Archived news and commentary: May 1 - 7, 2006

2006/05/01 - 2006/05/07
2006/04/24 - 2006/04/30
2006/04/17 - 2006/04/23
2006/04/10 - 2006/04/16
2006/04/03 - 2006/04/09
2006/03/27 - 2006/04/02

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, May 7, 2006

News and commentary:

"Prominent Egyptian blogger arrested and several other activists" (Sabbah's Blog, 2006/05/07)
"Alaa Abd El-Fatah, one of the Egyptian political activists, and one of the first bloggers in Egypt was arrested today together with around ten more activists during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with sixty activists who were arrested over the past two weeks in a non-violent sit in, as well who were held in custody for two weeks under investigation for “crimes” that if anything would raise only mockery including, humiliating the president, possession of “publishing equipment” (graffiti spray) and blocking traffic. ...
Alaa is one of the most active people working to support the blogosphere in Egypt. Coupled with his wife Manal, their “Bit Bucket“, is the aggregator collecting almost all Egyptian bloggers. He won the special Reporters Without Borders - DW Best of Blogs award in 2005 and was previously interviewed on Global Voices. He is one of the people that the Egyptian blogosphere success and latest wide spreading is indebted to." (Hat tip: TigerHawk.)

"Moussaoui gets life, the terrorists win" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2006/05/07)
"America "lost" for a more basic reason: turning a war into a court case and upgrading the enemy to a defendant ensures you pretty much lose however it turns out. And the notion, peddled by some sappy member of the ghastly 9/11 Commission on one of the cable yakfests last week, that jihadists around the world are marveling at the fairness of the U.S. justice system, is preposterous. The leisurely legal process Moussaoui enjoyed lasted longer than America's participation in the Second World War. Around the world, everybody's enjoying a grand old laugh at the U.S. justice system. ...
On the afternoon of Sept. 11, as the Pentagon still burned, Donald Rumsfeld told the president, "This is not a criminal action. This is war."
That's still the distinction that matters. By contrast, after the 2005 London bombings, Boris Johnson, the Conservative member of Parliament, wrote a piece headlined "Just Don't Call It War." Johnson objected to the language of "war, whether military or cultural . . . Last week's bombs were placed not by martyrs nor by soldiers, but by criminals."
Sorry, but that's the way to lose. ...
Agreeing to fight the jihad with subpoenas is, in effect, a declaration that you're willing to plea bargain. Instead of a Churchillian "we will never surrender!", it's more of a 'Well, the judge has thrown out the mass murder charges, but the DA says we can still nail him on mail fraud.'"

"Civic Duty: Go See 'United 93'" (George F. Will, The Washington Post, 2006/05/07)
"Going to see "United 93" is a civic duty because Samuel Johnson was right: People more often need to be reminded than informed. After an astonishing 56 months without a second terrorist attack, this nation perhaps has become dangerously immune to astonishment. The movie may quicken our appreciation of the measures and successes -- many of which must remain secret -- that have kept would-be killers at bay. ...
The message of the movie is: We are all potential soldiers. And we all may be, at any moment, at the war's front, because in this war the front can be anywhere.
The hinge on which the movie turns are 13 words that a passenger speaks, without histrionics, as he and others prepare to rush the cockpit, shortly before the plane plunges into a Pennsylvania field. The words are: "No one is going to help us. We've got to do it ourselves." Those words not only summarize this nation's situation in today's war but also express a citizen's general responsibilities in a free society."

"The Foreign Brides" (Bret Stephens, OpinionJournal, 2006/05/07)
"They are called Die Fremden Bräute -- the foreign brides. This year, thousands of teenage girls, very few past the age of consent, will arrive in Germany from Turkey for arranged marriages and lives of domestic servitude enforced by tradition, isolation and fear. It's a thriving one-way trade that has been going on for more than three decades, and it sits at the core of Europe's greatest predicament today: the widening gulf between an increasingly postmodern society and its often premodern immigrants.
The subject of foreign brides broke wide in the German media last year, when a 28-year-old Turkish man took his 11-year-old wife to a registry office in Düsseldorf to get her an ID card. On that occasion, the girl was detained by the authorities and deported to Turkey. But according to the Turkish-born German sociologist Necla Kelek, that is more often the exception than the rule. Ms. Kelek, 48, is one to know: In two bestselling books, "The Foreign Bride" and "The Lost Sons," she has exposed Germans to the lives of their 2.6 million-strong Turkish community in a way few of her German-born peers would have dared. ...
Today, every second Turkish woman who has a child in a German school is herself a foreign bride. Two-thirds of these children arrive in school not speaking a word of German. The German educational system bends over backward for them, providing religious instruction in Turkish or Arabic and excluding girls from physical education, sex ed and other subjects where Islamic mores might be offended. The results have been dismal: 60% of Turkish children leave school without any kind of certificate. "The distance between Turkish youngsters and German ones increases every year," Ms. Kelek says."

"Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing" (Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 2006/05/07)
"Even by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty.":
"First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.
Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.
The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30." (See also: "Iraq Orders Tough Curfew to Stem Violence" (Robert H. Reid, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/24))

"Israel foils plot to kill Palestinian president" (Uzi Mahnaimi, The Sunday Times, 2006/05/07)
"A HAMAS plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.
Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said.
Abbas, who became president of the Palestinian Authority last year after the death of Yasser Arafat, was formally warned of the danger by the Israelis and cancelled a planned visit to the territory.
The murder plan is the clearest sign yet of the tensions inside the Palestinian Authority between Hamas, which swept to power after elections in January, and Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Hamas leaders, who refuse to recognise the state of Israel, suspect Abbas of obstructing their attempts to govern, which have been hampered by a financial boycott from donor nations. “Hamas considers Abbas to be a barrier to its complete control over Palestine and decided to kill him,” said a Palestinian source who was an adviser to Arafat and is a close acquaintance of Abbas.
It is understood that the attack would also have targeted Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas’s strongman in Gaza."

Added in archive:
"'Militants' kill Kashmir Hindus" (BBC News, 2006/05/01)
"Pakistan: tribal council to kill anyone reporting honor killings to police" (Robert Spencer, Dhimmi Watch, 2006/04/30)
"Pakistani jihadi videos thrive on execution scenes" (Arshad Sharif, Reuters, 2006/04/30)
"Migrant ghettos anger Germany" (Matthew Campbell, The Sunday Times, 2006/04/30)
"U.S. Deems al-Qaida Video Propaganda" (Lee Keath, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/28)
"Hirsi Ali, The Hunted" (Peaktalk, 2006/04/27)

Saturday, May 6, 2006

News and commentary:

"Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter" (Bushra Juhi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/05/06)
"A British military helicopter crashed in Basra on Saturday, and Iraqis hurled stones at British troops and set fire to three armored vehicles that rushed to the scene. Clashes broke out between British troops and Shiite militias, police and witnesses said.
Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter was apparently shot down in a residential district. He said the four-member crew was killed, but British officials would say only that there were "casualties."
British forces backed by armored vehicles rushed to the area but were met by a hail of stones from the crowd of at least 250 people, who jumped for joy and raised their fists as a plume of thick smoke rose into the air from the crash site.
The crowd set three British armored vehicles on fire, apparently with gasoline bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, but the soldiers inside escaped unhurt, witnesses said.
British troops shot into the air trying to disperse the crowd, then shooting broke out between the British and Iraqi militiamen, Khazim said. At least four people, including a child, were killed and 31 wounded, he said. Two of the fatalities were adults shot by British troops while driving a car in the area, Khazim said.
The crowd chanted "we are all soldiers of al-Sayed," a reference to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an ardent foe of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
Later the crowd scattered after hearing explosion, but groups of men set fire to tires in the streets and the situation remained tense. The chaotic scene was widely shown on Iraqi state television and on the Al-Jazeera satellite station."

"Hamas minister thanks Sweden for visa" (The Local, 2006/05/06)
"The Palestinian Authority's refugee minister Atef Adwan has thanked the Swedish government for allowing him to visit the country, after arriving in Malmö to address a gathering of Palestinian exiles.
Sweden is the first European country to be visited by a representative of the Hamas-led Palestinian administration. The decision to grant him a visa to visit Sweden has led to protests by opponents who point out that Hamas is classed as a terrorist organization by the UN and the EU.
Adwan said he hoped that the Palestinian Authority under Hamas will now establish further contacts in Europe.
"I saw no protests as I was coming here," he said after arriving at Folkets Park ahead of the conference on Saturday morning.
"I believe that this corresponds to the wishes of the Swedish people. They respect human rights," he said at a press conference." (See also: "Hamas visit to Sweden condemned" (The Local, 2006/05/05) and "Hamas minister gets Swedish visa" (The Local, 2006/05/04))

Friday, May 5, 2006

News and commentary:

