Russian neo-Nazi beheading video appears to be genuine

According to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigation Committee of the Russian federal prosecution office, a video showing the murder of two men by Russian neo-Nazis is not fake, as was previously claimed (Газета.ru).

The video, which first appeared on a blog run by a neo-Nazi called Viktor Mil'kov on 12 August 2007, showed a Tajik and a Dagestani being executed by neo-Nazis in a forest. Prior to the execution, one of the victims is heard saying "We were arrested by Russian national socialists." Two men in camouflage then give Nazi salutes, and murder the victims, one by decapitation and the other by shooting.

The family of a Dagestani man named Shamil Udamanov, who has been missing since August 2007, is claiming that the Dagestani shown being executed in the video is none other than Udamanov. The Russian prosecution started examining the case in earnest after Shamil's father Artur Udamanov wrote a letter to ex-President Vladimir Putin asking him to intervene.

The case is currently under investigation by the Russian Interior Ministry and German police.

Meanwhile, Mil'kov is serving a one-year prison sentence for initiating the distribution of the video on the Internet.

A previously unknown group which calls itself the Combat Brigade of the National-Socialist Party of Rus took responsibility for the execution in August 2007. In a statement sent to a Chechen separatist website, the group declared "armed war against black colonists" and "bureaucrats of the Russian Federation" who help non-ethnic-Russian immigrants. The terrorist group promised to "deport all Caucasians and Asians from the territory of Rus" (Rus being a medieval state whose successors today are Belarus, Russia and Ukraine).

The whole thing is thoroughly sickening. I wonder what the German connection is.

Taliban threaten mobile phone operators

The Taliban have threatened to destroy mobile phone towers and the offices of mobile phone companies in Afghanistan if the companies don't agree to stop mobile phone calls between 5:00 pm and 3:00 am each day. Zabiullah Mujaheed, a Taliban spokesman, said the movement was giving mobile phone companies three days to comply.

According to the Taliban, US forces in Afghanistan have been using night-time calls to track down members of the mililtant movement.

Mobile phones were first introduced in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001 (BBC).

Saudis attempt to reeducate militants

The Saudi government is in the process of opening up a new prison system to house inmates convicted of crimes related to terrorism. The goal of the new prisons is to reeducate the inmates and to instill in them the belief that engaging in armed jihad without the approval of one's country and one's parents is haram, or Islamically forbidden. The Saudi interior ministry has involved about 3,000 inmates in the scheme.

According to Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre, inmates released from the special jails have a re-arrest rate of upto 7%, while in a similar scheme in Yemen, about 70% of the released convicts have re-offended (BBC).

German police pursues ten terror suspects

After arresting three Muslim men accused of plotting terrorist attacks on several targets in Germany, the German authorities are looking for ten more people suspected of helping the three with their planning.

According to Monika Harms, a German federal prosecutor, the three men, who include two Germans and a Turk, had trained in Pakistan, and obtained 700 kg of explosives. They were allegedly planning to attack locations used by Americans, including the Frankfurt Airport (BBC).

As it is, many Germans don't have a very high opinion of Muslims. And now this. What were those three thinking (if indeed the accusations have some merit to them)? It is precisely this sort of thing that gives ammunition to those who would restrict the civil liberties of minorities, so these three people, as well as the other ten, if they are guilty, were endangering innocent people in more ways than one.

Partial curfew imposed in Baghdad

A partial curfew of indefinite duration has been imposed on Baghdad and its surroundings by the Iraqi government, meaning that, while cars are still allowed to move, two-wheeled vehicled and push-carts are not. This is a measure aimed at protecting Shi'ite pilgrims who are due to attend a festival next week (BBC).

The question is: what good is a curfew that gives cars freedom of movement in a country where so much damage has been wrought by car bombs? Is this a failure of the imagination on the part of the Iraqi government, or just an attempt at not embittering the population further by making life even more difficult for them?

Suicide bombers strike Yazidis; scores of casualties

Several suicide bomb attacks have killed 175 or more people near Mosul. The attacks were aimed at Iraq's Yazidi minority, whose members worship Malak Ta'us, or the Peacock Angel. The attack came after a period of rising tension between the Yazidis and Muslims of the area, after an incident in April in which a group of Yazidis allegedly stoned a formerly Yazidi girl who had converted to Islam (BBC).

It looks like some people in Iraq are really determined to drive all minorities out of the country.

Conflict at Jerusalem gay pride march

About 2,000 have joined in a gay pride march through Jerusalem. They were being guarded by 7,000 Israeli policemen. The reason for such a high security presence was a counter-demonstration by several hundred Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews, who denounced the gay pride march, set dustbins on fire and held banners with "Shame" written on them.

An ultra-Orthodox Jew was arrested by Israeli police for allegedly planning to set off a bomb on the route of the gay pride march (BBC).

