Stepfather who refused to let stepdaughter do homework on Islam had shared anti-Muslim content online

November 10, 2017 Article

A stepfather who refused to let his 12-year-old stepdaughter finish a homework assignment about converting to Islam had ‘liked’ various far-right Facebook pages and shared videos from ex-English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson days before the story went viral, it has emerged.

Mark McLachlan, 43, from Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, uploaded a photo of his stepdaughter’s homework planner on 3 November to Facebook, adding that he will ‘help’ her with the homework which was due days later. His appended suggestions included writing, ‘For many years Muslim groominggangs have been preying on the infidels children’, and ‘’ll be able to wear a hijab in the bank and petrol stations when normal people can’t even wear a helmet’.

A day earlier, Mr McLachlan shared two videos from ex-English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, highlighting his cancelled book tour appearance in Manchester.

Various Facebook ‘likes’ of Mr McLachlan include Liberty GB, Infidels of Britain, United British Patriots, and the North East Infidels Sunderland Division. Other examples include For Britain, formed by ex-Ukip candidate Anne Marie Waters, InfoWars host Alex Jones, and the AIF English Lions.

Some examples of various far-right ‘likes’ on Facebook.

Coverage in the MailOnline, the Sun and Metro, however, present him more neutrality, as a parent who has raised his concerns in a reasonable manner. He told the Metro and MailOnline that he has no ‘problem with them learning about religions’ but questioned the ‘inappropriate’ nature of the homework exercise.

Both stories quote one member of the public who shared his outrage, excluding the hundreds of vitriolic comments about Islam and comments criticising Mr McLachlan, which the posts had attracted. One comment which Mr McLachlan agreed with on Facebook included the statement that Islam is a religion of hate, with the person in question pondering if the school would also teach students about bombs, rape, and beheadings.

On 6 November, Mr McLachlan shared a YouTube video which described Islam as a ‘terrorist’ cult – three days before the MailOnline story appeared online.

The MailOnline and others were criticised last year for its coverage of a similar homework assignment for Year 8 students at a Guernsey school. This assignment was designed to test their knowledge, to write objectively, and reflect with empathy on how their parents would react to such a change, in a fictitious exercise. Teachers added the caveat that students were, at no point, converting to Islam.

Ofsted rated Kepier School ‘Good’ in January 2016, but added more was needed to equip students with ‘the practical experience of the many cultures that make up modern Britain,’ an example of this change concerns their Interfaith Awareness Week in November 2016. For example, students in Years 7 and 8 built Diya lamps for Diwali, as Christian and Islamic groups visited students in special assemblies to talk about their faiths. The week concluded with a visit to a local church, according to a school publication. Other inclusive examples include a banquet to celebrate Chinese New Year.

The post Stepfather who refused to let stepdaughter do homework on Islam had shared anti-Muslim content online appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: homework, News

Tehrik-e-Labaik Islamist Party in Pakistan Lionises the Murderer of Glasgow Shopkeeper, Asad Shah

October 30, 2017 Article

The murder of Asad Shah, the Glasgow based shopkeeper was a brutal affair. We know this, partly because the spiritual leader of the Islamist group Tehrik-e-Labaik, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, described in detail the actions that the convicted murderer, Tanveer Ahmed, undertook on the defenceless Shah.

The description of the murder of Asad Shah was not made in dusgust by Hussain Rizvi, the spiritual leader of the Islamist group in Pakistan. Yet, it was made in a manner which lionised the murderer, calling him a ‘Ghazi’ or warrior for the defence of Islam.

In September of this year, the Islamist party won over 7,000 votes in a local election and the Party was born from lionising another convicted murderer, Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri was the bodyguard of Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, who subsequently went onto murder him at an Islamabad market in January 2011. Taseer was an outspoken critic of the country’s Blasphemy Laws and he had defended the rights of Christian minorities and individuals like Asia Bibi. Out of this brutal murder was born the Tehrik-e-Labaik Islamist party which has also acquired recorded phone conversations with Tanveer Ahmed, from Barlinnie prison in Scotland. Ahmed’s ‘messages’ to people in Pakistan have been played to Tehrik-e-Labaik audiences in the country who sit around their spiritual leader Hussain Rizvi. Rizvi has used the audio-tapes to whip up his audiences into frenzies, using deeply emotive language around the defence of Prophet Muhammad, whilst urging listeners to defend their faith. This has been code for the use of threats and violence.

The recorded phone conversations are used to whip up audiences into a frenzy around Hussain Rizvi who regularly has made a point of lionising Tanveer Ahmed,  now in Barlinnie prison. The main theme for Tehrik-e-Labaik has been the ‘defence’ of Islam and the vilification of those who ‘blaspheme’ against Islam, yet it is so easy to forget the brutal actions of people like Ahmed in this extremist charade which is being played out in Pakistan. It is important to reflect on the comments of Judge Lady Rae who presided over the murder trial of Tanveer Ahmed.