"Hamas visit to Sweden condemned" (The Local, 2006/05/05)
"Sweden's decision to grant an entry visa to a Hamas cabinet minister to attend a conference about exiled Palestinians was "completely in order", according to prime minister Göran Persson. But the move has been criticised by France and Israel, which says it helps to "legitimise terrorism".
"Israel regrets this decision, which to our great regret helps to legitimise a terrorist organisation," foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. ...
Sweden and France are signatories of the so-called Schengen accords between EU members and others, which grant freedom of travel within their borders to visitors having obtained a visa from any other member country.
But on Wednesday Sweden's general consulate in Jerusalem issued a Schengen visa for the Palestinian refugee minister and a number of other people, Fredrik Floren, an official in the Swedish foreign ministry's Middle East division, told TT.
Floren said that it was normal procedure to withhold a visa if another member country had expressed reservations, as France had done for al-Bardawil and al-Rantissi.
"But in Adwan's case, no Schengen country had any reservations," Floren said.
That is not the view of the Olivier Guerot, spokesman at the French embassy in Stockholm. He told Swedish Radio on Friday morning that if Sweden had informed France of the visa application in the correct way, France would have rejected it.
According to the French, information about a visa application from any of the leading Hamas members should be sent to other Schengen countries via a special communication system between the capitals." (See also: "Hamas minister gets Swedish visa" (The Local, 2006/05/04))

"Never Again?" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2006/05/05)
"The world has paid ample attention to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declaration that Israel must be destroyed. Less attention has been paid to Iranian leaders' pronouncements on exactly how Israel would be "eliminated by one storm," as Ahmadinejad has promised.
Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the presumed moderate of this gang, has explained that "the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam." The logic is impeccable, the intention clear: A nuclear attack would effectively destroy tiny Israel, while any retaliation launched by a dying Israel would have no major effect on an Islamic civilization of a billion people stretching from Mauritania to Indonesia. ...
Last week Bernard Lewis, America's dean of Islamic studies, who just turned 90 and remembers the 20th century well, confessed that for the first time he feels it is 1938 again. He did not need to add that in 1938, in the face of the gathering storm -- a fanatical, aggressive, openly declared enemy of the West, and most determinedly of the Jews -- the world did nothing.
When Iran's mullahs acquire their coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be reaching 6 million. Never again?"

Added today:
"Boy publicly executes the man who killed his father" (Mike Pflanz, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/05/04)

Thursday, May 4, 2006

News and commentary:

"12 terrorists hunt Danish cartoonists" (WorldNetDaily, 2006/05/04)
The Danish Cartoon Affair: "A dozen young terrorists have departed Afghanistan, bound first for Iran and then Europe, where their mission will be to hunt down the Danish cartoonists responsible for drawing anti-Muhammad sketches, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The report was passed on by Hamid Mir, the Pakistani journalist who has interviewed al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and who just visited the no-man's land along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While there, he was told by Taliban sources in south Waziristan that 12 young men – nine Afghans and three Pakistanis – are on their way to Europe to kill the Danish cartoonists. While some carry Afghan passports and others carry Iranian passports, all will travel through Iran on their way to Europe, he reports.
All 12 have recorded the video messages that will be aired publicly if they hit their targets." (Hat tip: The Reality Show. See also: "Image of Muhammad" - News and commentary on the Danish cartoon affair.)

"Hamas minister gets Swedish visa" (The Local, 2006/05/04)
"Sweden has granted a minister from Hamas a visa to the EU's Schengen zone, despite an EU decision to cut ties with the ruling Palestinian party.
Hamas' refugee minister Atef Adwan will attend a Palestinian conference in Malmö on Saturday after the Swedish consulate general in Jerusalem granted him a visa, Svenska Dagbladet has reported.
The organisation's group leader Salah Mohammed al-Bardawil was yesterday denied a visa to the Schengen area by French authorities.
Swedish foreign ministry spokesman Fredrik Florén told Svenska Dagbladet the visa had been issued after the usual consultations with other Schengen countries. He said that no country had objected to Sweden issuing the permit.
But Florén insisted that Sweden was "full-square behind" demands by the 'quartet' of the United States, United Nations, EU and Russia that the Hamas-led Palestinian authority renounce violence, acknowledge Israel's right to exist and respect existing agreements." (See also: "Swedish MPs to meet Hamas representatives" (The Local, 2006/05/02))

