killing

Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki puts ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed’ cartoonist Molly Norris on execution hitlist

Religion of peace, my fucking ass.

Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki puts ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed’ cartoonist Molly Norris on execution hitlist

A CHARISMATIC terror leader linked to the botched Times Square car bomb has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” on an execution hit list.

Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical who has also been cited as inspiring the Fort Hood, Tex., massacre and the plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers – singled out artist Molly Norris as a “prime target,” saying her “proper abode is hellfire.”

FBI officials have notified Norris and warned her they consider it a “very serious threat.”

In an English-language Al Qaeda magazine that calls itself “Inspire,” Awlaki damns Norris and eight others for “blasphemous caricatures” of the Prophet Muhammed. The other cartoonists, authors and journalists in Awlaki’s cross hairs are Swedish, Dutch and British citizens.

The 67-page terror rag is seen by terrorism experts as a bald new attempt to reach and recruit Muslim youth in the West.

“The medicine prescribed by the Messenger of Allah is the execution of those involved,” writes Awlaki, 39, a Las Cruces, N.M.-born American citizen.

“A soul that is so debased, as to enjoy the ridicule of the Messenger of Allah, the mercy to mankind; a soul that is so ungrateful towards its lord that it defames the Prophet of the religion Allah has chosen for his creation does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air.”

Awlaki’s rant first appeared late last month in “Inspire,” which was posted to the Internet by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemeni branch linked to a Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound jet.

Initially, only three Web pages were accessible, leading to speculation it might be fake. But yesterday, the full edition was posted on jihadist Web forums, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

David Gomez, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle, said Norris and others were warned of the “very serious threat.”

“We understand the absolute seriousness of a threat from an Al Qaeda-inspired magazine and are attempting to do everything in our power to assist the individuals on that list to effectively protect themselves and change their behavior to make themselves less of a target,” Gomez said.

Norris initially grabbed headlines in April when she published a satirical cartoon on her Web site that declared May 20 “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” as a way to mock Viacom and Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of “South Park” that showed the Prophet Muhammed dressed in a bear suit.

Soon after, the topic erupted on the Web with the start of a Facebook support group for Norris. In response, Pakistan blocked access to the social networking site as a fiery pro-and-con debate raged worldwide.

Norris eventually backed away from her cartoon and cause.

“I regret that I made my cartoon the way I made it,” she told the Seattle-based KING 5 TV.

Norris’ neighbor said yesterday he’s noticed an increased police presence on the street lined with modest Craftsman-style homes. No one answered the door at her home, where a blue baby swing hung from a tree outside.

Most of the “Inspire” entries are regurgitations of widely available jihadi propaganda, including translated speeches from Osama Bin Laden and tutorials on how to “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.” Still, experts say the goal is clear: to reach a young, impressionable audience.

“It’s like Al Qaeda’s Tiger Beat,” said one senior U.S. counterterrorism official.

Israel and Turkey: It’s Complicated

Israel and Turkey: It’s Complicated

I hope that by now the state of Israel regrets its past collaboration with some of the worst elements in modern Turkey. It’s not so long since American Jewish lobby groups, and reportedly even the Israeli ambassador in Washington, were successfully lobbying Congress to vote down the resolution condemning the genocide of the Armenians. (The narrow passage of the resolution this year seems to have contributed to the increasingly evident paranoia and megalomania of Turkey’s thuggish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.) And, even as Turkish troops occupied one-third of Cyprus and expelled one-third of its Greek population, as well as mounted illegal incursions into Iraq in pursuit of rebel Kurds, the Israeli armed forces happily embarked on joint exercises with them. If this era of unseemly collaboration is over, then so much the better. Even so, there’s something slightly hypocritical about the way in which Israeli crowds have suddenly discovered the human rights record and the regional imperial ambitions of their former ally.

Talking of hypocrisy, though, how do you like the way that the words activist and humanitarian have suddenly made their appearance in our media? Activist is employed to describe a core group of Turks and Arabs, very many of them identifiable by name as affiliates or members or emulators of the Muslim Brotherhood. (I suppose in fairness it also covers such figures as the credulous Irishman Denis Halliday, who used to campaign so loudly for the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein.) And humanitarian is used to describe the materials that these worthies are seeking to donate to Hamas. But is it really humanitarian to make contributions to a ruling party that has a totalitarian and racist ideology and is in regular receipt of nonhumanitarian aid from Syria and Iran, two of the most retrograde and aggressive dictatorships in the world?

