 2012.”
Yesterday’s Mogadishu attack, when police and civilians were killed in a terrorist attack, is yet another tragic instance of Islamic jihadist terrorism enacted by al-Qaeda’s eastern Africa faction. Investigations into the Shabaab terror attack are underway by local authorities.
inquisitr.com/3077750/mogadishu-attack-police-and-civilians-killed-in-terrorist-attack-civilians-shot-by-police/
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Muslim Dignitaries meet in their 4th Congress
Tue, May 10 2016
The three day event which begins this Monday 9th May 2016 has been organized to calve out the necessary strategies needed to combat terrorism in Africa and Cameroon in particular.
Prior to the congress, the General Coordinator of the Council of Imams and Muslim Dignitaries CIMD Dr Moussa Oumarou has called on Muslim faithful to be promoters of peace and security which to him is needed in this era where terrorism is at its peak.
During the congress, the Muslim dignitaries will to be drilled on the different types of terrorist movements in Africa and how to avoid being part of them.
The conference is in prelude to the Nigerian summit on the Fight Against Boko Haram that will soon begin few days from now.
crtv.cm/fr/latest-news/journal-national-1/muslim-dignitaries-meet-in-their-4th-congress-17153.htm
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South Asia
99 militants, 8 policemen killed amid surging violence in the country
Tue May 10 2016
At least 99 militants and 8 Afghan policemen were killed amid surging violence across the country in the past 24 hours.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) in a statement said “In past 24 hours, Afghan National Police conducted 31 anti-terrorism joint operations with Afghan National Army and NDS to clear some of the areas from terrorists and enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan.”
The operations were conducted in Kunar, Nangarhar, Parwan, Logar, Maidan Wardak, Dai Kundi, Kandahar, Zabul, Oruzgan, Helmand, Herat, Sar-e-Pul, Jowzjan, Kunduz and Takhar provinces.
The statement by MoI further added “as a result 99 armed Taliban was killed, 55 wounded and nine others were arrested by joint forces.”
According to MoI, the armed Taliban suffered the heaviest casualty in Mardian district of northern Jowzjan province.
“Also, during these operations, joint forces discovered and confiscated two rocket launchers with 47 rocket-propelled grenades, 31 mortars, 100 kilos of IEDs, 18 different types of rifles, nine AK-47 rifles, one bomb launcher, 100 different types of IEDs and 14 motorbikes,” the statement added.
MoI also added “Unfortunately, during these operations, eight Afghan National Police officers were martyred and 16 others were wounded.”
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the reports so far.
khaama.com/99-militants-8-policemen-killed-amid-surging-violence-in-the-country-0893
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Hamidullah Was Aware Of Rabbani Assassination Secrets: Jamiat-e-Islami
Mon May 09 2016
The Jamiat-e-Islami party of Afghanistan has said Hamidullah was keeping more secrets regarding the assassination of the former Afghan President and high peace council chief Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Hamidullah was among the six terrorists executed by the Afghan government for terror offences on Sunday.
However, Jamiat-e-Islami has said Hamidullah was executed without informing the family and party before executing him, emphasizing that he had a key role in assassinating the former president.
According to a statement by Jamiat-e-Islami, Hamidullah brought the suicide bomber from Kandahar to Kabul where he was kept in a government guesthouse before he was sent to the residence of Rabbani to execute the attack.
The statement further added that the horrific attack on Rabbani required and still requires step by step and thorough investigation.
The party called on the government of national unity to launch a thorough investigation to find out regarding the ‘known and hidden’ perpetrators of the attack.
The statement also added that the government should launch an investigation regarding the target killings of Jamiat-e-Islami leaders who were assassinated in the past 15 years.
The government sources unveiled the details of the executed terrorists late on Sunday, hours after they were hanged for terror offences.
Hamidullah was identified as a Taliban group member who was involved in plotting an attack on former president and high peace council chief Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Rabbani was assassinated by a suicide bomber who had disguised himself as a peace messenger, representing the Taliban group.
The attack was carried out inside his residence in capital Kabul on the evening of 20th September 2011.
khaama.com/hamidullah-was-aware-of-rabbani-assassination-secrets-jamiat-e-islami-0888
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5 militants killed, 2 wounded in Kunduz airstrike
Tue May 10 2016
Afghan-Air-Force2At least five militants were killed and two others were wounded in an airstrike in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the airstrike was carried out in Chardara district of Kunduz, targeting a vehicle of the anti-government armed militants.
According to a statement by MoD, the vehicle was damaged in the raid, leaving five militants dead and two others wounded.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far.
The Afghan forces have stepped up raids against the militants in Kunduz province to suppress their insurgency activities following an attempt by Taliban to recapture the strategic Kunduz city.
At least 6 militants were killed during a night raid conducted by the Afghan commandos in this province last month.
The Afghan National Security Forces arrested a military chief of the Taliban group, Qari Salim, arrested during a special night raid late last month.
Qari Salim was a key leader of the Taliban group who played a vital role in the collapse of Kunduz city last year.
khaama.com/5-militants-killed-2-wounded-in-kunduz-airstrike-0891
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Afghan forces rescue Gilani’s son 3 years after he was kidnapped in Pakistan
Tue May 10 2016
Ali Haidar GilaniThe Afghan National Security Forces have rescued the son of Yousuf RAza Gilani, former Pakistani Prime Minister, three years after he was kidnapped from Pakistan and was reported taken to Afghanistan, it has been reported.
“In an operation by Afghan Special Forces in Ghanzi Province this morning, Mr. Ali Haidar Gilani, the son of Pakistan former Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gilani was recovered after 3 years of captivity from an Al-Qaeda affiliated group,” a statement by the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad said.
The statement further added “He is well and will be repatriated to his family soon. Earlier I called Mr. Yusuf Reza Gilani and informed him about the good news. He was ecstatically delighted as expected and grateful of President Ghani’s personal attention to his son’s safe release. He also thanked the Afghan Security Forces for bringing a happy ending to a dreadful family saga for them.”
According to the local media reports, Ali Haidar Gilani was recovered from the southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan during a joint operation by Afghan and US forces.
Citing the official sources, the reports further added that Afghan National Security Adviser, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, in a telephone call to Prime Minister’s senior aide Sartaj Aziz confirmed the release of Gilani.
Meanwhile, the Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, tweeted that “PM Yousuf Raza Gilani received a call from ambassador of Afghanistan. His son Haider Gilani has been recovered in a successful operation.”
Gilani was kidnapped by gunmen during an attack in Farrkhabad, near the Matital Road in Multan, in May 2013.
His two associates were killed during the kidnapping which took place on 9th May as he was contesting for the general election from PPP-200 constituency in Multan., according to the reports.
The family of Gilani is reported to be one of the most powerful in the central town of Multan and a key clan in the PPP, whose campaign for re-election had been dramatically curtailed by Tehrik-i-Taliban threats at the time.
khaama.com/afghan-forces-rescue-gilanis-son-3-years-after-he-was-kidnapped-in-pakistan-0895
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Afghan forces facing terrorists supported by neighboring intelligence: Stanikzai
Tue May 10 2016
Masoom StanikzaiThe former acting minister of defense and acting head of the Afghan intelligence Masoom Stanikzai said the Afghan forces are facing threats posed by terrorists who are receiving support from the neighboring intelligence.
Stanikzai was speaking during a gathering in Kabul to introduce the acting NDS chief and acting Minister of Defense.