"Boy publicly executes the man who killed his father" (Mike Pflanz, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/05/04)
Via Sam Leith: "What took place in that schoolyard in Mogadishu is exactly the justice that Moussaoui's confederates are apparently ready to fight and die to see imposed. It is the justice of the tricoteuse: sadism legitimised by judicial process.":
"A boy of 16 stabbed to death the man who killed his father in a public execution ordered by an Islamic sharia court in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
Several hundred people gathered in a school yard to watch Mohamed Moallim kill Omar Hussein with repeated blows with a knife to his head, throat and neck.
Hussein had been found guilty of killing the boy's father, a teacher, in the same way after an argument over his son's schooling.
He was sentenced to death by the court in the city's Bermuda district two months ago.
"I am happy now because I killed the man who killed my father," Mohamed said calmly after Tuesday's execution, which is believed to be one of the first in recent years in Mogadishu.
Hussein was flanked by Islamic court militiamen and hooded and roped to a wooden pole.
He shouted "There is no God but Allah!" in Arabic as he was killed. ...
Mohamed's relatives said that both they and Hussein's family had accepted the verdict of the court, which was hailed by Islamic spiritual leaders in Bermuda as just and a sign that order was being restored.
"Islam is the only solace to overcome the difficulties we are facing," said Sheikh Ibrahim Mohamed Nur, an imam. 'The justice of Allah has been implemented.'"

"'Life in London made my boy a terrorist'" (Francis Harris and Duncan Gardham, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/05/04)
"Zacarias Moussaoui's family in France blame the British for what happened to a once-carefree youth.
They trace the great change in Moussaoui's life to the moment the 23-year-old arrived in Britain in 1992, to attend a business studies course at South Bank University, after graduating in engineering in Perpignan in southern France.
Until then, his family and friends agree, the young man had been full of smiles. He had gone to bars and drunk beer and had a French girlfriend, with whom he ultimately shared a flat. The couple even won a dance contest.
He vowed to make his fortune in London and after a few months managed to get a place to study for an MA in international business studies. But in the ultra-tolerant atmosphere that existed in London before the September 11 attacks, such "wayward" young Muslims were exactly the material being sought by radical Islamists.
Young men like Moussaoui were fed into the machine and emerged as hardline religious terrorists, primed for slaughter. His mother, Aicha al-Wafi, who along with her husband was born in Morocco, has echoed the complaints of the French counter-intelligence service, the DST, accusing the British authorities of being far too permissive in the years before 2001.
"I would say that England is responsible for many things because it allowed this fever to spread around the country," she told the Canadian television channel CBC. "These young people go to England, and then they scream hatred and vengeance in front of mosques. They let the fever spread." His brother, Abd-Samad, agreed: 'I believe that Britain has fed a snake at its bosom, and has been bitten by the snake.'"'

Note: Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been very busy lately and updates will continue to be sporadic for a while.

Added today:
"Swedish MPs to meet Hamas representatives" (The Local, 2006/05/02)

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

News and commentary:

"Moussaoui Gets Life for Role in Sept. 11" (Michael J. Sniffen and Matthew Barakat, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/05/03)
"Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui escaped the death penalty Wednesday as a jury decided he deserved life in prison instead for his role in the bloodiest terrorist attack in U.S. history. "America, you lost," Moussaoui taunted.
After seven days of deliberation, the nine men and three women rebuffed the government's appeal for death for the only person charged in this country in the four suicide jetliner hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Three jurors said Moussaoui had only limited knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, and three described his role in the attacks as minor, if he had any role at all.
Moussaoui, as he was led from the courtroom after the 15-minute hearing, said: "America, you lost. ... I won." He clapped his hands as he was escorted away."

"Three men 'planned terror attack on church'" (The Local, 2006/05/03)
"Three men have been charged with planning a terror attack against preacher Ulf Ekman's Word of Life (Livets Ord) evangelical church in Uppsala. The case is the first ever prosecution for terrorist offences planned to take place on Swedish soil, and only the second case ever under Swedish terror laws.
The alleged plot was unveiled during the investigation into last year's failed firebomb attack against an Iraqi polling place in Stockholm. Police found references to plans to attack the church in a computer belonging to a 22-year old man of Iranian origin referred to as Mehdi.
The Swedish security police, Säpo, found information in the computer allegedly linking two other men to the plans. They were identified as Milan, a 19-year old of Bosnian origin from Trelleborg in Skåne, and Johan, the 25-year old son of Swedish professionals from Kramfors in northern Sweden.
The three men met on Terrorist Media, a website that promotes political violence. Medhi had also established his own Internet forum, Mujahedon.net. The strongest evidence against the men comes from Internet chatroom conversations and questioning. ...
Among the evidence presented by Lindstrand were pictures of the Livets Ord headquarters and a film showing two of the men studying the organization's website. In another film, Milan "warns the European people," which prosecutors interpret as expressing sympathy for Jihad.
"The motive for the plan is rooted in the fact that Livets Ord is pro-Israeli," said Lindstrand."