Those who care about justice and self-government for the Palestinians might want to be helping Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as they build up the institutions of an embryo state on the West Bank. And those who worry about the conditions of the Gazans might want to send convoys of aid to the many United Nations and NGO operations in the Strip that have a proven record of transparency and efficiency. But, from a Muslim Brotherhood or activist perspective, where would the fun be in that? It is only Hamas, with its thrilling violence and hysterical rhetoric, that is truly “authentic.” Incidentally, in a little-noticed statement last week, U.N. special regional coordinator Robert Serry denounced a series of raids and lootings mounted by Hamas supporters on the offices of genuinely humanitarian operations in Gaza City and Rafah.

The near-incredible stupidity of the Israeli airborne descent on the good ship Mavi Marmara, by troops well-enough equipped to shoot when panicked but not well-enough prepared to contain or subdue a preplanned riot, has now generated much more coverage and comment than Erdogan’s cynical recent decision to become a partner in the nuclear maneuvers of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It has also generated much more coverage and comment than Erdogan’s long-term design to de-secularize Turkey, a design in which his recent big-mouth grandstanding on Gaza is a mere theatrical detail. What on earth are self-proclaimed humanitarian activists—as they will soon enough be called at this rate—doing in such an open alliance between one cruel and bankrupt Iranian theocracy, one religio-nationalist Turkish demagogue, and Hamas?

Israeli self-pity over Gaza—”You fire rockets at us! And after all we’ve done for you!”—may be incredibly unappetizing. An occupation that should never have been allowed in the first place was protracted until it became obviously unbearable for all concerned and then turned into a scuttle. The misery and shame of that history cannot be effaced by mere withdrawal or healed by the delivery of aid. It can only really be canceled by a good-faith agreement to create a Palestinian state. But Hamas is a conscious obstacle to this objective, as it shows by its dependence on foreign dictatorships and by the criminal and violent methods it has used against Fatah and the PLO.

Let me give another case in point: Hamas’ charter and many of its official proclamations announce that it endorses the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a dirty anti-Semitic fabrication produced by Christian and czarist extremists and adopted by the Nazis. Would you, if you wanted to help Gaza and the Gazans, knowingly augment the power of such a flat-out racist organization by helping make it the proud and exclusive distributor of food and medicine?

Staying with this fascinating point for a moment: What if the international community put one simple question to the Hamas leadership? We will consider lifting the sanctions if you will renounce a barbaric and discredited concoction of lies that identifies all Jews everywhere as targets for murder. (The name notwithstanding, the Protocols have nothing to say about Palestine.) And what if the journalistic community—just once—was to ask a similar question of the “activists”? Do you endorse the Protocols: Yes or no? We would instantly be much closer to understanding what was meant by humanitarian.

While we wait for this puncturing of the current balloon of propaganda, we might as well savor the ironies. As well as being the two most intimate allies of the United States in the region, Turkey and Israel possess large and educated populations that want in their way to be part of “the West.” They also both suffer from mediocre and banana-republic-type leaders, who are willing prisoners of clerical extremists in their own second-rate regimes. Turkey cannot be thought of as European until it stops lying about Armenia, gets its invading troops out of Cyprus, and grants full rights to its huge Kurdish population. Israel will never be accepted as a state for Jews, let alone as a Jewish state, until it ceases to govern other people against their will. The flotilla foul-up, pitting former friends against each other, only serves to obscure these unignorable facts.

Massacres Shake Uneasy Nigeria

Massacres Shake Uneasy Nigeria

DOGO NAHAWA, Nigeria— The attackers came at night and surrounded this small farming village, firing shots in the air to scare residents from their homes. Men, women and children were hacked with machetes as they rushed out. Several houses were set on fire with residents still inside.

Details are beginning to emerge from attacks Sunday on four villages in central Nigeria, where witnesses say members of the predominantly Muslim Fulani ethnic group targeted villages that were home to members of the mostly Christian Berom ethnic group. On Monday, local officials counted 378 bodies in the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Rasat, Zot and Shen.

The dead, in a freshly dug mass grave, included a pregnant woman and at least one infant. A few miles away in Jos, a city of a half-million at the crossroads of Nigeria’s Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, troops patrolled the outskirts and set up checkpoints. There was a light police presence in Dogo Nahawa.