Without elaborating further on which neighboring country’s intelligence agency is supporting the terrorists fighting in Afghanistan, Stanikzai said the NDS operatives are always on alert to foil conspiracies against the national stability of the country.
Stanikzai called the NDS operatives a ‘Silent Force’ who are always prepared to fight against the foreign conspiracies.
He promised President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah and the Afghan people to use all efforts to protect the country against the threats posed by the terror groups.
According to Stanizkai, the Afghan forces successfully passed through a challenging year with the lack of necessary equipment to fight the insurgents.
He said the Afghan forces are well prepared to suppress the terrorists in the country by receiving more equipment from the international partners.
Hailing the coalition forces for supporting the Afghan forces in training and equipment process, Stanikzai said the Afghan people and Ulemas should support the Afghan forces as they continue to thwart the conspiracies of enemies of Afghanistan.
khaama.com/afghan-forces-facing-terrorists-supported-by-neighboring-intelligence-stanikzai-0894
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Ghani off to Tajikistan as CASA-1000 expected to be inaugurated
Tue May 10 2016
Ashraf GhaniPresident Mohammad Ashraf Ghani left for Tajikistan on a two-day state visit to meet with the country’s officials and sign certain agreements between the two nations.
The Office of the President in a statement said President Ghani will meet with Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon, Tajikistan Prime and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The statement further added that President Ghani will have separate meetings with the officials to expand ties between Kabul and Dushanbe.
The agreements will be signed by the officials of the two countries and in the presence of the presidents of the two nations, the statement added.
President Ghani will also deliver a speech to the students and lecturers of the national university of Tajikistan.
Foreign Affairs Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, Minister of Energy and Water Ali Ahmad Osmani, Attorney General Farid Hamidi and the Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat Chief Qudratullah Delawari are accompanying President Ghani during his visit to Tajikistan.
This comes as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last month that the $1.17 billion CASA-1000 power project will be inaugurated by the officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
A statement by MoFA said the project will be inaugurated on 12th May as per the request of Tajikistan officials, adding that the inauguration ceremony will be attended by high level government officials of the four nations as well as representative of the donor countries and financial supporters of the project.
khaama.com/ghani-off-to-tajikistan-as-casa-1000-expected-to-be-inaugurated-0892
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Salang chosen for TUTAP based on development and economic rationality: Ghani
Tue May 10 2016
Ghani on TUTAPPresident Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said the government has chosen Salang as TUTAP project route based on development and economic rationality.
In a video message following mass demonstrations for changing the route of the project from Bamyan to Salang, President Ghani urged that the people should not compromise with the key national development projects through emotionally and politically.
President Ghani further added that much time was consumed for the study of the project and a key donor of the project which is the Asian Development Bank has asked to implement it.
He said the government is committed to ensure the supply of electricity to Bamyan province, emphasizing that the country is facing lack of budget to finance the development projects.
The remarks by Ghani comes as thousands of people organized demonstrations in Bamyan and Kabul provinces to protest against the change of the route of TUTAP, besides several politicians have called on the government to reconsider its decision and ensure justice in implementation of development projects.
A prominent political leader and second deputy to Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Mohaqiq has warned to stop cooperation with the government if the 500kV mega power project is not implemented via Bamyan province.
The Second Vice President Mohammad Sarwar Danish first expressed concerns regarding the implementation of the project via Salang.
He wrote a letter to the Ministry of Energy and Water and Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat earlier in January this year and called for technical approach to implement the project, considering the needs of the residents of the central provinces for their access to energy who have repeatedly demanded the government to ensure social justice while executing such projects.
Danish also pointed towards the survey conducted by the Fichtner Engineering Company in 2013 for a 20-year master plan of Afghanistan, a report of which was presented to the Asian Development Bank and Ministry of Energy and Water, and said the Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat is ignoring the technical views of Fichtner.
khaama.com/salang-chosen-for-tutap-based-on-development-and-economic-rationality-ghani-0889
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Bangladesh set to hang top Islamist amid tight security
10 May, 2016
DHAKA: Bangladesh police stepped up security at the capital Dhaka's main prison where the authorities are expected to hang the leader of the country's largest Islamist party for war crimes Tuesday.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, could be hanged as early as Tuesday night after the country's highest court published the final judgement upholding his execution order.
Nizami's execution would exacerbate tensions in the Muslim-majority country after a string of killings of secular and liberal activists and religious minorities by suspected Islamist militants.
"He (Nizami) will now be asked whether he would seek mercy to the president. If he does not, the government can execute him any time," Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said.
Officials read the verdict to Nizami on Monday night after he was brought to Dhaka Central Jail from a prison outside the capital, senior jailor Jahangir Kabir told reporters.
The Islamist leader did not say then whether he would seek any presidential clemency, Kabir said, and prisoners are normally given a 24-hour window after verdict publication to formally apply.
Nizami's lawyer told AFP last week that he would not seek any pardon as it would require him to admit crimes he was convicted of, including mass murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of secular intellectuals during the 1971 war of independence.
Three senior Jamaat officials and a leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been executed since December 2013 for war crimes despite global criticism of their trials. All were hanged at the jail.
"Extra policemen have been deployed at the jail," Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mofizuddin Ahmed told AFP.
Heavily armed Rapid Action Battalion officers were also dispatched, the elite squad's spokesman, Mufti Mahmud Khan, told AFP.
Since last month an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a liberal professor, a Hindu tailor who allegedly made derogatory comments against the Prophet Mohammed and a Sufi Muslim leader have been hacked to death.
Jamaat has said the charges against Nizami, a former government minister, are false and aimed at eliminating the leadership of the party.
Nizami took over as party leader in 2000 and played a key role in the victory of an Islamist-allied government in the 2001 general election.
The 1971 conflict, one of the bloodiest in world history, led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
Prosecutors said Nizami was responsible for setting up the pro-Pakistani Al-Badr militia, which killed top writers, doctors and journalists in the most gruesome chapter of the war.
Their bodies were found blindfolded with their hands tied and dumped in a marsh on the outskirts of the capital.
The trial heard Nizami ordered the killings, designed to "intellectually cripple" the fledgling nation.
He was convicted in October 2014 by the International Crimes Tribunal, which was established in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government and has sentenced more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes.
Rights groups say the trials fall short of global standards and lack international oversight, while the government says they are needed to heal the wounds of the conflict.
Amnesty International has called for an immediate halt to Nizami's execution, citing concerns over the fairness of the trials.
In 2013 the convictions of Jamaat officials triggered the country's deadliest violence in decades.
Around 500 people were killed, mainly in clashes between Islamists and police, and thousands of Islamists were arrested.
The government says up to three million people died in the 1971 war, while independent researchers put the figure at between 300,000 and 500,000.
economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/bangladesh-set-to-hang-top-islamist-amid-tight-security/articleshow/52203391.cms
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Mideast
Turkey’s Elite Force Stages Raid Against Islamic State Fighters in Syria
May 10, 2016
ISTANBUL—Turkey’s special military force carried out an unusual weekend operation against Islamic State fighters in Syria as part of an increasingly risky campaign against the extremist group, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
A small group of elite Turkish soldiers entered Syria on Saturday to help more effectively target Islamic State fighters that have been launching rocket attacks into Turkey for weeks, American officials said.
The operation is part of an evolving effort by the Turkish military to push Islamic State away from a vital 60-mile stretch of the Turkey-Syria border that serves as the group’s main lifeline.