Summing up after the guilty verdict of Ahmed, Judge Lady Rae told him:

“This was a barbaric, premeditated and wholly unjustified killing of a much loved man who was a pillar of the local community.”

“He, (Asad Shah), was described as a peaceful and peace-loving man and family man who went out of his way to show respect for those of any faith.”

The Judge went onto describe the actions of Ahmed as being,

“an appalling display of merciless violence”.

Campaigning Using the Imagery of Murderers and Extremists

The use of imagery depicting Qadri and Ahmed demonstrates a chilling new twist in Pakistani politics with mobs of young men openly stating that blasphemers against Islam should be targeted for violence. Tehrik-e-Labaik’s footsoldiers are mainly young men brought up in their madrassas and whose only access to basic shelter, food and welfare comes from their networks on the ground. Yet, the link to the United Kingdom and the lionising of an extremist murderer who drove from Bradford to Glasgow to brutally murder a man just because he disagreed with his religious views, shows how such groups in Pakistan are trying to promote their extremism to British born young men of Pakistani heritage. Tehrik-e-Labaik’s You Tube videos are still available on the channel and their Facebook page regularly pumps out sermons from Hussain Rizvi which support violence against ‘blasphemers’. The promotion of such extremist material, aimed at Pakistani and British audiences of Pakistani heritage is deeply worrying. This international arc supporting the promotion of extremism needs to be countered and electronic disruption action taken to stop this group from pumping out such material.

Finally, the picture associated with this article is a good indicator of the extremism link to this group. Reuters recently interviewed Muhammad Shafiq Ameeni, a candidate and member of the Tehrik-e-Labaik party in Pakistan. The interview took place in Peshawar and behind Ameeni, were the images of two murderers, namely Mumtaz Qadri and Tanveer Ahmed. So the point is this. Would you consider supporting a party that lionises and campaigns using the imagery of convicted murderers? The answer should be no, but for 7,000 local individuals in Pakistan who voted for this Islamist group, they clearly thought to the contrary. It seems that the lionising of convicted murderers pays dividends in Pakistan.

The post Tehrik-e-Labaik Islamist Party in Pakistan Lionises the Murderer of Glasgow Shopkeeper, Asad Shah appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Asad Shah, Glasgow, Mumtaz Qadri, News, Opinions, Pakistan, Salman Taseer, Tanveer Ahmed, Tehrik-e-Labaik

Polish Express removes ‘live by the sword’ headline following stabbing of boy near mosque

October 4, 2017 Article

A Polish newspaper has removed an offensive headline concerning the attempted murder of a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed multiple times outside of a mosque in the Small Heath area of Birmingham.

On September 30, the Polish Express headlined the story, Kto mieczem wojuje, ten od miecza ginie…? In English, it translates as, ‘live by the sword, die by the sword,’ according to the Notes from Poland page on Facebook.

Readers of the newspaper and members of the public condemned the headline, both in Polish and in English, with one reader accusing the newspaper of using ‘cheap’ tabloid tricks, as another remarked about their ‘unprofessional’ conduct.

The official Twitter account of the Polish Express has also removed a tweet with the offending headline, originally posted on September 30.

Twitter user @McChris85 also challenged the newspaper, replying to their now-deleted tweet, ‘Are you seriously comfortable writing this about an innocent child?’ at 5:28 pm on September 30.

Tell MAMA raised the issue with the Polish Express after members of the public had raised their concerns with our staff.

A spokesperson for the newspaper confirmed that the headline was removed and replaced with a more ‘appropriate’ headline.

A screenshot captures how the Polish Express amended its headline following complaints.

The edit history for the initial Facebook post reveals that the Polish Express had altered the Facebook headline in the afternoon of October 2. Following this amendment, the newspaper thanks its readers to the ‘inappropriate,’ agreeing that in the context of the story, the choice of text was offensive.

 

 

 

 

The post Polish Express removes ‘live by the sword’ headline following stabbing of boy near mosque appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: Media, mosque, News, Polish Express

Anti-terrorism police hold five over wired explosives found in posh Paris neighbourhood

October 3, 2017 Article

French counter-terrorism investigators questioned five people on Tuesday after police over the weekend found what appeared to be a ready-to-detonate bomb at an apartment building in one of Paris’s poshest neighbourhoods.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said one of those arrested was on an intelligence services list of “radicalised” persons – a list that includes the names of potential Islamist militants.

“We are still in a state of war,” Collomb, speaking after a Sunday attack in which a knifeman killed two women in Marseille, told France Inter radio.

Judicial sources said the explosive device included two gas canisters inside the building in the affluent 16th district of western Paris and two outside, some of them doused with petrol and wired to connect to a mobile phone.

It was unclear why the device was planted at the location where it was found as there was no obvious target living there, the judicial sources said.

More than 230 people have been killed in France in attacks by Islamist militants over the past three years. The Islamic State militant group, whose bases in Syria and Iraq are being bombed by French war planes, has urged followers to attack France.