“I was sleeping at night next to my husband when I heard shooting,” said village resident Nomi Dung, 38 years old, her eyes red. “My husband told us to run, but I said, ‘No I will not run—even if I die, let me die in my home.’ My husband ran, and entered into the [attackers’] hands. My children ran outside because they were afraid from the shooting.”

Ms. Dung could not finish. A relative said her three children, ages 8, 5 and 3, had been killed.

The new violence compounds the political uncertainties in Africa’s most-populous nation. With sub-Saharan Africa’s largest Muslim population, Nigeria has largely avoided extremist ideology. But the threat of a deepening religious divide adds to security problems and a leadership vacuum that have prompted worries that one of the world’s largest oil-producers could be careening out of control.

Nigeria’s president, Umaru Yar’Adua, has traveled abroad frequently for medical treatments and hasn’t been seen in public for three months. His vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, has been given temporary executive powers and control over the military, but has faced political resistance from aides loyal to Mr. Yar’Adua. Meanwhile, militants have attacked energy pipelines belonging to Western multinationals and one major group recently abandoned an amnesty deal with the government.

Responding to Sunday’s killings, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both called on the involved parties to exercise restraint.

Mr. Jonathan, Nigeria’s acting president, deployed the Nigerian military to Jos and said the situation was under control. He also fired the country’s national security adviser on Monday, according to a statement.

The weekend’s attack appeared to be a reprisal for violence that claimed at least 300 lives in January, when Christian villagers targeted Muslims in a separate, nearby village, according to rights groups.

Officials and witnesses say the latest attack appeared well planned and brutally executed. The attackers didn’t shoot victims, but rather shot into the air to lure residents out of their homes, where they awaited them with machetes.

At a mass burial Monday in Dogo Nahawa, site of the worst violence, angry residents talked of revenge as they gathered around a large pit and scattered dirt on several dozen charred and bloodied bodies, some brought from neighboring villages. When an infant was lowered into the pit, women broke out in wails.

A village chief chastised area youth for not being ready to fight. “This is a lesson,” the chief said. “Now is the time for everyone to wake up. Elders are calling you youths to come out.”

An elderly woman prayed at the edge of the burial pit, chanting. “By God’s grace we will enter their villages and kill their women and children,” she repeated.

“We will do much worse to them,” one baby-faced man said.

When plumes of dust appeared in the distance during the burial service, mourners began to worry that the attackers were coming back. The dust was actually being kicked up by a truck carrying the bodies of 16 more victims, including an infant and a toddler, from another village.

A local journalist was nearly killed when the crowd of mourners at the burial site recognized him as a Muslim. The man was beaten for several minutes while young men shouted, “Kill him! He must die!” before police appeared and fired shots into the air. Young men continued to beat and throw rocks at the man while the police carried him away to a hospital.

Another local journalist, suspected of being Muslim, was asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer as proof of his Christianity. Mourners asked members of an international television crew if they were from Al Jazeera, saying there would be trouble for them if they were. The journalists, an American and a Kenyan, wore hats identifying their organization, CNN.

As journalists left the village by a rutted dirt road before the village’s dusk-to-dawn curfew, which was set Sunday, groups of young men gathered at the roadside with sticks and clubs.

Dogo Nahawa sits amid rolling hills, surrounded by former tin and columbite mines. Residents are predominantly farmers, cultivating corn and acha, a type of rice often called “hungry rice” because of its small size.

Several residents and officials, including Gabriel Gyong, 59, a civil servant, said there hadn’t been conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Dogo Nahama before.

Mr. Gyong said he woke to gunfire early Sunday. “Children were frightened and began running helter-skelter,” he said. “People who ran out of town were the ones who were slaughtered….They burned my house down, and they burned my car. I lost three grandchildren.”

Pastor Yohanna Gyang Jugu, of Church of Christ in Nigeria, sat outside his burned-down church, tears in his eyes.

“We were sleeping and we heard gunshots all around,” he said. “I woke up and went outside. There was nowhere to pass. Fulani men had surrounded the village. They caught my wife and killer her, and my daughter. They were cutting people down with machetes.”

During the burial service, Solomn Zang, the commissioner for works and transport in Plateau State, where Dogo Nahawa is located, said that the military was not sufficient for protection.

“God willing, we will do something about this,” he said. “Next time if this happens you shouldn’t call the police or the military, call on your neighbors to come and fight.”

Muslims Persecute Christians

‘They Want to Destroy Christians’

GOJRA, Pakistan, Aug. 2 — They do not want to bury the Christians. They want the nation to see them.