Turkish officials didn't respond to requests for comment about the military operation. American officials said that Turkey informed the U.S.-led military coalition about the move.
The military strike came as Turkey faces increasing domestic pressure to bring a halt to Islamic State rocket attacks targeting the Turkish border town of Kilis, where at least 20 people have been killed this year by strikes from Syria.
Turkey and the U.S. have been working with Syrian rebels for weeks in an effort to push Islamic State away from the border and close off the militant group’s vital routes through Turkey used to send fighters to carry out attacks in Europe and ferry in reinforcements.
Islamic State has responded to the Turkey-U.S. operation by stepping up its rocket attacks on Kilis, the Turkish town nominated this year for a Nobel Peace Prize for accepting so many Syrian refugees.
Turkish artillery units along the border have so far failed to effectively respond to the Islamic State threat. The U.S. military is preparing to send an advanced rocket system to the Turkey-Syria border to help. But the Islamic State attacks continue to hit Kilis nearly every day.
Turkish military operations in Syria risk antagonizing President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, which is providing the Syrian leader with vital military support.
Last year, Turkey sent hundreds of troops into Syria to rescue dozens of Turkish soldiers guarding a historic Ottoman tomb that was at risk of being seized by Islamic State.
wsj.com/articles/turkeys-elite-force-stages-raid-against-islamic-state-fighters-in-syria-1462868840
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Israel Patrols Its Southern Border as ISIS Lurk in the Sinai Peninsula
May 10, 2016
As Israelis patrol the border with Egypt, they know that a group linked to ISIS is fighting the Egyptian army and would love to launch new attacks on Israel
Standing beside a Humvee with a rifle slung over her shoulder, 20-year-old Staff Sergeant Rotem Manzur shields her eyes from the merciless desert sun, and peers out over the 165-mile-long, 16-foot-high border fence separating Israel from Egypt.
About 300 meters from where she stands is an Egyptian soldier standing at his lookout post on the Egyptian side, doing the same thing Manzur is doing: keeping an eye out for ISIS-affiliated militants who have taken over a small part of the northern Sinai Peninsula.
“Look how close they are,” says Manzur, pointing to the Egyptian border post and then to the Israeli road that runs along this side of the fence. “It would be so easy for ISIS to fire on this rod,” she says, as she ponders what would happen if gunmen ambushed the Egyptian soldiers, something that has been happening almost daily elsewhere in northern Sinai.
The Egyptian soldier waves at Manzur, who gets back in her Humvee to continue her patrol. She is one of approximately 120 female combat soldiers from the Caracal battalion—Israel’s first co-ed combat unit—who stand as Israel’s first line of defense against Islamist militants in Sinai.
The Egyptian army were once Israel’s adversaries, but the rise and growth of ISIS has brought these Middle Eastern neighbors, whose peace treaty is often seen as a fragile one, much closer.
According to Israeli security officials, Egypt and Israel are now engaged in an unprecedented collaborative mission to prevent the Sinai Peninsula from becoming the next stronghold of ISIS.
“This definitely represents the closest Israel and Egypt have ever cooperated on an intelligence level,” says Avi Melamed, the Fellow of Intelligence and Middle East Affairs at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington D.C. “Israeli intelligence services do not rush to share their information with other intelligence agencies, even if it’s considered a friendly one, and especially not when it’s not friendly.”
Egyptian military activity in the Sinai was until recently prohibited by the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty, which transferred control of the Sinai from Israel to Egypt. This prohibition allowed outlaws of all kinds to operate more easily in the northern Sinai. About three years ago, Israel began permitting Egypt to deploy additional armed forces and carry out air strikes against Islamist rebels, says Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official. Israel and Egypt are now sharing intelligence, to warn each other of militant activity near the Israeli and Gazan borders.
Prior to the bombing of the Russian jet that exploded over the Sinai desert in October 2015, killing all 224 people aboard, Western security officials paid little attention to the Sinai branch of ISIS. But Egypt and Israel have watched closely as a group of Salafist militants in the Sinai established themselves as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) following the 2011 fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and proceeded to attack Egyptian and Israeli soldiers, civilians, and foreign tourists. In 2011, 13 Israelis and Egyptians were killed in a series of attacks that emanated from northern Sinai. In 2014, three South Korean tourists and an Egyptian driver were killed by a suicide bomber as they waited to cross the Taba border post between Egypt and Israel. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claimed responsibility.
A few months later, in November 2014, the group gave its allegiance to ISIS, declaring itself the Sinai Province of the Islamic State. Since then, Israeli officials say it has became larger, more organized, better armed, and better trained.
According to an Israeli army intelligence official, ISIS in Sinai has anti-tank missiles, explosive belts, rocket-propelled grenades and IEDs, and its fighters live among the local population and travel through Sinai in armored trucks.
ISIS in Sinai are still in the early stages of development, and haven’t gained control of any major population centers, as they have in Syria, Iraq and Libya, but that could change. According to the intelligence official, there is evidence of ISIS trying to establish Sharia law in some areas. Estimates of their numbers range wildly, he said, from 500 fighters to 5,000.
“It’s tough to identify someone as a member of ISIS,” says the official, because many Bedouin civilians in northern Sinai support the group, providing it with shelter, manpower, and safe passage through their territory. Most of the militants, he adds, are from local Bedouin communities, while some are from other parts of Egypt, and a smaller number may be from Gaza, Sudan and Libya.
While Bedouins are not typically religious, says Shlomo Brom, senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), they have long felt alienated by the Egyptian government, which they believe has treated them as second class citizens. That resentment was leveraged by extremists when the Mubarak regime and its prison system collapsed.
“When the Islamic radicals that were imprisoned by Mubarak escaped, many of them escaped to Sinai and brought their ideology with them,” says Brom.
Similar to ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Sinai Province is focused first and foremost on destabilizing the domestic government, so the vast majority of its attacks are aimed at Egyptian forces.
“Their agenda is fighting the Egyptian state and particularly this Egyptian regime, which is considered anti-Islamic because it replaced the Muslim Brotherhood,” Brom says, referring to the military ouster of Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Northern Sinai has been in a state of emergency since October 2014, when militants ambushed and killed 33 Egyptian security personnel. An attack by ISIS on an Egyptian checkpoint in March killed 13 policemen, and in April, the group killed 15 soldiers and two Egyptian civilians in a single day. Last week, after an Egyptian soldier was killed by a bomb, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi extended the state of emergency.
In recent months, Israeli security experts say that ISIS has signaled that it’s planning a sophisticated attack on Israel from the Sinai. Threatening messages to that effect have come directly from ISIS headquarters. In a video message released on Dec. 26, 2015, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi addresses Israel, saying, “We are getting closer to you day by day. Do not think that we have forgotten about you.”
While Israeli security experts say the danger posed by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon remains far larger than the challenge from ISIS, the warning is taken very seriously.
“This is a much larger threat than it was a year ago,” says the intelligence official. “We, of course, are not intimidated by ISIS or the Sinai Province, but we take those statements as clues to the timing of the next terror attack.”
Israel and Egypt aren’t the only ones taking precautions. The U.S. is reportedly considering reducing the number of U.S. troops participating in the Multinational Force and Observers, which monitors compliance with the 1979 peace treaty. Defense officials are contemplating ways to automate aspects of the peacekeeping mission in order to decrease the number of soldiers deployed in an increasingly dangerous area.