Most of those killed died in attacks by Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris in 2015 and when a man drove a large truck into crowds in the Riviera resort of Nice in 2016.

Since then, there has been a string of attacks perpetrated by lone assailants, often targeting police or soldiers.

“The threat is changing form,” said Collomb.

A counter-terrorism investigation is also under way after the attack on Sunday, where a knifeman slit the throat of one of his victims and killed her cousin before being shot dead by soldiers at a train station in the southern port city.

A separate inquiry has been opened to establish why the man, who had been briefly detained by police the day before in the city of Lyon had been released.

France declared a state of emergency in late 2015 after the Paris attack by gunmen and suicide bombers, giving police special search and arrest powers to combat would-be terrorists.

New legislation was due to be put to a vote in parliament on Tuesday to make many of those emergency measures permanent.

The post Anti-terrorism police hold five over wired explosives found in posh Paris neighbourhood appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Anti-terror, France, Islamist, Jihadi, Marseille, News, Paris, radicalised

Pakistan army pushed political role for militant-linked groups

September 21, 2017 Article

A new Pakistani political party controlled by an Islamist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head is backing a candidate in a by-election on Sunday, in what a former senior army officer says is a key step in a military-proposed plan to mainstream militant groups.

The Milli Muslim League party loyal to Hafiz Saeed – who the United States and India accuse of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people – has little chance of seeing its favoured candidate win the seat vacated when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was removed from office by the Supreme Court in July.

But the foray into politics by Saeed’s Islamist charity is following a blueprint that Sharif himself rejected when the military proposed it last year, retired Lieutenant General Amjad Shuaib told Reuters.

Three close Sharif confidants with knowledge of the discussions confirmed that Sharif had opposed the “mainstreaming” plan, which senior military figures and some analysts see as a way of steering ultra-religious groups away from violent jihad.

“We have to separate those elements who are peaceful from the elements who are picking up weapons,” Shuaib said.

Pakistan’s powerful military has long been accused of fostering militant groups as proxy fighters opposing neighbouring arch-enemy India, a charge the army denies.

“PATRIOTIC PEOPLE”

Saeed’s religious charity launched the Milli Muslim League party within two weeks after the court ousted Sharif over corruption allegations.

Yaqoob Sheikh, the Lahore candidate for Milli Muslim League, is standing as an independent after the Electoral Commission said the party was not yet legally registered.

But Saeed’s lieutenants, JUD workers and Milli Muslim League officials are running his campaign and portraits of Saeed adorn every poster promoting Sheikh.

Another Islamist designated a terrorist by the United States, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has told Reuters he too plans to soon form his own party to advocate strict Islamic law.

“God willing, we will come into the mainstream – our country right now needs patriotic people,” Khalil said, vowing to turn Pakistan into a state government by strict Islamic law.

Saeed’s charity and Khalil’s Ansar ul-Umma organisation are both seen by the United States as fronts for militant groups the army has been accused of sponsoring. The military denies any policy of encouraging radical groups.

Both Islamist groups deny their political ambitions were engineered by the military. The official army spokesman was not available for comment after queries were sent to the press wing.

Still, hundreds of MML supporters, waving posters of Saeed and demanding his release from house arrest, chanted “Long live Hafiz Saeed! Long live the Pakistan army!” at political rallies during the past week.

“Anyone who is India’s friend is a traitor, a traitor,” went another campaign slogan, a reference to Sharif’s attempts to improve relations with long-time foe India that was a source of tension with the military.

‘DERADICALISATION’ PLAN

Both Saeed and Khalil are proponents of a strict interpretation of Islam and have a history of supporting violence – each man was reportedly a signatory to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa declaring war on the United States.

They have since established religious groups that they say are unconnected to violence, though the United States maintains those groups are fronts for funnelling money and fighters to militants targeting India.

Analyst Khaled Ahmed, who has researched Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity and its connections to the military, says the new political party is clearly an attempt by the generals to pursue an alternative to dismantling its militant proxies.

“One thing is the army wants these guys to survive,” Ahmed said. “The other thing is that they want to also balance the politicians who are more and more inclined to normalise relations with India.”

The military’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency first began pushing the political mainstreaming plan in April 2016, according to retired general Shuaib, a former director of the army’s military intelligence wing that is separate from the ISI.

He said the proposal was shared with him in writing by the then-ISI chief, adding that he himself had spoken with Khalil as well as Saeed in an unofficial capacity about the plan.

“Fazlur Rehman Khalil was very positive. Hafiz Saeed was very positive,” Shuaib said. “My conversation with them was just to confirm those things which I had been told by the ISI and other people.”

Saeed has been under house arrest since January at his house in the eastern city of Lahore. The United States has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his conviction over the Mumbai attacks.

Then-Prime Minister Sharif, however, was strongly against the military’s mainstreaming plan, according to Shuaib and three members of Sharif’s inner circle, including one who was in some of the tense meetings over the issue.

