fredag 6 november 2009

Tros ha diskuterat självmordsbomber

Aftonbladet 6 November 2009

Ville inte skickas till Afghanistan

Major Malik Nadal Hasan var upprörd över att han skulle skickas till Afghanistan.

Därför iscensatte han blodbadet på militärbasen i Texas. Minst tolv människor dog.

– Det här är ett fasansfullt våldsutbrott, säger president Obama.

Många frågetecken kvarstår kring Nidal Malik Hasan, mannen som misstänks för nattens våldsamma dödsskjutningar på militärbasen Fort Hood i Texas.

Amerikanska medier söker desperat efter ett motiv men har ännu inte hittat någon utlösande faktor, mer än att den 39-årig psykiatern från Virginia snart skulle skickas till Afghanistan.

Ville inte skickas i krig

Hasan har rötter i Jordanien, var aktiv muslim och arbetade enligt uppgifter i medierna aktivt för att inte skickas i krig. Han gav sig också ofta in i diskussioner där han menade att USA borde lämna Irak och Afghanistan.

I ett uttalande säger hans släktingar att de är "chockade och sorgsna" och att de sörjer med de drabbades familjer.

– Vår familj älskar USA, säger Hasans kusin till Fox News.

”Tystlåten person”

Människor som känner honom talar om en tystlåten person gjorde dåligt ifrån sig på militära övningar. Kollegor från hans tid som psykiater berättar för AP att Hasan behövde särskild hjälp och ibland hade svårt att knyta an till sina patienter.

Men det senaste året började Hasan väcka uppmärksamhet när han diskuterade självmordsbombare på internetforum. Bland annat tros han ligga bakom en text där han jämför en muslimsk självmordsbombare med en amerikansk soldat som kastar sig på en granat för att rädda sina kamrater, att båda medvetet offrar sina liv i strid.

Ingen utredning

Texterna väckte uppmärksamhet bland federala agenter men det är inte bevisat att Hasan låg bakom texten och ingen formell utredning inleddes före dödsskjutningarna.

Ägaren till en 7-Eleven butik i Fort Hood säger att Hasan på dagen för morden som vanligt kom in för att handla sitt morgonkaffe. Uppgifterna bekräftas av övervakningskamerorna i butiken som visar en man klädd i arabiska kläder handlar en dricka i butiken.

Olof Jönsson

torsdag 5 november 2009

Berlusconi says crucifix ruling denies Europe's roots Wed

By Stephen Brown Nov 4, 2009

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday a European Court of Human Rights ruling that called for crucifixes to be removed from Italian classrooms was a nonsensical attempt to deny Europe's Christian roots.

The Roman Catholic country has reacted with outrage to Tuesday's ruling from Strasbourg that the ubiquitous crucifixes on walls in Italian schools could disturb children who were not Christian.

The conservative prime minister, who draws much of his support from the Roman Catholic majority, told a television show the ruling was an attempt to "deny Europe's Christian roots. This is not acceptable for us Italians."

Berlusconi pointed out that Italy has so many churches that "you only have to walk 200 meters forwards, backwards, to the right or to the left and you find a symbol of Christianity."

"This is one of those decisions that often make us doubt Europe's good sense," said the prime minister, confirming that Italy intended to appeal against the ruling once his cabinet has studied it at its weekly meeting on Friday.

The Vatican expressed "shock and sadness" at the court ruling, which was condemned across the ideological divide in a rare moment of unity among Italian politicians. Only some on the far left and atheist groups backed the ruling.

Mayors all over the country vowed to defy the ruling and there were angry reactions from Catholic strongholds abroad such as Poland. Thousands of people protested on social networking sites on the Internet.

"Europe in the third millennium is leaving us only Halloween pumpkins while depriving us of our most beloved symbols," said Vatican number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Italy has been in the throes of debate on how to deal with a growing population of immigrants, mostly Muslims, and the ruling could become another battle cry for the government's policy drive to crack down on new arrivals.

Mara Bizzotto, a European parliamentarian for Berlusconi's anti-immigrant coalition partner, the Northern League, asked why the European court had taken action against the crucifix but did not ban Muslim symbols such as "veils, burqas and niqabs."

The case was brought by an Italian national, Soile Lautsi, who complained that her children had to attend a public school in northern Italy which had crucifixes in every room, thereby denying her the right to give them a secular education.

Two Italian laws dating from the 1920s, when the Fascists were in power, state that schools must display crucifixes.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

söndag 1 november 2009

Cartoon 'Offended'; Charged with planning to bomb Danish paper

Cartoon 'Offended'; Charged with planning to bomb Danish paper

Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Canadian arrested in Chicago for allegedly helping plot a terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper told the FBI he was offended by editorial cartoons of Muhammad that the daily had published.

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a 48-year-old Pakistani-born Canadian, has been charged with supporting terrorism for his role in what the FBI says was a plot against the Jyllands- Posten in Copenhagen.

An indictment unsealed yesterday alleges Mr. Rana conspired with David Headley on the Mickey Mouse Project, an innocuously named terrorist operation meant to strike at the newspaper for "making fun of Islam."