Until now, it was just intelligence, “but now ISIS is saying it themselves for the first time,” said Captain Ksusha Levin, a 25-year-old company commander who has served in Caracal on the Sinai border for seven years. “We know something will happen,” she says. “ISIS said they will hit Israel on the border. We don’t know what will happen, but we are preparing for when it will.”
time.com/4322544/israel-patrols-its-southern-border-as-isis-lurk-in-the-sinai-peninsula/
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Talks to repair Israeli-Turkish ties must await new government - envoy
May 10, 2016
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Long-running efforts to fully restore Israeli-Turkish ties strained after an Israeli raid of a Turkish boat in 2010 must now await the formation of a new government in Ankara, Israel's top diplomat in Turkey said.
Turkey downgraded diplomatic relations and ejected Israel's ambassador in 2011, a year after Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, part of a humanitarian aid convoy trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, and killed 10 Turks.
Israel is currently represented by Shai Cohen, its consul-general in Istanbul.
The two sides have signalled for months a deal is imminent, including compensation for the Mavi Marmara victims and an easing of the Gaza blockade.
Israeli officials said a deal was reached in December, and President Tayyip Erdogan said in March he expected positive results soon, raising hopes an agreement was imminent.
The next meeting "will have to wait until the composition of the new Turkish government on May 22," Cohen told reporters late on Monday. "I believe it will take another round or two in order to conclude the deal ... Most of the issues between Israel and Turkey are already, to a certain extent, clear."
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will step down on May 22 after a rift with Erdogan. Forming a new government could delay both domestic and foreign policy initiatives.
SYRIA AS IMPETUS
NATO member Turkey and Israel cooperated militarily beginning in the 1990s, a relationship seen as vital to Middle East stability by the United States but viewed warily by Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party, in power since 2002.
The impetus behind fixing the relationship now is security, especially with Islamic State and other jihadists in control of swathes of Syria, which Israel and Turkey both border, Cohen said. However, restoring military ties will take time, he added.
Another factor is natural gas. Energy-poor Turkey wants to pipe product from Israel's offshore Leviathan field, estimated to hold 500 billion cubic metres, for domestic use and export.
"Everyone is looking forward to see how Israel can export to Turkey, and through Turkey to the West, natural gas," he said.
Cohen ruled out lifting the sea blockade on Gaza in place since 2007, calling it a "non-issue," even though Erdogan has repeatedly made it a condition for restoring relations.
Talks instead focus on how Turkey can bring its goods overland to rebuild Gaza, whose infrastructure has been battered by the blockade and Israeli incursions. About half of building goods in Gaza are from Turkey, and this could be increased in line with Israel's capacity to monitor shipments, Cohen said.
Israel wants to ensure that Turkish supplies do not amount to cooperation with Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Israel accuses Turkey of hosting a Hamas command centre and wants Ankara to bar leaders of the Islamist group. Erdogan met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Istanbul as recently as December.
swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters/talks-to-repair-israeli-turkish-ties-must-await-new-government---envoy/42144560
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Two police officers killed in Turkey’s east
Tue May 10 2016
Two police officers were killed on May 10 in an explosion as they disposing of a bomb in the eastern province of Van.
An explosion occurred while police officers were trying to defuse explosives placed on a road in the İpekyolu district by outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.
Two police officers were killed and one police officer was wounded in the explosion.
An air-supported operation has begun in the region.
hurriyetdailynews.com/two-police-officers-killed-in-turkeys-east.aspx?pageID=238&nID=98965&NewsCatID=341
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Domestic drones to be used against terror: Top commander
Tue May 10 2016
Turkey will begin to employ indigenous armed drones in the fight against terror, the chief commander of the Turkish Armed Forces reportedly told President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during a cabinet meeting on May 2.
Developments in the fight against terror were reportedly a major topic during the meeting, which was held amid rising tensions within the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over a growing rift between a constitutionally bipartisan president and the party’s leader Davutoğlu, only two days after the latter’s powers to appoint provincial and district heads for the party were withdrawn by the AKP’s 50-seat Central Decision and Executive Board’s (MKYK).
Sources indicated Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar briefed the country’s political leadership on indigenous attack helicopters and armed drones, as well as updates on the army’s fight against terror.
Indigenous armed drones, which are being produced by two different companies, have reportedly performed well in recent tests and will soon be employed in armed forces operations. The drones will be introduced step-by-step, according to sources.
Meanwhile, reports claimed the locally-made drones were superior to the unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States in terms of their performance during unfavorable weather conditions. Turkey currently employs four U.S. armed drones based in the İncirlik Air Base in the southern province of Adana for use in its anti-terror operations.
Previous reports said long-range anti-tank UMTAS missiles were put on both wings of the indigenous drones, each weighing some 37.5 kilograms, and successfully hit targets eight kilometers away from an altitude of 16,000 feet (around 5,000 meters).
Armed drones have recently attracted increased attention, as the southeastern border province of Kilis has been hit by a series of rocket attacks originating from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-held territories in northern Syria.
Turkey’s top defense procurement official and head of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), İsmail Demir, recently told daily Hürriyet that armed drones could be employed for the protection of Kilis.
“It is difficult to detect and fight with them [rockets] technologically ahead of their firing. There are several countries which are in an active fight with such early systems, but even their systems reach partial success. The best method is to develop and have a capability that will monitor the region which is under threat and to hit this target immediately. Armed drones constitute a good example here,” Demir said, during an exclusive interview at the protection hub of Turkey’s Roketsan.
“The point is here to be able to make products with the capability of destroying and monitoring with receptivity of higher quality at home. Our aim is to reach 100 percent locality in such products, as the dependability on foreign sources in these fields is always a problem,” he added.
hurriyetdailynews.com/domestic-drones-to-be-used-against-terror-top-commander.aspx?pageID=238&nID=98956&NewsCatID=341
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Pakistan
Mustafa Kamal vows to name eight Altaf aides linked with RAW
Tue May 10, 2016
SUKKUR: Hours after being attacked by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activists here late on Sunday evening, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) leader Syed Mustafa Kamal vowed to expose at least eight senior MQM leaders who, along with its chief Altaf Hussain, held four meetings with RAW (Indian intelligence agency Research & Analysis Wing) to seek funding for their party.
Speaking to the media in a local hotel on Monday, Mr Kamal continuing his outburst against Altaf Hussain and his close aides, lashed out at them for having “bargained over Karachi” and warned the government and the nation that the country’s jugular vein was in the hands of “RAW agents”.
“These agents have been receiving funds from RAW for the last 22 years and destroying peace in Karachi,” he alleged, and stressed that if the Pakistani authorities wanted to ensure a lasting peace in the city, they would have to get “Altaf Hussain’s salary” stopped.
“We [PSP leaders] have remained closely associated with Hussain and his accomplices and we know all ins and outs of the party,” he said.
He claimed that it was actually RAW, that had been paralysing Karachi off and on without making its appearance anywhere in the city. RAW targeted Karachi because it was on top of the list of cities with high education standards in the world. It {RAW] managed to push the metropolis to No.43 by disturbing peace and engaging educated people in subversive activities, he added.
The PSP leader said his party would make efforts to help get due status of not Karachi alone but also Hyderabad, Sukkur and other parts of the country affected due to various other reasons.