Sharif wanted to completely dismantle groups like JuD. Disagreement on what to do about anti-India proxy fighters was a major source of rancour with the military, according to one of the close Sharif confidants.

In recent weeks several senior figures from the ruling PML-N party have publicly implied that elements of the military – which has run Pakistan for almost half its modern history and previously ousted Sharif in a 1999 coup – had a hand in the court ouster of Sharif, a charge both the army and the court reject.

A representative of the PML-N, which last month replaced him as prime minister with close ally Shahid Khaqi Abbasi, said the party was “not aware” of any mainstreaming plan being brought to the table.

RELIGION AND POLITICS

Some analysts worry that mainstreaming such controversial groups would be a risky strategy for Pakistan.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened sanctions against members of Pakistan’s military and even raised the spectre of declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.

“It will send a wrong message,” said analyst Zahid Hussain, who nevertheless thought that Saeed’s new party would have a “negligible” effect on Pakistani elections because religious parties have never won more than a few seats in parliament.

Others are not so sure.

Sheikh, the MML candidate in Sunday’s by-election who says he was handpicked by Hafiz Saeed, vowed to establish strict Islamic rule and “break” liberalism and secularism.

Analyst Ahmed warned that few existing religious parties have a charismatic leader like Saeed, and Pakistan may find itself unable to control a rising tide of Islamist sentiment.

“If Hafiz Saeed comes into the mainstream, it’s not that he is going to be politicised,” he added. “It’s that he is going to make politics more religious.”

The post Pakistan army pushed political role for militant-linked groups appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Ansar ul-Umma, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, Milli Muslim League, Mumbai attack, Nawaz Sharif, News, United States

Inspired by ‘blasphemy killer’, new Pakistani party eyes 2018 vote

September 21, 2017 Article

The head of a new Pakistani Islamist party that lionizes the killer of a provincial governor said it would take its rallying cry of “death to blasphemers” to next year’s general election, after its surprisingly strong showing in a recent vote.

The Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, which won more than 7,000 votes at a weekend by-election, was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws.

Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labaik waved photos of Qadri, who became an icon for Muslim hardliners after his execution last year, at campaign rallies in the eastern city of Lahore, where it won 6 percent of the vote in a contest for the seat vacated by ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“He is a hero,” party leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi said when asked about Qadri, adding that after its third-place finish in Sunday’s by-election it would focus on next year’s poll. “Our preparation starts from today. We will contest bravely.”

While the party has almost no chance of gaining power next year, it is part of a new crop of political movements that espouse stricter Islamic rule as a remedy to corruption accusations and squabbling among Pakistan’s three main parties.

A stronger showing for Islamists could give them more influence after the election, expected to be hard-fought after the Supreme Court barred Sharif from holding office.

In an interview with Reuters, Rizvi outlined his vision of governance according the Barelvi branch of Islam, of which he is a prominent cleric.

Frequently citing Koranic verses and Pakistani history, he said his party could solve corruption problems “in a day” through stricter adherence to sharia, or Islamic law.

“Sharia will have to be enforced. No one should be worried about it,” he said, sitting in the upper room of a Lahore mosque surrounded by followers, many who had adopted Qadri’s signature look of long hair and kohl-lined eyes.

He acknowledged his vision would mean some changes to daily life, giving the example of barring women from working as airline flight attendants.

DEATH TO BLASPHEMERS

In its party platform, Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan calls for free education, free healthcare and social justice.

But it is best known for its public and passionate support for Mumtaz Qadri – campaign rallies featured posters with Qadri’s photo – and its insistence that Muslim-majority Pakistan’s blasphemy laws should remain among the world’s harshest.

Dozens of people convicted of blasphemy are currently on death row and at least 65 Pakistanis have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

One of the highest-profile killings was of Punjab Governor Taseer, who had called for the laws to be re-examined after a minority Christian woman was sentenced to death for blasphemy.

After his arrest over the killing, bodyguard Qadri drew a slew of admirers among Islamists who showered him with rose petal at court hearings. Tens of thousands thronged his funeral last year to condemn Sharif’s government for his hanging.

Tehreek-e-Labaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said the party started out as The Movement to Free Mumtaz Qadri, but changed its name and entered politics after his execution.

Asked about Qadri’s role as an inspiration to the party, leader Rizvi said: “He is a hero until doomsday. He is a hero beyond doomsday.”

Asked if any Muslim has the obligation to kill a blasphemer, Rizvi said: “No … there is a law. Hand him over to that.”

But Qadri, he added, was justified because Pakistani police had failed to charge Taseer with blasphemy for criticising the law.

VOTES FOR ISLAMISTS

Tehreek-e-Labaik surprised many by its relatively strong showing in the Lahore by-election to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant when the Supreme Court ousted Sharif over unreported income, in a case initiated by opposition figure Imran Khan.