By nightfall Sunday, hundreds of residents of the Christian enclave here stood in defiant vigil around seven particleboard coffins neatly aligned on the train tracks that run through town. They had demands: Until the government investigates the killings and finds those responsible, they will not remove the bodies.

Police waited warily in the street. A man on a loudspeaker bellowed the villagers’ sentiments, which included anger at provincial authorities for not stopping the killings.

“Death to the Punjab government!”

A spasm of religious violence came to this rural town in the shape of an angry Muslim mob Saturday morning. The Muslims marched to avenge what they believed was the desecration of a Koran one week earlier. When it was over, dozens of houses were torched and Faith Bible Pentecostal Church lay in ruins. Two villagers were shot dead, residents said. Five others, including two children, burned alive.

Killing has become commonplace in Pakistan. But this attack startled the country both for its ferocity and for its stark message to religious minorities. Many saw the violence as further evidence of the growing power of the Taliban and allied Islamist militant groups in Punjab province, home to about half of Pakistan’s population.

“They have made up their minds to crush Christianity. They always call us dogs of America, agents of America,” said Romar Sardar, an English teacher from the area. “There has been no protection by the police. Nothing.”

The conflict apparently began with a wedding. On the evening of July 25, a wedding procession for a Christian couple passed through the nearby village of Korian, according to a police report. Revelers danced and threw money in the air, as is local custom. In the morning, a resident told police he had picked up scraps of paper on the ground and found Arabic writing. “We examined them, and it was the pages from the holy Koran,” the man said in the report.

Four days later, the accused, a member of the wedding party named Talib Masih, faced a meeting of local elders, who demanded that he be punished. Instead of repenting, the report said, he denied the desecration, and as a result, “the whole Muslim population was enraged.” The house burning began that night and then quieted down until Saturday morning.

That day, Riaz Masih, 68, a retired teacher, grew increasingly worried as a crowd gathered, chanting anti-Christian slogans and cursing Americans. He locked his house and rushed with his wife and children to the home of a Muslim friend nearby. The crowd, some wearing black veils and carrying guns, turned down Masih’s narrow brick alley near the train tracks and into the Christian Colony, according to several witnesses. Residents and marchers threw rocks at each other, and gunfire broke out. Using what residents described as gasoline and other flammable chemicals, the mob torched Masih’s house.

“We have nothing left,” he said, standing in the charred remains of his living room, his daughter’s empty jewelry box at his feet. “We are trying to face this in the name of Jesus Christ. The Bible says you cannot take revenge.”

On Sunday, the scenes of wreckage and dismay played out in house after house. Residents tossed burned blankets and clothing, broken televisions, and charred beds into heaps on the street. Fruit seller Iqbal Masih, 49, stepped over his mangled carts on his patio and tried to assess what was left of his daughter’s dowry. The armoire, a refrigerator, the bedding were burned; the $675 for furniture had disappeared.

“I am out of my mind. I can’t look,” he said. “They have subjected us to severe cruelties. May God show them the right path.”

At least four of the dead came from a single house. As the mob approached, a bullet struck Hamid Masih, a builder, in the head as he stood in his doorway, said his son, Min Has. Has heaved his father onto a motorcycle and drove him to a hospital, while the rest of the family members crowded in a back bedroom. The house began burning, and smoked billowed into the rooms. At least three other relatives, including 5- and 8-year-old siblings, died in the flames, according to residents. “There was fire everywhere, and it was impossible for them to get out,” Has said.

“I know one thing. They want to destroy Christians,” said Atiq Masih, 22, a janitor who was shot in the right knee. “They were attacking everything.”

Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the Punjab population, have been targeted in other recent cases. In June, a mob attacked Christian homes in the Kasur district of Punjab for allegedly dishonoring the prophet Mohammed. In Pakistan, which has strict laws against blasphemy, people can be imprisoned for life or put to death for insulting Islam.

Residents in Gojra said that this was the first incident of its kind in the town and that Christians and Muslims have long lived alongside one another without serious problems. They blamed Muslim clerics for inciting anger over the Koran incident in mosque sermons and accused the Taliban and the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba of involvement in the attack.

“The provincial government is not accepting that a large part of Punjab is suffering from religious intolerance due to the Taliban and religious outfits,” said Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, which issues an annual report on religious minorities in Pakistan. “They have been very negligent. This conflict was brewing for three days, and they were not receptive. They were not taking it seriously.”