"Arab Reformists Under Threat by Islamists: Bin Laden Urges Killing of 'Freethinkers'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1153, 2006/05/03)
"The following are excerpts from bin Laden's speech, as posted by the reformist website Middle East Transparent on April 27, 2006.":
"To the entire Islamic nation...: This speech comes to further urge you and prompt you to [come to] the aid of the Prophet and punish those responsible for the vile crime being committed by some journalists from amongst the Crusaders and the apostate heretics, who have insulted the Prophet Muhammad…
"Imam Ahmad said: 'Whoever reviles the Prophet or belittles him, be he Muslim or infidel, should be killed.' The freethinkers and heretics who defame Islam, and mock and scorn our noble Prophet - their case and the law concerning them have been clearly expounded by Imam Ibn Qayyim [Al-Jawziyya]. He made it clear that the crime committed by a freethinker is the worst of crimes, that the damage caused by his staying alive among the Muslims is of the worst kind of damage, that he is to be killed, and that his repentance is not to be accepted...
"Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya said, commenting on [Koran 9:12]: 'Whoever defames our religion is a leader of disbelief.' Many are the leaders of disbelief in our days in the lands of Islam, and many are the followers of Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf in the Arabian Peninsula. Many of them are writers in newspapers, and many of them are actors and broadcasters in the media. ...
"Indeed, this is our Prophet's law regarding anyone who mocks him, and belittles Islam and scorns it... They should be killed... Take an example from Muhammad ibn Maslama and his companions [who assassinated the poet Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf]. It is intolerable and outrageous that the heretics are among us, scorning our religion and our Prophet.
"Therefore, you must fear Allah and do His will. Do not consult anyone about the killing of these heretics. Be secretive in carrying out that which is required of you.
'So much for the apostate heretics.'"

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

News and commentary:

"Swedish MPs to meet Hamas representatives" (The Local, 2006/05/02)
"Representatives of the Hamas government are to meet Swedish members of parliament in Stockholm. The organisers of the meeting are the Green Party's Yvonne Ruwaida and the Social Democrats' Mariam Osman Sherifay.
"When we heard that they were coming to Sweden we got in touch. We want a dialogue," said Yvonne Ruwaida.
No timescale for the meeting has been set since the representatives' entry visas are yet to be arranged, but it will be held in conjunction with the controversial Malmö trip.
When a date and time is fixed, other members of parliament will be invited, according to Ruwaida.
"The situation in Gaza and the West Bank has never been so bad as it is now," she said, arguing that a dialogue is needed, not a boycott.
"A boycott could mean that Hamas is isolated and ultimately only has contact with the Muslim world, and that would be unfortunate. We want to break the isolation," she said.
Ruwaida welcomed the Norwegian government's attitude, where officials from the foreign ministry are to meet the Hamas representatives. ...
The leader of the Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund, reacted swiftly to the news that members of parliament were planning a meeting. He called for prime minister Göran Persson to intervene to block the meeting.
"Is Sweden to offer a platform to a terrorist organisation? Göran Persson cannot remain neutral to this," he wrote in a press statement.
Protesting against the visit does not, according to Hägglund, mean rejecting dialogue.
"It is protesting against a group which is not capable of distancing itself from the absolute opposite of dialogue - blowing innocent people to bits to attain goals," he wrote."

Monday, May 1, 2006

News and commentary:

"'Militants' kill Kashmir Hindus" (BBC News, 2006/05/01)
"Suspected Islamic militants have killed at least 35 Hindus in two separate attacks in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police say.
Twenty-two people were shot dead after being taken from their homes in mountainous Doda district, police say.
The death toll in an earlier attack in neighbouring Udhampur district has risen to 13, officials say.
India says the attacks, the worst since it agreed a 2003 truce with Pakistan, are aimed at derailing peace efforts.
Indian foreign minister Anand Sharma told the BBC that militant groups based in Pakistan were responsible. "It is cross border terrorism. It's not the first time we are saying it."
More than 60,000 people have been killed since an armed separatist insurgency began in Kashmir in 1989."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



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December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
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Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



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