Clarifying some reports aired by some private TV channels after an attack on PSP activists by an unruly group of activists, Mr Kamal said: “We have not lodged an FIR against the attackers who pelted my caravan with stones.” He said he restrained his supporters from reacting to the attack or lodging an FIR because the attackers were those who had been misled but were very likely to part their ways with anti-state elements. “We are here to rescue them,” he added.
Mr Kamal also announced his party’s plan to open its office in London as well.
Earlier on Sunday evening, he and other PSP leaders including Anis Qaimkhani, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, Ashfaq Manghi addressed a public meeting at Shikarpur crossing within the city. Several local political activists led by Syed Sultan Shah announced their joining of the PSP.
PSP’s first protest demo
In what was seen as its first public protest after being attacked several a times in different parts of Sindh, the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) organised a demonstration outside the Sukkur Press Club on Monday against “unruly activists” of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) who pelted a caravan of PSP leaders, including former Karachi mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal, with stones late on Sunday evening.
The protest was led by Nazeer Gopang, Aamir Baloch and Majid Shaikh. The participants raising slogans against the attackers “misled by RAW agents Altaf Hussain and some of his close aide”. They said such aggressive actions by pro-Altaf elements could no deter Mr Kamal from disseminating truth about those commanding the MQM from abroad and working for a halt to repression against the misled workers of that party.
The protesters expressed their full support to Mr Kamal in his mission of ridding the Urdu-speaking community of the bad image given by the London-based RAW agents. They also raised slogans against RAW and demanded action against the agents according to the Constitution.
Speaking to the media, the PSP activists said that Altaf Hussain and his misled supporters were disappointed by the large scale defections in the MQM and they had resorted to physically attacking the defectors. “Wherever the pro-Altaf activists come across a PSP caravan, they become unruly,” they said, adding that such attacks were reflective of their fear that the PSP was rapidly gaining popularity.
dawn.com/news/1257368/mustafa-kamal-vows-to-name-eight-altaf-aides-linked-with-raw
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Recruitment of Muslim sweepers affects cleanliness at KP hospitals
Tue May 10, 2016
PESHAWAR: The appointment of Muslims as sweepers on political basis has been badly affecting cleanliness at the public sector hospitals of the province as most of them think it against their status to brush latrines, according to sources.
They said that cleanliness situation was better in the hospitals where Christians were recruited as sweepers because they had been doing the job since migration of their forefathers from Punjab more than 50 years ago.
“The hospitals are finding it hard to maintain cleanliness due to the recruitment of Muslims on the posts of sweepers by ministers and politicians. They don’t perform their duty,” sources said.
Recently, district health officers (DHO) and medical superintendents in a monthly meeting informed the provincial health secretary about the need for Christian sweepers for better cleanliness in the basic health units, dispensaries and district headquarters hospitals. They complained that Muslims were not fit for the posts of sweepers.
About 800 Christians work as sweepers at govt hospitals in KP
“The people, who are supposed to maintain cleanliness, have refused to work and the secretary has sought a detailed report on the issue from the DHOs,” said a senior doctor.
Sources said that the job was done in a befitting manner by Christian sweepers but during the last 20 years various governments appointed their own people on the posts reserved for minority. It deteriorated cleanliness condition at government hospitals, they added.
Sources said that most of the hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were facing a daunting task to ensure cleanliness of toilets for patients but even those located in the wards and OPDs etc were in bad shape.
Shahid Ghauri, provincial vice president of Class-IV (minority) Employees Association, told Dawn that Christians faced plethora of problems as government appointed Muslim men and women as sweepers that affected their youths, who had no other job. Sikh and Hindu were also appointed as sweepers, he said.
Mr Ghauri said government reserved five per cent quota for Christian sweepers in promotion to the rank of clerk, lab technician and dispenser etc but they were never upgraded.
“We have appealed to the court in 2013 that the health department should be directed to give posts of sweepers only to the Christians. The directives were issued but politicians continued to defy the order and induct their own people, who weren’t ready to use brush in wards due to which their colleagues were burdened with work,” he added.
Sources said that about 800 Christians worked in government hospitals in the province.
Lady Reading Hospital has an estimated 180 Christians, Khyber Teaching Hospital 140 and Hayatabad Medical Complex has 125 Christians while districts of Charsadda, Mardan, Bannu, Kohat, Swat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan have five to 10 Christian sweepers because the posts were occupied by local people.
Sources said that other districts had few Christian sweepers owing to which in many health facilities tiled bathrooms and toilets were not functioning.
Of the total 2,718 sweepers in the province, 1,938 work in three teaching hospitals in Peshawar and one in Abbottabad while 780 are responsible for cleaning in health facilities in all districts.
Nabi Amin, provincial president of Class-IV Employees Association, told Dawn said that LRH terminated the services of Muslim sweepers, who were not performing their duty. “We want the Christians on the posts of sweepers in hospitals,” he said.
Mr Amin said that they faced crisis because Muslim sweepers either didn’t work or performed other duties like that of computer operators and technicians while the Christian sweepers endured the additional workload. “We want health professional allowance on pattern of doctors, nurses and paramedics for more than 17,000 Class-IV employees working in the province’s hospitals,” he added.
dawn.com/news/1257403/recruitment-of-muslim-sweepers-affects-cleanliness-at-kp-hospitals
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Two policemen killed in explosion outside Balochistan University
Tue May 10, 2016
QUETTA: Two policemen were killed, and five people injured in an explosion outside the gate of Balochistan University on Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
"Two policemen were killed and five people including three policemen were injured in the blast," Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti told DawnNews.
The minister said the explosion occurred outside the gate of Balochistan University, where security personnel were deployed, adding that the nature of the blast is not yet known.
Emergency services were dispatched to the area and the injured have been shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta. Law enforcement forces have cordoned off the area.
The bodies of the slain policemen were also transported to the hospital, where senior doctors were called in to treat the injured. An emergency was declared in the hospital.
Militants have conducted attacks against security forces and national installations in Balochistan, which has been plagued by an insurgency and growing sectarian killings for more than a decade.
dawn.com/news/1257482/two-policemen-killed-in-explosion-outside-balochistan-university
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Five TTP militants arrested near Sutlej
Tue May 10, 2016
BAHAWALPUR: The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), in a major operation near the Sutlej river here, claimed to have arrested five militants of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
A CTD spokesman said, on a tip-off teams rushed to railway’s Empress Bridge over Sutlej and arrested Usman, Nauman, Abdul Hameed, Skindar Ilyas and Mohibullah.
The spokesman claimed the alleged militants had planned a major sabotage activity in which they wanted to damage the railways bridge on the main Karachi-Lahore section. The officials teams recovered five improvised explosives devices (IEDs) along with ammunition and arms. Civil defence officer Ms Fatimah said the bomb disposal squad rushed to the scene and defused the five IEDs.
dawn.com/news/1257465/five-ttp-militants-arrested-near-sutlej
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Police find ‘missing’ Chinese engineer in Lahore mosque
Tue May 10, 2016
SAHIWAL: The Chinese engineer who had “gone missing” during a visit to Pakpattan to see his in-laws last Friday, was traced and taken in custody by police from a mosque in Lahore, where he was doing a six-day ‘chilla’ – a spiritual practice of penance and solitude – under a religious organisation.
His “recovery” was made after 70-hour hectic police efforts, involving GPS tracking and leg work.