The seat was won, as expected, by Sharif’s wife, Kulsoom, but the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party’s share of the vote in the constituency was cut to 49.3 percent from 61 percent in a 2013 election.

Khan, a former cricket star, saw his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party increase its share to 37.6 percent from 35 percent in the last vote.

But much of the PML-N’s margin loss came from votes cast for candidates of new Islamist parties.

In addition to Tehreek-e-Labaik, a newly declared party linked to Hafiz Saeed, named by the United States and India as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, won about 5 percent of the Lahore vote.

Religious parties have never gained more than a few seats in Pakistan’s parliament because they tend to appeal to one particular sect or a single issue, such as blasphemy.

Still, a surge of support for the ultra-religious parties could drain away votes from mainstream groups and potentially give Islamists leverage in policy-making.

Tehreek-e-Labaik’s Rizvi said his only goal was to see a stricter vision of Islam enshrined in the law of the land.

“We want to bring the religion of Islam to the throne,” he said.

The post Inspired by ‘blasphemy killer’, new Pakistani party eyes 2018 vote appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Blasphemy, Mumtaz Qadri, News, Qadri, Rizvi, Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party

Hope Not Hate’s Poll Shows a Deepening Mistrust of Muslims

August 30, 2017 Article

Hope Not Hate have just released their survey of 4,000 people entitled, ‘Fear and Hope – 2017’. The poll was conducted by Populus and looked at the impact of four terrorist attacks in three months in 2017 and the Brexit negotiations and the Grenfell Fire. Key social points of focus included race, faith and belonging.

The results provide for optimism and reassurance as the poll suggests that the public are being more open and receptive to others and there is a British sense of optimism that is very much part of the country, even though on bleak grey days, we as Brits certainly know how to complain.

However, there is also a worrying thread which runs through the poll in relation to how the public perceive Islam and Muslims. The poll indicates that attitudes have become more hostile to both and with just 10% of the public feeling that Muslims are similar to themselves. This is a stark and deeply worrying statistic.

Worst still, the poll shows that 52% of those who answered the 140 questions agree that Islam poses a threat to the West and 42% highlight a growing suspicion of Muslims, after the recent terrorist attacks. Going on, nearly 1 in 4 of the respondents believe that Islam is a dangerous religion which incites violence and older subsets of respondents demonstrated a receptiveness to Islamophobic views and discourse.

These are stark responses and show a divide that is clearly opening up between wider communities and British Muslim communities.

Communities Coming Together After Terrorist Attacks

As suggested earlier, there were some points for optimism. The results were heartening with 4 in 5 respondents responding positively to communities standing together and being seen to be visibly responsive immediately after terrorist attacks. A similar figure also could distinguish the actions of terrorists from all Muslims and more positively still, 1 in 2 of the respondents had noted that they had come across material where Muslims were seen to speak out against terrorist attacks. The latter makes a change from the narrative which seemed to be circulating for many years, which suggested that Muslims were not seen to be speaking out against extremism and terrorism and thereby passively accepting extremist rhetoric.

The report, however, raises some red flags. Members of the public seem to be tiring of post terrorist scenarios where communities come together and 2 in 3 respondents wanted to see Muslims hold demonstrations and marches against terrorism. In other words, they wanted to see a more forward-facing posture from Muslims against terrorism, rather than the passive cohesive style approach now taken after such major national incidents.

Furthermore, the poll also showed a hardening attitude to Muslims which should be a major wake-up call for them. Whilst we know that many British Muslims have gone out of their way to speak up against extremism and terrorism and to reach out to others, this work needs to be ramped up, better organised and much more vocal in many ways.

Knowing Muslims

The Populus poll for Hope Not Hate also highlights the fact that 1 in 2 white respondents did not have deeper links and associations with Muslims signifying deeper community divides, whilst they over-estimated the population of Muslims in the UK.

There has also been a hardening of attitudes around human rights with calls by respondents for a relaxation in the human rights protections of those suspected of terrorism. The majority of respondents also preferred stronger laws and more authoritarian solutions which clamped down on issues such as extremism and terrorism, possibly showing that the patience of the public is being stretched by terrorist attacks. Also, 3 in 4 respondents believed that integration was best assisted by Muslims speaking English and with closer monitoring and Muslim faith schools in particular.

These results are therefore, both heartening but also worrying. They show a growing divide between the wider public and British Muslim communities and with the divides becoming stark, as highlighted through this report. If we are to ensure that community tensions, extremism and marginalisation are to be tackled in our country, we have to find ways which address the concerns of the wider public, whilst also ensuring that British Muslims feel that they have a future and a space in the United Kingdom. We firmly believe that this country provides the best opportunities in Europe to British Muslims and that Muslims have the freedom to practice and be who they are in the UK. However, it is also clear that more needs to be done to bridge divides, challenge extremism and be seen to stand up for the safety, security and rights of each other. Last but not least, there is one clear result from this poll. If we don’t collectively make a change, there is a slippery slope ahead which does not bode well.