"The criminal complaints unsealed today have exposed a serious plot against overseas targets by two Chicago-based men working with Pakistanibased terrorist organizations," said David Kris, the Assistant Attorney-General for National Security.

A Danish intelligence official, Jakob Scharf, said the plotters had considered attacks involving firearms and explosives, but Mr. Rana's lawyer said his client denied the charge and was looking forward to clearing his name.

The terrorist operation outlined by the FBI runs against the current perception of the Islamist extremist threat. Many recent terrorist plots in the West have involved young extremists inspired by al-Qaeda but unconnected to it. But in this case the suspects are both close to 50 and allegedly worked in concert with established Pakistani terror groups.

Although a Canadian, Mr. Rana lives in Chicago, where he owns First World Immigration Service.

The company also has offices in Toronto and New York. FBI agents raided his halal meat business in Kinsman, Ill., last week.

He is accused of discussing potential targets with Mr. Headley and arranging for him to travel to Denmark to conduct surveillance of the newspaper building. He also filmed the central train station, a synagogue and military barracks.

Denmark has been on the alert since 2005, when Jyllands-Posten published a dozen editorial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, one showing a turban as a bomb. The project was meant to stir debate over the tension between free speech and Islam, but deadly riots erupted around the world as Muslims decried the images as blasphemous.

The Danish embassy in Islamabad was attacked in June 2008, and during a recent visit to Canada the 74-year-old cartoonist who drew the most controversial image, Kurt Westergaard, described how he lived under the protection of the Danish secret service.

According to the FBI, in October 2008, Mr. Headley posted a message about the cartoons on a Yahoo group for graduates of a military school in northern Pakistan that both he and Mr. Rana had attended.

"Call me old-fashioned, but I feel disposed toward violence for the offending parties, be they cartoonists from Denmark or Sherry Jones [the author of a novel about Muhammad's wife] or Irshad Manji [the Canadian liberal Muslim writer]," he wrote.

Over the next year, Mr. Headley corresponded with Mr. Rana and members of the terrorist groups Lashkar-e Tayiba and Harakat-ul Jihad Islami about the plot. He visited Copenhagen in January and again in July to conduct reconnaissance, the FBI said.

His cover story during his travels was that he was considering opening a branch of First World Immigration in Denmark and was interested in advertising in the paper, the FBI said. He was on his way to Pakistan

on Oct. 3 when he was arrested while boarding a flight at Chicago's O'Hare airport.

FBI Special Agent Lorenzo Benedict said Mr. Headley, 49, is a U.S. citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 and was trained by Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the group behind last year's Mumbai attacks.

While he claimed to work for Mr. Rana's immigration firm, Mr. Headley appeared to perform little if any work for the business and, although he had no apparent income, he travelled regularly to Pakistan and Europe, the FBI said.

In statements to investigators following his arrest, he admitted ties to Pakistani terror groups and said that while the newspaper building had been the initial target, the operation had been reduced to killing the cartoonist and the culture editor, Flemming Rose.

Mr. Rana was arrested on Oct. 18. He admitted he was aware Mr. Headley was affiliated with Pakistani terrorist groups, the FBI said. He also said he "was offended by the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammad and would not have done business with the newspaper that published them."

Ms. Manji said in an interview yesterday she had been informed in advance that her name had surfaced in the plot but she was not fazed by it and would not be silenced. "I simply will not abdicate our freedoms to people who would use those very freedoms to take them away," she said.

Danish authorities said more arrests were possible.

Danmark slår tillbaka mot terroristerna

Danmark slår tillbaka mot terroristerna

Al Qaedaterroristen Daood Gilani (alias David Coleman
Headley) besökte Danmark i januari och juli/augusti i
år. Det var rena rekognosceringsturer där han bl a var
inne i och fotograferade i Jyllands-Postens redaktionshus
i Århus och Köpenhamn.
I Köpenhamn filmade han också vägen från Hoved-
banegården till terrormålen med sin videokamera.
Då upptäckte han också en dansk "militär styrka" som
han tolkade som en quick reaction force som kunde
ställa till problem för terroristerna.
Vaktparaden kan känna sig stolta. Det var länge sedan
någon uppfattade dem som ett militärt hot......
**
Under och efter Köpenhamnsresorna avrapporterade
han till Ilyas Kashmiri och LeT-ledaren A, som skulle
ställa upp med terrorgruppen till "Aktion Musse Pigg".
**
Terrorhotet mot Danmark har skärpts i och med detta
avslöjande av Al Qaedas planer. De islamistiska terror-
grupper som tidigare avslöjats ( se t ex Glostrupsligan,
Glasvejsligan och Vollsmoseterroristerna) har visserligen
utbildats i Pakistan, men i praktiken opererat självständigt
utan någon ledning från utlandet. Den nya gruppen har
styrts direkt från AQ-ledningen i Pakistan/Afghanistan.
Det kan betyda att perioden med s k homegrown terrorism
nu är över och vi återigen får se attacker över hela
världen , centralt planerade och styrda från AQ:s
generalstab....
***
Läs de federala åtalen mot
Daood Gilani
Tahawur Hussain Rana
***
Terrorister filmade synagoga i Köpenhamn

Mannen bakom den planerade
terrorattacken i Danmark