The war in Afghanistan may be winding down. But the Pentagon’s chief of irregular warfare still sees a war against al-Qaida that will last decades, all over the world — a prospect that prompted astonishment and constitutional debate in the Senate. …

- Wired.com, 5/16/2013

Two Islamist brothers terrorized Boston for days in April. Just a few days ago Fazliddin Kurbanov was charged in Boise, Idaho with “conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists,” according to the Idaho Statesman. The FBI itself said that:

… The Idaho indictment alleges in count one that between August 2012 and May 2013, Kurbanov knowingly conspired with unnamed co-conspirators to provide material support and resources to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a designated foreign terrorist organization. The indictment alleges that the material support and resources included himself, computer software and money.

In count two, the indictment further alleges that the defendant conspired to provide material support and resources, including himself, to terrorists knowing that the material support was to be used in preparation for and in carrying out an offense involving the use of a weapon of mass destruction. …

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

American Middle East analysts often claim that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization, nothing like the more radical Salafis. If true, what do we make of the fact that the most intolerant, anti-American, hate-filled Salafis and jihadis also happen to be the greatest and staunchest supporters of Morsi? Doesn’t such unequivocal support indicate shared ideologies and goals?

Consider: A few weeks ago, while discussing the ongoing protests against Egypt’s President Muhammad Morsi—himself a leader of the Brotherhood—Sheikh Abdullah Badr, an Al Azhar trained scholar and professor of Islamic exegesis, made the following assertion on live TV:

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by Cinnamon Stillwell*

How did scholars of the Middle East and those engaged in moonlighting (non-specialists who write about the region) react to the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013? Before the smoke cleared, some were predicting that the perpetrators would be “right-wingers” who sought to “disrupt tax day,” “neo-Nazis,” or “lone wolves.” Given that Muslims constitute 30 of 32 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of most wanted terrorists, this represents either wishful thinking or willful blindness.

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Interview with Mark Durie

by Christian Worldview Radio*

David Wheaton: Perhaps you watched the Boston Marathon bombings that killed four people and injured more than 200 others and wondered, “Why would two young Muslim men, who were granted political asylum in America years ago, educated in our schools, and received financial aid from U.S. taxpayers, set off two bombs in order to murder and maim as many Americans as possible?”

It’s a very good question. It has been said that, “All Muslims are not terrorists … but almost all terrorist attacks against America are committed by Muslims.”

Why is this? What is it about Islam — or perhaps about America? — that leads two young Muslims to murder the people that have actually taken them in?

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians, which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam. In churches, Christians throughout the Islamic world are simply being Christians—peacefully and apolitically worshipping their God. And yet modern day Muslim governments try to prevent them, Muslim mobs attack them, and Muslim jihadis massacre them.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Reports of Christian persecution by Muslims around the world during the month of February include (but are not limited to) the following accounts. They are listed by form of persecution, and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:

Church Attacks

Egypt: Once again, soon after Friday prayers, a throng of Muslims in Fayoum province, destroyed a Coptic church. The reason cited this time was that the church is “an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved.” According to AINA, “The mob climbed to the church dome and started demolishing it and setting it on fire. The dome collapsed into the burning church and caused great damage. Muslims used bricks from the dome and the holy cross and hurled it at the altar inside the church, causing part of it to be demolished; all the icons of saints were destroyed. Muslims tried to assault Father Domadios and threw stones at him, but he was saved by a Muslim family who brought him away from the village in their car.” Local Christian families were reported as staying indoors for fear of being assaulted by the Muslims. And, once again, although state security was present throughout this entire proceeding, it did nothing to prevent it. None of the perpetrators was arrested. Two days later, hundreds of Copts demonstrated demanding a halt to the ongoing attacks on their churches. In response, the church was attacked again by Muslims hurling more Molotov cocktails and stones while shouting “We do not want the church.” Some Muslims climbed atop the church again to completely destroy the remains of the wooden dome.

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Americans should be very wary of the tyrannical tendencies of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he wants to rewrite our nation’s Constitution and is using his massive personal fortune to “try to defeat opponents of the [gun] background-check proposal who are up for re-election next year.” Below I’ve provided snippets from several articles which you must read in their entirety, and take action, warning your elected officials of his intentions. Please distribute this information via email, social media, word of mouth, etc. You should also note that “Judicial Watch is now analyzing the ethical and legal implications of [Bloomberg's] secretive campaign” vis-a-vis his attacks on the Second Amendment.

From Investor’s Business Daily:

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BREAKING: NYC MAYOR BLOOMBERG WANTS TO REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION CLAIMING “that recent attacks on the Second Amendment have left him confident that such re-interpretation is possible.”

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President Obama and his lackeys in government still insist that the Fort Hood massacre was a case of “‘workplace violence,’ despite mountains of evidence [that] clearly proves the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terror.” Is the Obama administration now taking the same course with the Boston bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev? How did our national security apparatus allow these brothers to slip under the radar? Two men murdered three people and injured over 175 at an international event in a great American city, and “avoid[ed] capture for three days.” The daily activities of 1 million people were paralyzed in the midst of hundreds of law enforcement personnel.

Ample evidence already exists supporting the theory that the Tsarnaev brothers’ atrocity was motivated by Islamist ideology. Even CNN admitted:

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

While it is easy to confuse the recent jihadi attack on Egypt’s St. Mark Cathedral in Cairo as just more of the usual, this attack has great symbolic significance, and in many ways bodes great evil for Egypt’s millions of Christians.