The post Hope Not Hate’s Poll Shows a Deepening Mistrust of Muslims appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: 2017, English, Far Right groups, Fear and Hope, Hope not Hate, integration, News, Populus, report, terrorism

Russia’s military says it may have killed IS leader

June 16, 2017 Article

Moscow said on Friday its forces may have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike in Syria last month, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials were sceptical.

The secretive Islamic State leader has frequently been reported killed or wounded since he declared a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from a mosque in Mosul in 2014, after leading his fighters on a sweep through northern Iraq.

If the report does prove true, it would be one of the biggest blows yet to Islamic State, which is trying to defend its shrinking territory against an array of forces backed by regional and global powers in both Syria and Iraq.

But in the absence of independent confirmation, two U.S. officials said U.S. agencies were sceptical of the report. Several Iraqi security officials said Iraq was doubtful as well.

“His death has been reported so often that you have to be cautious till a formal Daesh statement comes,” a European security official said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

U.S. Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said: “We have no information to corroborate those reports.”

The Russian Defence Ministry said on its Facebook page that it was checking information that Baghdadi was killed in the strike on the outskirts of Raqqa in Syria, launched after Russia received intelligence about a meeting of Islamic State leaders.

“On May 28, after drones were used to confirm the information on the place and time of the meeting of IS leaders, between 00:35 and 00:45, Russian air forces launched a strike on the command point where the leaders were located,” the statement said.

“According to the information which is now being checked via various channels, also present at the meeting was Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was eliminated as a result of the strike,” the ministry said.

OPERATING CAUTIOUSLY

However, a colonel with the Iraqi national security service told Reuters Baghdadi was not believed to have been in Raqqa at the time of the strike in late May. One of Baghdadi’s aides may have been killed rather than Baghdadi himself, the colonel said.

He said that Baghdadi was believed to be operating cautiously in the border area between Iraq and Syria with just a handful of close aides, and avoiding using telecommunications equipment to evade surveillance.

Another Iraqi intelligence official said the Russians had not shared any information with Iraqi authorities to indicate Baghdadi was killed. Iraq was checking the report and would announce his death if it received “solid confirmation”.

Hoshiyar Zebari, a long-serving former Iraqi foreign minister and now a senior adviser to the government of the Kurdish autonomous region, also told Reuters there was no confirmation of Baghdadi’s death.

The Russian defence ministry statement said the strike was believed to have killed several other senior leaders of the group in addition to Baghdadi, as well as around 30 field commanders and up to 300 of their personal guards.

The IS leaders had gathered at the command centre, in a southern suburb of Raqqa, to discuss possible routes for the militants’ retreat from the city, the statement said.

The United States was informed in advance about the place and time of the strike, the Russian military said.

CLOSE TO DEFEAT

Islamic State fighters are close to defeat in the twin capitals of the group’s territory, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, after nearly three years ruling over millions of people in a wide swathe of territory in both countries.

Russia supports the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is fighting against Islamic State fighters, one front in a multi-sided civil war. The United States supports Kurdish and Arab fighters in Syria who are separately planning an assault on Raqqa.

In Iraq, the U.S.-backed government has been battling to recapture Mosul since October last year after driving the group out of most of the rest of the territory it had seized.

The last public video footage of Baghdadi shows him dressed in black clerical robes declaring his caliphate from the pulpit of Mosul’s mediaeval Grand al-Nuri mosque back in 2014.

Born Ibrahim al-Samarrai, Baghdadi is an Iraqi in his mid-forties, who broke away from al Qaeda in 2013 after years participating in the insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq and the Iraqi government. The U.S. State Department has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

A number of senior IS figures have been killed in air strikes or special forces raids since the United States launched its campaign against the group in 2014, including Baghdadi’s deputy Abu Ali al-Anbari, the group’s “minister of war” Abu Omar al-Shishani, and its media director Abu Muhammad al-Furqan.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, cast doubt on the report Baghdadi may have been killed. He said that according to his information, Baghdadi was located in another part of Syria at the end of May.

“The information is that as of the end of last month Baghdadi was in Deir al-Zor, in the area between Deir al-Zor and Iraq, in Syrian territory,” he said by phone.

The post Russia’s military says it may have killed IS leader appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Grand Al-Nuri, Islamic State, killed, News, Raqqa, Russia, Syria

From “caliph” to fugitive: IS leader Baghdadi’s new life on the run

June 13, 2017 Article

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is on the brink of losing the two main centres of his ‘caliphate’ but even though he is on the run, it may take years to capture or kill him, officials and experts said.

Islamic State fighters are close to defeat in the twin capitals of the group’s territory, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and officials say Baghdadi is steering clear of both, hiding in thousands of square miles of desert between the two.

“In the end, he will either be killed or captured, he will not be able to remain underground forever,” said Lahur Talabany, the head of counter-terrorism at the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. “But this is a few years away still,” he told Reuters.