Pakistan’s president and prime minister have called for investigations into the violence. By Sunday, police and paramilitary troops had taken up positions in the town. Provincial authorities said they have already made arrests and registered cases against 800 people. Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti denied that any Koran had been desecrated.

Police in Gojra said the violence Saturday was beyond their control.

“It happened all of a sudden. The police that were here were too few in number to stop it,” said policeman Kashif Sadiq. “It’s not fair to assume they let this happen intentionally.”

Religion Of Peace

Islam and the Myths of Unity and Peace

The so-called Islamic world is in crisis because many see enemies all over the place, be it democracy, Westernization, liberalism, socialism, and so forth. While alternative faiths are frowned upon, therefore, Christian and Buddhist missionaries must be aware for merely talking about your faith can mean either prison or death. Yet the real threat to Muslims and minority Muslim groups within various different nations is their fellow co-religionists, so why are outsiders hated so much when the real threat is Islam itself?

After all, since 1970 approximately 5 million Muslims have been killed by fellow Muslims, however, one mention of Israel, and we hear about the Muslim unity card. However, the real “Muslim unity card” is a non-starter and this applies to the very foundations of Islam itself because the majority of early Muslim caliphs were killed by Muslims. Therefore, the current situation is similar to the past because it is based on internal tensions and mutual hatreds which run deep.

The Kurds are a prime example because the majority of Kurdish people follow the Islamic faith, most are Sunni. Despite this, the Kurds, irrespective if Sunni or Shia, face persecution in modern day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds, ironically, have much greater freedoms in mainly Christian Armenia where a minority reside or throughout the European Union where many have fled because of persecution in the Middle East.

Therefore, the Kurds, the biggest stateless people in the world are marginalized and persecuted by fellow Muslims throughout the Middle East where they reside. Yet Muslims in the Middle East often speak-out for the Palestinian cause, however, the very same people often remain silent about the Kurdish cause. Therefore, it is clear that double standards are at play and Israel is a very easy scapegoat.

After all, look at recent history and the reality of the modern world. For since 1970 at least 5 million Muslims have been killed by their co-religionists on the grounds of Sunni-Shia divisions, ethnic tensions, political tensions, and other issues.

This applies to the Iran-Iraq war; the persecution of African Muslims in Darfur by the Arab Muslim dominated government in Khartoum; Kurdish persecution in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey (deaths have been a lot lower in Syria but persecution does take place); Pakistan-Bangladesh war; Algeria, Somalia, Syria (1982); Tajikistan; Yemen; and other nations. Also, roughly 150,000 Shia Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, by Sunni Islamic fanatics.

Despite this reality we have world leaders like President Obama of America appealing to the so-called Muslim world for a fresh start. Yet surely an internal fresh start is needed first, however, it seems most unlikely because the spiral of hatred runs very deep.

Therefore, do Shia Muslims in America, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and other mainly non-Muslim nations reside in fear? Of course the answer is no. Yet Shia Muslims have been targeted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other nations, by Sunni Islamic zealots. Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia it is clear that Shia Muslims are second-class citizens because the Sunni elite do not believe in religious equality.

Then if we look at one Muslim branch, the Ahmadiyya’s, and the Bahai’s which is an offshoot from Islam (but an independent religion), it becomes apparent that internal Islamic hatred and persecution is strong. After all, the Bahai community in Iran and the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan, suffer enormous persecution.

Therefore, many Bahai’s and Ahmadiyya’s have fled both Iran and Pakistan respectively, but if either fled to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, or other conservative Muslim nations, then they would suffer persecution once more. Given this, many Bahai’s and Ahmadiyya’s have fled to mainly non-Muslim nations because they have much greater freedom.

Then if we focus on al-Qaeda (al-Qaida) and Osama Bin Laden and fellow Sunni Islamic zealots, then we see a similar pattern. For when al-Qaeda emerged in Afghanistan they took their deadly sectarian ways with them and Shia Muslims were murdered in cold blood by forces loyal to al-Qaeda. The same happened when al-Qaeda entered the Iraqi civil war because once more they slaughtered Shia Muslims at will and moderate Sunni Muslim leaders were also killed by Sunni Muslim fanatics who had been brainwashed.

Given this, it is clear that Muslim unity is not only a sham but it is based on lies and sadly many elements within the mass media are ignoring this reality. Yet if Israel kills Palestinians in self-defence or during a military operation, then the usual mantra of Muslim brotherhood and Muslim persecution is raised.