Terrorism suspects on trial in the US

Three Muslim men, including US citizen José Padilla, are on trial in the US on terrorism charges. Padilla has been in detention since 2002. He spent part of this time at a US Navy base, despite the fact that he is American. Eventually, he was transferred to a civilian prison.

Prosecutors say that Padilla filled out an application to attend an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Defence lawyers for the accused men, however, are saying that the US government does not have a case (BBC).

Militants destroy CD and movie shops in Pakistan

Over a dozen CD and film shops have been destroyed in explosions in Tangi and Charsadda, in the North West Frotier Province (NWFP). It seems that the bombing campaign was carried out by militants convinced that the shops contravened Islamic principles (BBC).

I wish the militants engaged in this sort of thing would understand what effect their blind hatred has on perceptions of Islam around the world. As Pervez Musharraf's failed military campaign in the NWFP shows, the solution to the problem may well lie in the region itself. The common people of the NWFP ought to turn these gangs out of every hiding place of theirs.

Terrorists attack Banlgadeshi railway stations

A new terrorist organisation that calls itself "Jadid al-Qaeda" has set off simultaenous bombs at railway stations at the Bangladeshi cities of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. The bombs were placed in cotton bags at the stations. They resulted in a single casualty: a rickshaw driver was wounded in Chittagong when he opened the bag containing one of the bombs.

Jadid al-Qaeda had left metallic plaques inside the bags claiming responsibility for the attacks. The plaques also contained threats against the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, and warnings to Bangladeshis to stop working for NGOs, which, in some cases, receive foreign funding (BBC).

You'd think that this cowardly group, in its search for a scary-sounding Arabic name for itself, would at least double-check its grammar. "Jadid al-Qaeda" makes no grammatical sense in Arabic.

All that these bombs have succeeded in doing was to injure the poor, innocent rickshaw driver. How is he related to NGOs?

The lunatic bombers, who aim to kill innocent people in the name of Islam, should understand that Bangladesh is not the right country for them. Their type lost all legitimacy by siding with Pakistan in 1971. The newfound extremists are merely setting themselves up for destruction.

Northern Irish Loyalist group renounces violence

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Protestant Loyalist terrorist group in Northern Ireland has renounced violence, and has declared that it will give up terrorism starting tomorrow. The UVF is responsible for killing over 500 people in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It also killed 33 people in the Republic of Ireland in 1974.

The UVF said that it had put its arms "beyond reach", but is refusing to give them up completely (BBC).

It's about time, and let's hope the UVF will be courageous enough to take the next step: complete disarmament. If the peace process in Northern Ireland continues successfully, perhaps the province could become a model for Iraq.

Bosnia strips foreign fighters of citizenship

Bosnia-Herzegovina has revoked the citizenship of 367 foreign-born Muslim men who had fought for it in the Bosnian War. Those affected were originally from several Arab and European countries.

Several hundred foreign Muslims volunteered to fight for Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995. Many of them married Bosnian women and remained in the country after the war. Those who stayed were granted Bosnian citizenship.

Bosnia-Herzegovina has recently come under pressure from the US to re-examine the citizenship files, in order to make sure that the foreign-born Muslim community did not become a support base for terrorism (BBC).

Just another example of American diktat playing out in Central and Eastern Europe, with the countries of the region only too willing to oblige. First came "extraordinary rendition", i.e., the state-approved abduction of Muslims by the Americans and their handing over to foreign governments to interrogate under torture (a process in which several countries in the region seem to have cooperated). And now this.

I have no problem with proven terrorists having their citizenship revoked. But have any of these 367 men been found guilty of anything?

Fears of more violence in North Africa

North Africans -- Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians -- are wondering whether the recent violence in Algeria and Morocco was linked. It seems that Al-Qaeda is gaining strength in the region: the formerly independent Algerian terrorist group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat has recently changed its name to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, thus becoming a member of the international terrorist organisation.

There are also worrying signs of North African veterans of the Iraq War -- who fought on the side of the Sunni insurgents -- are joining terrorist organisations upon their return home.

Furthermore, growing terrorist activity in the region gives the area's already authoritarian governments an excuse to clamp down further (BBC).

This is just another way in which the Iraq War has made the world a more dangerous place to live in, rather than a safer one.

DHS wants to reach more Muslims

Officials from the US Dept. of Homeland Security said in Senate testimony that they want to increase outreach to the American Muslim and Arab communities, in order to prevent acts of domestic terrorism. Daniel Sutherland, the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the DHS, said that the US government should "work hard to deepen the engagement" with the American Muslim community.

Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat-Missouri) said that a positive view of Islam by the US government "may be the most powerful weapon we have against terrorism" (Los Angeles Times).

A move in the right direction, definitely, but, wait a minute: the DHS has an Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties? Maybe it figures that there's only one officer in that position in that vast department.