Consider some facts: St. Mark Cathedral—named after the author of the Gospel of the same name who brought Christianity to Egypt some 600 years before Amr bin al-As brought Islam by the sword—is not simply “just another” Coptic church to be attacked and/or set aflame by a Muslim mob (see my forthcoming book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, for a comprehensive idea of past and present Muslim attacks on Coptic churches). Instead, it is considered the most sacred building for millions of Christians around the world—above and beyond the many millions of Copts in and out of Egypt. As the only apostolic see in the entire continent of Africa, its significance and evangelizing mission extends to the whole continent, including nations such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, to name just a few. As an apostolic see—the actual seat of an apostle of Christ—the cathedral further possesses historical significance for Christianity in general.

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Here, you can thank those senators who voted yesterday against the destruction of the Second Amendment via phone, email, Twitter, and Facebook. These senators deserve our continual support. They acted as they should because “Upon taking office, senators-elect must swear or affirm that they will ‘support and defend the Constitution.’” Even though the Second Amendment is quite clear to many Americans, as it succinctly states that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” there are extremists who care nothing about our great nation’s founding principles. But these pro-Second Amendment senators stepped up to the plate for gun rights full-well knowing that they will be targeted by special interest groups for being “soft” on gun control.

After the defeat of anti-gun rights legislation, President Obama “flashed anger as he said that the gun rights lobby had ‘willfully lied’ about the legislation, and that Republicans and Democrats had ‘caved to the pressure’” of the supposedly nefarious gun lobby. But was Obama really doing the lying?”

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by Daniel Pipes*

The Egyptian publication Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that the U.S. government has supplied five containers carrying 140,000 teargas canisters to Egypt’s Interior Ministry. It further reports that this shipment left Wilmington, Delaware, on Mar. 14 aboard the SS Jamestown and that it has just arrived the port of Suez. They cost the Egyptian government just under US$2.5 million. According to ministry spokesperson Hani Abdel Latif, the ministry imported the grenades in order to protect state facilities.

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Senators Joe Manchin (R) and Pat Toomey (D) today announced a so-called “compromise” bill/amendment which they claim would increase gun safety through improving “background checks,” but is in truth a flawed piece of legislation, WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD ACT NOW TO STOP THE MEASURE (or click here for more options). The title of their bill is Orwellian: “The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.” It is double-speak, as their measure infringes on the Second Amendment — it doesn’t “protect” anything. It will in fact push the U.S. towards the establishment of a national gun registry, the eventual effect of which will be the possibility of gun confiscation.

As usual with “gun control,” law-abiding citizens — the people least likely to commit gun crimes — will be punished while little to nothing will be done to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and crazies. Stolen guns and the black market will provide criminals and crazies with all the guns they want. Under Toomey/Manchin, law-abiding citizens may have their medical privacy rights violated; they may be denied gun ownership because of invasion of their privacy:

“Under an amendment in the bill to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), you could have your guns taken away because your private shrink thinks you’re ‘dangerous’ and could send your name directly to the FBI Instant Check system.”

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ACT NOW! if you want to keep your guns. This article provides citizens all the resources they need to stop extremist “gun control” advocates and explains why NOW is the time to act. If you think the democratic process doesn’t work, remember that New Mexicans just beat ALL state gun control legislation in the 2013 session. Please read on…

When citizens rose up in a grassroots campaign and stopped the “background check” bill and other anti-Second Amendment legislation in April, we had cause to celebrate our victory. But President Obama and Senate Democrats, like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), are going to continue to do everything they can to destroy the Second Amendment, our great Constitution’s guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” These anti-gun proponents have no scruples, and will do and/or say practically anything to disarm good citizens. Purportedly, Harry Reid is going to “use his gun bill to portray Republicans as ‘rape supporters.’”

Still quietly lurking in the background is the specter of a new Senate and House push for consideration of legislation “that would criminalize the private transfer of firearms between law-abiding Americans,” would ban “assault weapons” and many other semi-autos, would ban “large-capacity magazines,” would require a national gun registry (see here also), and impose taxes on the gun registration process.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

The 2013 year began with reports indicating that wherever Christians live side by side with large numbers of Muslims, they are under attack. One report said that “Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest.” This is certainly true: whether in Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, or Tanzania, attacks on Christians in those countries are as frequent as they are graphic.

As for the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, a new study by the Pew Forum finds that “just 0.6 percent of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4% of the region’s inhabitants, drastically down from 20% a century ago and marking the smallest regional Christian minority in the world. Fully 93% of the region is Muslim, and 1.6% is Jewish.”

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by Teri Blumenfeld*

More than a decade after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, the U.S. administration seems no closer to identifying let alone repelling Islamist terrorists in the homeland. The 9/11 committee used the term “failure of imagination” to explain why the U.S. government was unable to prevent the catastrophic events of that day.[1] But although the enemy was identified at that time, the Federal government and one of its most important branches, the FBI, have adopted a policy of scrubbing Islamism from public consciousness[2] though since bin Laden’s 2011 demise, “at least nine publicly known Islamist-inspired terror plots against the United States have been foiled, bringing the total number of foiled plots as of April 2012, to 50.”[3]

The Obama administration’s response to the 2009 Fort Hood terror attack by U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan offers a vivid illustration of this practice. In August 2012, an independent commission charged with reviewing the FBI’s failure to prevent the attack issued its report, recommending eighteen changes in policies and operations. However, the commission, headed by Judge William H. Webster, upheld the government’s policy of excluding Islamism from the findings, concluding that despite the intelligence failure, FBI personnel had faithfully followed protocols and procedure, and there occurred “no misconduct that would warrant administrative or disciplinary action.”[4]

There appeared to be little appetite for finding the attack’s root causes and its failed detection. Nor was corrective action an apparent priority. Instead, the directive focused on exploring “whether there are other policy or procedural steps the FBI should consider … while still respecting privacy and civil-liberty interests” and “whether any administrative action should be taken against any employee.”[5]

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