However, the real reality is very different because the vast majority of Muslims who are killed throughout the world are killed by their co-religionists.
Therefore, the biggest persecutor of Muslims in the modern world is being done by their own co-religionists. At the same time, the deniers of democracy, religious freedom, female emancipation, and other important issues, are Muslim elites in many Muslim majority nations.

Also, it is abundantly clear that America and other nations are not anti-Muslim. After all, you have had three wars in Europe involving Muslims and Orthodox Christians in recent times. This applies to Cyprus, Bosnia, and Kosovo (Serbia), and every time America supported Islam against Orthodox Christianity. Just like America supported Indonesia despite countless massacres of Timorese people in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s.

However, when the Arab dominated regime in Khartoum, Sudan, was killing millions of mainly African Christians and Animists in southern Sudan did mainly Muslim nations enter Sudan to stop the bloodshed. Of course they did not and many African slaves in Sudan were sold internally but the outcry was very silent in the so-called Muslim world.

Despite everything, the President of America, Obama, is offering an “olive branch” but surely it should be the other way around. For in America people have the right to follow any religion they want or to have no religion. Yet in the land of Mecca and Medina (Saudi Arabia) you are not allowed to have one single Christian church, Buddhist temple, Hindu temple, or any other non-Muslim place of worship.

Therefore, what is the real agenda? Is it that Saudi Arabia can do whatever it likes because of their massive amounts of oil reserves? For this nation is spreading radical Sunni Islam to Afghanistan, Chechnya (Russian Federation), Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and many other nations, without any fear. Or is it that political correctness means we have to be pro-Islamic to show how nice we are, therefore, minority Muslim branches, Christians and other non-Muslims are allowed to be “lambs to the slaughter of Islam?” Or is it a mixture of both or collective amnesia?

Maybe I will always be in lament because Israel is the easy scapegoat and of course many Muslims appear to believe that they are victims. However, the real truth couldn’t be further away because the biggest threat to minority Muslim groups and to the freedom of Muslims, is being done in the name of Islam by either radical zealots or despotic rulers who invoke Sharia Islamic law in order to preserve their respective power bases.

The mass media should take a long look at itself and start to question the so-called House of Islam, Arab unity, Muslim brotherhood, and so forth. For Arab unity ignores both Arab disunity and the many non-Arab groups who reside in Arab dominated nations. While the House of Islam was divided within a short time of the death of Mohammed and Muslim brotherhood is based on unreality.

Scott Roeder says more violence is coming

Scott Roeder, charged with abortion doctor George Tiller’s murder, says more violence is coming

The Kansas City man charged with assassinating abortion doctor George Tiller in his church a week ago warned Sunday that more violence is coming.

“I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal,” Scott Roeder said in one of two phone calls to the Associated Press from prison.

He also complained about the “deplorable conditions in solitary,” worried about catching pneumonia because his cell was cold and said he needed his sleep apnea machine.

Tiller, 67, one of only three American doctors who performed late abortions on women with deformed fetuses, was gunned down inside his Wichita church as he chatted with a fellow usher about taking his grandkids to Disney World.

He had been targeted for years by anti-abortion protesters and demonized as “Tiller the baby killer” by conservative TV pundits. He often wore body armor – but not to church.

Roeder, 51, a mentally ill, unemployed anti-abortion activist from Kansas City, Mo., was charged with first-degree murder.

On Friday, the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether Roeder, who had enough money to stalk Tiller for years despite having little or no income, had help from accomplices.

Anyone who played a role in the killing will be prosecuted “to the full extent of federal law,” said Loretta King, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

A funeral was held Saturday for Tiller at Wichita’s large Methodist church to accommodate crowds that would not fit in his own, the Reformation Lutheran Church.

The funeral was protected by 50 American Legion Riders who roared up on motorcycles and formed a shield around Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita to honor Tiller’s Navy service.

Many wept when Tiller’s wife of 40 years, Jeanne, stood before the gathering and sang “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Dr. Warren Hern, a Colorado late-term abortion provider who was Tiller’s friend and who fears he may be the next target, was one of the pallbearers.

This morning, worshippers who watched Tiller die filled the pews at Reformation Lutheran to pray for him.

A few minutes after 10 a.m., exactly one week after Tiller was shot, the congregation began to pray: “Oh God, we are consumed by grief for what we have witnessed in our community. Come to our aid, walk with us, hold us, strengthen us and give us courage for the days ahead.”

Protesters from Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, held signs and shouted outside the sanctuary.