Pakpattan District Police Officer Kamran Yousaf told Dawn on Monday that the Engineer Muhammad Yousaf, whose Chinese name was Yeuhi, had gone to do Chilla at a mosque in Lahore’s Township area without even informing his wife Sumera, a resident of Shahidi Mohalla, Pakpattan.
Yousaf is working at Coal-Fired Power Plant, Bin Qasim Port, Karachi. According to sources, police have taken engineer into custody from Lahore and would bring him back to Pakpattan soon.
Sumera filed a complaint with Pakpattan city police station, saying her husband had gone missing. Acting on the complaint, SHO Saif Ullah filed an FIR (187/16) against unknown “kidnappers”.
After initial inquiries, DPO formed a team to trace the engineer. The team included DSP Shahida Noureen, SHOs Saifur Rehman and Nadeem Iqbal, security branch in charge Abdul Malik and Muhamad Khurram.
Using Yousaf’s mobile phone calls data, police came to know that the Chinese national got converted to Islam after being in touch with Tableeghi Jamaat through one Haji Iqbal of Mazdoor Puli, Sahiwal.
Later, Haji Iqbal also arranged his marriage with a girl from Pakpttan in February 2016.
The investigators, focusing on Yousaf’s Tableeghi Jamaat connections, contacted Raiwind Markaz, the organisation’s headquarters in Lahore. The Markaz provided police with the list of all individuals who had gone for Chilla to different locations in Punjab, which included Yousaf’s name.
During a raid, police found the Chinese engineer at Masjid Al Qudis, Township, A-block, Lahore.
The DPO categorically denied that Yousaf was kidnapped.
“I thank God that my husband is safe”, Sumera told Dawn on phone.
Sources said Yousaf was visiting Pakpattan for completion of documents required for his wife’s travel to China.
dawn.com/news/1257466/police-find-missing-chinese-engineer-in-lahore-mosque
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Europe
Phone tap led police to Belgian Islamic State cell, court hears
May 10, 2016
A series of bugged, coded communications over two months led Belgian police to storm a suspected Islamic State cell in the town of Verviers last year, thwarting an alleged plot, a Brussels court heard on Monday.
One unidentified conspirator used the cover name "Fatty"; another in the plot which Belgian authorities have said intended to target police officers, went by the handle "Big Lanky".
Among seven accused present on the first day of a terrorism trial that began in Brussels under heavy security seven weeks after suicide bombers killed 32 people in the capital was Marouan El Bali. He survived the gunfight in January 2015 when police shot dead two armed men who had returned from fighting with IS in Syria.
In summarising the case against the 16 accused, nine of whom are still at large, the judge offered details of how security services had used telephone taps to help combat a potential threat from more than 300 Belgians who have fought in Syria.
In a tapped call in November 2014 an unidentified man told another who was on a police watchlist: "I've got everything."
Six months after a first Islamist attack in Belgium, when a Frenchman shot dead four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum, that was enough to set off an intensive monitoring operation. It led to the Verviers raid, a week after Islamist attacks on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish grocery had shocked Europe.
The judge said investigators had heard cryptic messages, some from Turkey and Greece, to various alleged members of the Belgian cell, including those named Fatty and Big Lanky.
Among those involved was Abdelhamid Abaaoud from Brussels, who fought with Islamic State in Syria and is believed to have been an organiser of several attacks in Europe, including those in Paris last Nov. 13. Abaaoud was killed in a gunbattle with French police five days after militants killed 130 people.
Criticised by some for failing to prevent the March 22 IS suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city's metro, Belgian leaders have highlighted the operation at Verviers, a rundown industrial town near German border, as a major success.
As well as the two dead gunmen, both from Brussels' Arab immigrant community, police found assault rifles, bomb-making material and items of Belgian police uniform. Abaaoud later boasted online that he had eluded capture and returned to Syria.
El Bali, who was found in the safehouse, has protested his innocence. His lawyer told reporters outside the court on Monday that he had merely been visiting a childhood friend.
He is accused of being a leader in a terrorist group, attempted murder, making and keeping of bombs and planning an attack on a non-specified building, his lawyer said. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
in.reuters.com/article/europe-attacks-verviers-idINKCN0Y01VG
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One Dead, 3 Injured after Stabbing near Munich
Tue May 10, 2016
TEHRAN (FNA)- A knife attack at a train station outside Munich in the early hours of Tuesday morning has claimed the life of one victim and three other people were injured.
In a statement to reporters, the press spokesperson for the Bavarian state police said the 27-year-old attacker stabbed the first victim in a waiting train at the Grafing S-Bahn station at around 4:50 a.m., Deutsche Welle reported.
The suspect then fled the train and stabbed a second person on the train platform. Afterward, the attacker hastily left the station and stabbed two other men who were cycling by outside. Police arrived soon after the incident and were able to overpower the man and take him into custody.
Police spokesperson said the knife used had a 10-cm blade and added that the man was not registered as a resident of Bavaria. Grafing is a town in the suburbs East of Munich.
Segerer said the man had made "politically motivated" statements but would not confirm what was believed to be said.
en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950221000872
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London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Religious Extremism, Brexit and Donald Trump
May 9, 2016
Sadiq Khan, 45, was declared the new mayor of London in the early hours of Saturday, becoming the most powerful Muslim politician in Europe. A Transport Minister in the Labour government of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Khan came under severe attack during the campaign from his Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, for sharing platforms with extremists during his earlier career as a human-rights lawyer.
Fresh from his victory, Khan sat down with TIME on Sunday in his new office in City Hall, a bulbous glass building overlooking Tower Bridge. In these excerpts from the conversation, Khan claims he is the “antidote” to extremism, reveals that the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency might force him to meet U.S. mayors before the end of the year, and explains why he’s campaigning to keep the U.K. in the European Union ahead of June’s In/Out referendum.
You’re the first Muslim mayor of a major western city. Do you feel an extra responsibility to tackle religious extremism?
One of the things that’s important to me as a Londoner is making sure my family, people I care about, are safe. But clearly, being someone who is a Muslim brings with it experiences that I can use in relation to dealing with extremists and those who want to blow us up. And so it’s really important that I use my experiences to defeat radicalization and extremism. What I think the election showed was that actually there is no clash of civilization between Islam and the West. I am the West, I am a Londoner, I’m British, I’m of Islamic faith, Asian origin, Pakistan heritage, so whether it’s [ISIS] or these others who want to destroy our way of life and talk about the West, they’re talking about me. What better antidote to the hatred they spew than someone like me being in this position?
How do you win around impressionable young Muslims who could be lured into extremism?
You say to youngsters you can be British, Muslim and successful. You point to successful British role models. The biggest export we’ve got is [former One Direction singer] Zayn Malik. The most successful British sports person ever is Mohamed Farah, a double Olympic champion and a world-record holder. Who won the Great British Bake Off? Nadiya Hussain. We can point to, when we speak to young Brits of Islamic faith, successful role models. You can go in to business, you can go in to medicine, you can go to politics, dare I say it. So, when somebody comes along and tries to brainwash them with a sort of nihilistic view of life and say the way to get success in this world and the hereafter is to get a Kalashnikov and go to commit — in inverted commas — jihad is to say, “you know what? That’s not true.”
The Conservatives linked you to extremists in what has been viewed as one of the most vicious campaigns ever waged in the U.K. How did that feel?
