Guide to UK terrorists

Here's a super interactive 'map,' prepared by the British newspaper The Guardian, that shows you the relationships between various Islamist terrorist groups and activities in the UK, and links you to articles about them. A quick way to get up to date with some of these groups and their ties - it would be great to see something similar for the major 'non-violent' Islamist organizations as well. (Thanks to Jihad Watch.)

The shameful UN

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, which groups together more than 50 Islamic countries, has been using the UN for some time to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of religion. This article in the Washington Times details how this is being done, the impact it already has in Islamic countries, and current U.S. plans to try to push back. Jihad Watch provides some perspective on how the United States could be waging this war of ideas - if we truly wanted to do so.

Beslan remembered

Four years ago, Chechen terrorists took over 1,000 adults and children hostage at the school in Beslan, North Ossetia. In the course of 'liberating' them, some 330 were killed and more than 800 wounded.

To date, one terrorist has been punished, but there has been no official investigation of the role of the Russian security services, despite protests from witnesses who believe that Russian officials opened fire and caused the deaths of the hostages. For example, some witnesses charge that the first casualties were caused by flamethrowers, fired by Russian special forces into the building where the hostages were being held. Instead, then President Putin used the tragedy to introduce 'reforms' whose purpose was to tighten the Kremlin's control. See details here, thanks to Radio Free Europe.

Italian proposal

Italy's Northern League party, which is part of the governing coalition, has introduced a bill that would require that any new mosques be built at least one kilometer from any church and that any services be conducted in Italian rather than Arabic. The bill would prohibit minarets and loudspeaker chants. (Thanks to Dhimmi Watch.) It's not clear if the bill has any chance of passage.

Italy already has 258 registered mosques, and Islam is the second largest religion, with 1.2 million Muslims. Christopher Deliso in The Coming Balkan Caliphate describes how Islamists have built large mosques in the Balkans with loudspeakers for the calls to prayer from the minarets. The sound is overwhelming and sends a clear message that Christians are not welcome there. Indeed, non-Muslims have tended to move away from such areas.

I remember the amplified calls to prayer reverberating in my bedroom in Sarajevo and thinking how intrusive they were - although unamplified chants might have been quite different.

Lights out on Liberty

That's the title of an essay by Mark Steyn, in which he argues that 'today's multicultural societies tolerate the explicitly intolerant and avowedly unicultural, while refusing to tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance.' He is currently in hot water with the Canadian Islamic Congress: a book review in which he described plot twists that were unappealing to them resulted in their charging him with 'flagrant Islamophobia'.

'In small but telling ways, non-Muslim communities are being persuaded that a kind of uber-Islamic law now applies to all,' says Steyn. He argues that Western appeasement is a big mistake; 'these incremental concessions to Islam are ultimately a bigger threat than terrorism.' Steyn is a hero from the 'non-violent Islamist front' who should be a household name.

More on Regent's Park Mosque

Here is an article in the Telegraph that describes in some detail what the undercover reporter learned during her foray into the Regent Park Mosque that I mentioned yesterday. This mosque, considered by many to be the most important in Britain, is supposedly committed to interfaith dialogue and moderation. What she uncovered was an environment in which Muslim women were urged to separate themselves from the society around them and to hate non-Muslims, gays, etc.

The article quotes Professor Anthony Glees at the Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies at Brunel University: "To think, as I believe our government thinks, that it makes ideological sense to play patsy with the Saudi government is folly of the first order of magnitude. We will be paying for it for years to come." To which I can only add, the same warning applies to the U.S. government.

EU summit waffles

The EU held a summit meeting today to discuss its policy towards Russia in the wake of the recent war in the Caucasus. As expected, the EU called for more negotiations rather than sanctions. It warned that EU-Russia ties were at a crossroads; urged Russia to adhere to the terms of the ceasefire that the EU helped broker; bemoaned Russia's decision to recognize the independence of Abkhasia and South Ossetia; and called for more diversification of energy supplies.

None of this is particularly surprising; indeed, it would have been amazing had the EU agreed to sanctions. The EU is dependent on Russian oil and gas and some EU member states, in particular Germany, rely on the Russian export market.

I do think this latest meeting has put a nail in the lid of the coffin of further EU integration as proposed in the Lisbon Treaty. The Central/East European member states (Poland, Hungary, the Baltic states, etc.) can read the tea leaves. I suspect they understand that, whatever EU common foreign policy will be in the future, there's absolutely no assurance it will reflect their vital security interests.