One of Baghdadi’s main concerns is to ensure those around him do not betray him for the $25 million reward offered by the United States to bring him “to justice”, said Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs.

“With no land to rule openly, he can no longer claim the title caliph,” Hashimi said. “He is a man on the run and the number of his supporters is shrinking as they lose territory.”

Iraqi forces have retaken much of Mosul, the northern Iraqi city the hardline group seized in June 2014 and from which Baghdadi declared himself “caliph” or leader of all Muslims shortly afterwards. Raqqa, his capital in Syria, is nearly surrounded by a coalition of Syrian Kurdish and Arab groups.

The last public video footage of him shows him dressed in black clerical robes declaring his caliphate from the pulpit of Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque back in 2014.

Born Ibrahim al-Samarrai, Baghdadi is a 46-year-old Iraqi who broke away from al-Qaeda in 2013, two years after the capture and killing of the group’s leader Osama bin Laden.

He grew up in a religious family, studied Islamic Theology in Baghdad and joined the Salaafi jihadist insurgency in 2003, the year of the US-led invasion of Iraq. He was caught by the Americans who released him about a year later as they considered him then as a civilian rather than a military target.

BOUNTY

He is shy and reserved, Hashimi said, and has recently stuck to the sparsely populated Iraq-Syria border where drones and strangers are easy to spot.

The U.S. Department of State’s Counter-Terrorism Rewards Program had put the same $25 million bounty on Bin Laden and Iraqi former president Saddam Hussein and the reward is still available for Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Neither Saddam nor Bin Laden were voluntarily betrayed, but the bounties complicated their movements and communications.

“The reward creates worry and tension, it restricts his movements and limit the number of his guards,” said Fadhel Abu Ragheef, a Baghdad-based expert on extremist groups. “He doesn’t stay more than 72 hours in any one place.”

Baghdadi “has become nervous and very careful in his movements”, said Talabany, whose services are directly involved in countering Islamic State plots. “His circle of trust has become even smaller.”

His last recorded speech was issued in early November, two weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he urged his followers to fight the “unbelievers” and “make their blood flow as rivers”.

U.S. and Iraqi officials believe he has left operational commanders behind with diehard followers to fight the battles of Mosul and Raqqa, to focus on his own survival.

It is not possible to confirm his whereabouts.

Baghdadi does not use phones and has a handful of approved couriers to communicate with his two main aides, Iyad al-Obaidi, his defence minister, and Ayad al-Jumaili, in charge of security. There was no confirmation of an April 1 Iraqi state TV report that Jumaili had been killed.

Baghdadi moves in ordinary cars, or the kind of pick-up trucks used by farmers, between hideouts on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, with just a driver and two bodyguards, said Hashimi.

The region is well known to his men as the hotbed of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that invaded Iraq and later the Shi’ite-led governments that took over the country.

At the height of its power two years ago, Islamic State ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

It persecuted non-Sunnis and even Sunnis who did not agree with its extreme version of Islamic law, with public executions and whippings for violating strict controls on appearance, behaviour and movement.

But the group has been retreating since in the face of a multitude of local, regional and international forces, driven into action by the scores of deadly attacks around the world that it has claimed or inspired.

A few hundred thousand people now live in the areas under the group’s control, in and around Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, in Syria’s east, and in a few pockets south and west of Mosul. Hashimi said Islamic State was moving some fighters out of Raqqa before it was encircled to regroup in Deir al-Zor.

Mosul, with pre-war population of 2 million, was at least four times the size of any other the group has held. Up to 200,000 people are still trapped in the Old City, Islamic State’s besieged enclave in Mosul, lacking supplies and being used as human shields to obstruct the progress of Iraqi forces by a U.S-led international coalition.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, made of Kurdish and Arab groups supported by the U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa last week, after a months-long campaign to cut it off.

The militants are also fighting Russian and Iranian-backed forces in Syria loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels backed by Turkey.

The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb. 13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.

Overall, Islamic State has 8,000 fighters left, of which 2,000 are foreigners from other Arab states, Europe, Russia and central Asia, said Abu Ragheef.

“A small number compared to the tens of thousands arrayed against them in both countries, but a force to be reckoned with, made up of die-hards with nothing to lose, hiding in the middle of civilians and making extensive use of booby traps, mines and explosives,” he said.

The U.S. government has a joint task force to track down Baghdadi which includes special operations forces, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies as well as spy satellites of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

It will take more than that to erase his influence, Talabany said. “He is still considered the leader of ISIL and many continue to fight for him; that hasn’t changed drastically,” he said, using one of Islamic State’s acronyms.

Even if killed or captured, he added, “his legacy and that of ISIL will endure unless radical extremism is tackled.”