My experience in relation to taking on the preachers of hate was saying to them it’s compatible being British, being Western, being Muslim. I’ve experienced the receiving end of this extremism, whether it’s the extremists campaigning against me when I stood for Parliament in 2005 and 2010 and 2015, saying somehow it was haram — sinful — to vote, let alone to stand for Parliament. I’ve been on the receiving end of a fatwa when fighting for equality in relation to same sex marriage [in 2013], so I understand what that’s like.
Do you think London’s reputation has been damaged by such a divisive campaign?
London chose to come out in record numbers, the highest turnout there’s ever been in a mayoral election, and — I say this not with arrogance it is what others have said — the single biggest mandate a British politician has ever received. That shows what a wonderful city we are. We’re not simply tolerating each other — you tolerate a toothache, I don’t want to be tolerated. We respect, we embrace, and we celebrate, which is fantastic.
You accused the Conservatives of using a “Donald Trump playbook.” What’s your view on a potential Trump presidency given his remarks on Muslims?
Clearly [I’ll visit] before January in case Donald Trump wins … Hope, I think, is a good way of persuading people to vote for you, energize and enthuse people. I think to try and look for differences, to try and turn communities against each other is not conducive to living successfully and amicably.
I think Bill de Blasio is doing interesting housing stuff in New York, Rahm Emanuel is doing interesting stuff with the infrastructure bank in Chicago. I want to go to America to meet with and engage with American mayors. If Donald Trump becomes the President, I’ll be stopped from going there by virtue of my faith, which means I can’t engage with American mayors and swap ideas. Conservative tacticians thought those sorts of tactics would win London and they were wrong. I’m confident that Donald Trump’s approach to politics won’t win in America.
Update, May 10: After this interview was published, Trump suggested Khan would be exempt from any prohibitions on Muslims entering the U.S. “There are always exceptions,” he told the New York Times. “I think [his election] is a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job … If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing.”
What would happen to London’s position as one of the world’s leading financial centers if the U.K. voted to leave the European Union?
I think leaving the European Union would be catastrophic for our city. The E.U’s GDP is bigger than China, is bigger than the U.S. We’ve got a market of 500 million people in the European Union. They’re not just a market, they’re our cousins. If you look at London, there are huge social benefits, huge cultural benefits, huge benefits to our security, but the economic benefits are massive. More than half a million jobs in London are directly dependent on the E.U. Sixty percent of the world’s leading companies, including Sony, AIG insurance, China Telecom, have their E.U. headquarters here in London. Half of London’s exports go to the European Union. I’m going to be a Labour mayor campaigning with a Conservative Prime Minister for us to remain in the European Union. It’s crucial going forward.
time.com/4322562/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-donald-trump/
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North America
Donald Trump says Sadiq Khan would be 'exempt' from a US Muslim ban
May 10, 2016
Donald Trump has announced that his call to ban Muslims entering the US would have one exception - the new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
The real estate mogul's comment comes after Mr Khan said he would have to visit his US-based counterparts in New York and Chicago before next January in case Mr Trump is elected president.
The latest controversy from Mr Trump is one of a series of U-turns over the last week, which include his sudden decision to raise taxes for the rich and encourage states to raise the minimum wage.
Mr Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee after Ted Cruz and John Kasich quit the candidacy last week, caused international outrage when he called for a temporary ban of all Muslims entering the US on account of their supposed terrorist links.
He then threatened to scrap further investment in his golf and tourism empire in Scotland after MPs debated banning the Republican from entering the UK due to his racist rhetoric.
Speaking to the New York Times on how the ban would affect Sadiq Khan, Mr Trump said there would "always be exceptions".
He said he was "happy" that voters had elected the Labour MP for Tooting, and that it would be a "very good thing" if Mr Khan is successful in the role.
Mr Trump has also irked citizens and politicians when he said there were areas of London that were "no-go areas" which were "so radicalised that the police are afraid for their own lives".
Mr Khan, a practising Muslim, swept to victory in London with 1.3 million votes on Saturday.
He said he was glad that people had chosen "hope over fear and unity over division", referring to his conservative rival Zac Goldsmith who suggested Mr Khan gave "oxygen" to Muslim extremism.
Mr Trump responded: "I was happy to see that. I think it's a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job because frankly that would be very, very good."
"Because I think if he does a great job, it will really - you lead by example, always lead by example. If he does a good job, and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing," Mr Trump added.
The presdiential candidate is likely to face a battle for the White House against Democrat Hillary Clinton following the Republican convention in July.
Mr Khan told Time magazine he was confident Americans would not choose Mr Trump as their next president when they go to vote in November.
"I want to go to America to meet with and engage with American mayors," he said. "If Donald Trump becomes the president I'll be stopped from going there by virtue of my faith, which means I can't engage with American mayors and swap ideas."
independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-sadiq-khan-muslim-ban-london-mayor-would-be-exempt-a7021806.html
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Paul Ryan Says U.S. Must Admit Muslim Migrants, Sends Kids to Private School that Screens Them Out
May 10, 2016
After the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Ryan echoed President Obama in condemning what was described as Donald Trump’s “religious test.” However, a Breitbart News investigation now reveals that while Paul Ryan wants no ‘religious test’ for who gets admitted into America, Ryan sends his children to a private school that uses a “religious test” in its admissions process.
Ryan sends his children to a Catholic school connected to the parish where he was an altar boy as a child.
Breitbart News reached out to the school as a perspective applicant and obtained a copy of the school’s 2015-2016 registration papers and tuition contract. The document inquires specifically into the applicant’s religious background — in particular, it asks whether the applicant is a parishioner at the associated Catholic parish. The school recruits through the parish by offering a tuition discount to those who have been baptized and are members of the parish.
The registration form defines what qualifies as a parishioner:
A ‘parishioner’ as defined for the purposes of this contract and the attached Addendums is a person who:
Is officially registered at… [this] Catholic Parish
Has had their children baptized;
Fulfills the Sunday Mass obligation and other Holy Days of Obligation;
Offers consistent financial support (whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually) through the church offertory envelopes or direct deposit for a minimum of $800 per calendar year;
Volunteers service to the parish; and
Participates in parish ministries when asked, or if they feel called to share their talent of time.
Instead of doing an explicit ban on Muslim students, Ryan’s school applies a religious tax on non-parishioner students — thereby creating a two-tiered system for students and their families depending upon whether or not they are parishioners. The registration form explains that “the cost to educate a child at [this] School for the 2015-2016 school year is $4,673.00.” The school charges non-parishioner families a rate that is higher than the cost of educating the child: “For families who do not have at least one parent or guardian who is a parishioner, a minimum of 4,900 tuition per child will be expected.”
By contrast, parishioners pay less than the cost to educate one child — paying only “a minimum of $1900.00 tuition per child” plus an additional parish contribution of $800 — i.e. a total of $2,200 less per year than what is owed by non-parishioners. Parishioners even receive the recruitment incentive of free pre-kindergarten.
By signing the contract, parents agree that the tuition they pay “is considered an investment in the Catholic education of my child.”
As the registration forms explain, the school exists for the express purpose of helping to foster Catholic children:
[This] school is a Catholic School established and subsidized by the members of [this] Parish, Janesville, Wisconsin for the purpose of assisting Catholic parents in fulfilling the responsibility to raise their children in the Catholic faith.
Therefore, as the school’s website explains, the “school primarily serves children of parish families” and non-parishioner families are welcome “as space allows.”
While Muslim students could presumably get into Ryan’s school, the school’s reliance on the parish as a recruiting center and the above-cost tuition fees would, by definition, function as a mechanism for screening them out. When Breitbart News spoke to a school representative about the school’s religious diversity, the representative said that no student currently enrolled wears a headscarf, even as Paul Ryan’s migration policies increasingly introduce this new element into other families’ schools.
Moreover, in addition to the school’s religious tax in the form of higher tuition for non-parishioner students, the school also requires a certain degree of assimilation from its non-Catholic students: namely, if a non-Catholic student is admitted, she must participate in the school’s religious functions, which include regular faith-based courses.
If the U.S. had an immigration policy that resembled the admission policy of Speaker Ryan’s school — i.e. it recruited migrants from churches and synagogues overseas and offered discounted migration to people who attended churches and synagogues — although a Muslim migrant could theoretically get in, the effect would be to substantially reduce Muslim migration and increase Christian and Jewish migration relative to it — a policy which Ryan finds reprehensible for the country, but ideal for his kids’ school.
While Ryan chooses to insulate his children in an academic environment that considers religion in its admissions process, he has been adamant that the American people are not entitled to be similarly selective about who comes into their country to live as their neighbors, receive their tax dollars, fill public university slots, demand affirmative action, or potentially radicalize against their own country.
Days ago, Speaker Ryan even announced that he could not yet support Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, after Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee selected by Republican voters. Several candidates — Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio — all ran on Ryan’s platform and lost by immense margins. Similarly, Mitt Romney also ran on the Ryan platform and lost in a landslide, as did Eric Cantor in his own Congressional District.
Reports have previously noted that one of Ryan’s central disagreements with Trump stems from Trump’s pledge to enact a temporary pause on Muslim migration — a policy Speaker Ryan publicly denounced even though, according to exit polling data, seven in ten GOP Wisconsin voters support Trump’s plan.
Trump’s proposal “is not what this party stands for. And more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for,” Ryan said in December.
In the next eight months, the U.S. will issue more visas to Muslim migrants than the number of GOP voters in Ryan’s district.
Yet, not only does Ryan oppose the temporary migration pause, he has pushed to expand Muslim migration. Ryan has a two-decade long history to pushing to expand immigration rates and has championed legislation that expanded Muslim migration. Last December, Ryan ushered his omnibus spending bill through Congress, which funded visa issuances for nearly 300,000 Muslim migrants, temporary and permanent, over a 12-month time span.
In an interview with Sean Hannity in November, Ryan said that he does not support any kind of “religious test” for determining who is admitted entrance into the country — even if the would-be migrants believe that “women can’t drive [and] can’t be seen in public without a male relative.”
“I don’t think a religious test is appropriate. That’s not who we are,” Ryan said. “I don’t think it’s the appropriate test.”
However, as Andrew McCarthy has previously explained, the U.S. law does, in fact, require a religious test when it comes to making considerations about visa issuances.
Ryan grounded his attack of Trump’s plan to pause the admission of Muslim foreign citizens on the first amendment right of U.S. citizens. “Freedom of religion is a fundamental Constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country,” Ryan said.
However, as Sen. Jeff Sessions has explained — contrary to a previous declaration Ryan has made — the role of a U.S. lawmaker is to represent U.S. citizens, not foreign nationals living in foreign countries. As such, Sen. Sessions explains that our first amendment protections extend to U.S. citizens, and not to foreign would-be migrants all around the globe. In his remarks arguing against an amendment offered by Sen. Patrick Leahy and supported by Senate Democrats that would move towards creating a global right to migrate, Sessions said:
There are 7 billion people in the world. Choosing who can immigrate into the United States is, by definition, an exclusionary process. The goal is to select immigrants for admission based on the benefits they provide to society… In the United States, we have protections against discrimination by religion, age, disability, country of origin, etc. We have freedom of association. Rights of due process. Now imagine extending these as part of our immigration system. The logical extension of this concept results in a legal regime in which the United States cannot deny an alien admission to the United States based upon age, health, skill, family criminal history, country of origin, and so forth… If we say it is improper to consider religion, then that means it is improper for a consular official to even ask about a candidate’s religious beliefs when trying to screen an applicant for entry. It would mean that even asking questions of a fiancé seeking a visa about his or her views on any religious matter – say on the idea of pluralism vs. religious supremacy – would be improper, because if it is improper to favor or disfavor a religion, it is improper to favor or disfavor any interpretation of a religion… Are we really prepared to disallow, in the consideration of tens of millions of applications for entry to the United States, any questions about religious views and attitudes? A U.S.-born citizen who subscribes to theocratic Islam has a freedom of speech that allows him to give a sermon denouncing the U.S. constitution or demanding it be changed. But… [by extending these protections to foreign nationals] a foreign religious leader living overseas could demand a tourist visa to deliver that same sermon and claim religious discrimination if it is not approved.
Although Ryan’s school doesn’t prohibit Muslims from entering it, its identity as a Catholic school and its recruitment program through the parish, by definition, means that it is an environment imbued with a sense of religious identity that Ryan says cannot be applied to the more consequential decision of who gets to live in your country. The school’s commitment to maintaining a strong Catholic community and culture is further evidenced by the fact that if a non-Catholic student were to be admitted, she would be required to participate in the school’s religious functions.
“All students regardless of church affiliation, are asked to participate in the religious functions of the school,” the school’s website explains.
As the school’s principal explains in a letter to the student’s parents:
At [this school], religion isn’t just a class. It’s infused into everything we do, say, and teach. Children pray in the morning and before meals. They attend Mass each school week and celebrate their Catholic faith in special ways like weekly Benediction, May Crowning, stations of the Cross during Lent, Catholic Schools Week, and more. From the earliest grades they learn how to be “Christ-kind” to others and participate in service to help those in need.
“Religion is taught in every subject,” one parent wrote in a testimonial promoted on the school’s website.
As the registration form states:
The School believes that education should deal with the whole person but understands that each student is a unique individual created in the image and likeness of God. Catholic education adds the dimension of a value system with Christ as a model. The School shall seek to create an atmosphere of faith, community and caring. Frequent prayer, participation in liturgies, encouragement of academic excellence, and the development of a student’s potential are the essence of the School’s philosophy.
While Ryan apparently enjoys the luxury of sending his children to a school that selectively determines the faith and values of the families admitted into its community, millions of Americans do not have such options.
This is not the first time Ryan has advanced open borders policies for America, while giving his family the protections he denies the American public.
As Breitbart News reported last December, Paul Ryan has a border fence around his property even though his omnibus spending bill did not provide funding for the mandatory completion of a 700-mile double-layer border fence that Congress promised the American people nearly a decade ago when it passed the 2006 Secure Fence Act. Ryan’s tall personal border fence is reinforced by high bushes — ensuring both privacy and security. The fence is also manned by an on-duty agent who guards his property’s perimeter.
The U.S. admitted 59 million immigrants between the Kennedy-LBJ immigration bill in 1965 and 2015, remaking America politically and demographically and reversing the middle class gains experienced by African-Americans.
Only 7% of GOP voters, according to Pew, favor more immigration. Paul Ryan, the lead champion for more immigration in Congress, is the highest-ranking Republican official in the land.
breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/05/09/paul-ryan-says-u-s-must-admit-muslim-migrants-sends-kids-to-private-school-that-screens-them-out/
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