The post From “caliph” to fugitive: IS leader Baghdadi’s new life on the run appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Capture, Iraq, Mosul, News, Osama Bin Laden, Raqqa, Run, Sunni

$110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia – Donald Trump

May 20, 2017 Article

Under political fire at home, U.S. President Donald Trump sealed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia on Saturday on his maiden foreign trip as he struggled to shift attention from the aftermath of his firing of the director of the FBI.

The arms deal, plus other investments that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said could total up to $350 billion, was the central achievement of Trump’s first day in Riyadh, first stop on a nine-day journey through the Middle East and Europe.

Speaking to journalists after a ceremony to exchange agreements, Trump said it was a “tremendous day” and spoke of “hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs. So I would like to thank all of the people of Saudi Arabia.”

King Salman gave Trump a remarkably warm greeting, meeting him at the steps of Air Force One on arrival, shaking the hand of Trump’s wife, Melania, riding with Trump in his limousine and spending most of the day with him.

But the political turmoil back in Washington consumed the headlines in the United States and cast a long shadow over the start of Trump’s trip, which will include stops in Israel, the Vatican, Italy and Belgium.

His firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation head James Comey on May 9 and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign ties to Russia have raised the question of whether he tried to squelch a probe into allegations of a Russian connection.

Fanning the flames was a New York Times report that Trump had called Comey a “nut job” in a private meeting last week in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and ambassador Sergei Kislyak. The Times quoted briefing notes of the conversation.

Amid a mood of frustration, officials on board Trump’s Riyadh-bound presidential plane scrambled to coordinate on responding to the story with staff in Washington and those who had just landed in the Saudi capital.

Asked for a response, the White House said that for national security reasons, “we do not confirm or deny the authenticity of allegedly leaked classified documents.”

Russia’s Interfax news agency on Saturday quoted Lavrov as saying he had not discussed Comey with Trump. “We did not touch this issue at all,” the minister said.

In another development, the Washington Post said a White House official close to Trump was a significant “person of interest” in the investigation into possible ties with Russia.

Tillerson, asked about the story, said he did not know who the “person of interest” was.

Against that backdrop, Trump soldiered through a long day of diplomacy.

Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir called the results of Trump’s meetings with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz “the beginning of a turning point” between the United States, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.

Both he and Tillerson made clear the arms deal was aimed at countering Iran on a day that Hassan Rouhani was re-elected as Iran’s president.  

Tillerson said Rouhani should use his second term to end Iran’s ballistic missile testing and stop promoting extremism in a volatile region.

He said he had no plans to talk to his Iranian counterpart but that he in all likelihood he would do so “at the right time.”

Al-Jubeir said Trump and King Salman agreed that action had to be taken to ensure Iran did not continue “aggressive policies in the region.”

Trump’s trip has been billed by the White House as a chance to visit places sacred to three of the world’s major religions, while giving him time to meet with Arab, Israeli and European leaders.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud shakes hands with first lady Melania Trump during a reception ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 20, 2017. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court

CONTRAST WITH OBAMA VISIT    

King Salman gave a more favourable welcome to Trump than he had granted last year to Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, who was seen in the Arab kingdom as soft on Iran and hesitant on Syria.    

Trump and King Salman seemed at ease with each other, chatting through an interpreter. At the royal al-Yamama palace, the king draped around Trump’s neck the King Abdulaziz medal, the country’s top civilian honour.

At the end of the day, Tillerson and U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, holding swords, were seen participating in a ceremonial dance at Marraba Palace with a Saudi group.

As Trump arrived for dinner with the king, a spectacle awaited him: Men dressed in long white turbans and carrying swords swayed and chanted in unison to beating drums in a courtyard. Trump, clearly enjoying himself, smiled and swayed, even seeming to dance a little at the centre of the group.

SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

During their conversation earlier in the day, the king was overheard lamenting the Syrian war. Trump ordered air strikes against a Syrian airfield in April in response to a chemical weapons attack by government forces against civilians.    

“Syria too used to be one of the most advanced countries. We used to get our professors from Syria. They served our kingdom. Unfortunately, they too brought destruction to their own country. You can destroy a country in mere seconds, but it takes a lot of effort,” he said.    

Trump’s response could not be heard.    

The arms package includes a pledge by the kingdom to assemble 150 Lockheed Martin & Blackhawk helicopters in Saudi Arabia, in a $6 billion deal expected to result in about 450 jobs in the kingdom.    

National oil giant Saudi Aramco was also expected to sign $50 billion of deals with U.S. companies on Saturday, part of a drive to diversify the kingdom’s economy beyond oil exports, Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said.     

U.S. technology and engineering conglomerate GE said it had signed $15 billion of agreements with Saudi organisations.    

Trump is to deliver a speech in Riyadh on Sunday aimed at rallying Muslims in the fight against Islamist militants. He will also attend a summit of Gulf leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.    

Shortly after taking office, Trump sought to block people from several Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States, but the travel ban has been blocked by federal courts.

The post $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia – Donald Trump appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: 110 billion arms deal, Donald Trump, King Salman, News, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco