Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists.

In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question.

A leading al-Qaida ideologue for the terror network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has developed his own theologically-based theory of collateral damage that allows militants to kill Muslims when it is unavoidable.

Even the Iraqi affiliates of Osama bin Laden’s terror group, who are known to be particularly bloodthirsty, claim that they too consider this question. For instance, in a message claiming responsibility for an August attack in Baghdad, the group wished those Sunnis injured in the “operation” a speedy recovery and expressed their hope that those killed would be accepted by God as “martyrs.”

But even as such apologetic communiqués from al-Qaida show the terror network stylizing itself as a defender of the true faith wrestling with religious concepts, they also make it look as though any dead Muslims are regretful but isolated cases. The facts, though, tell a different story.

Between 2004 and 2008, for example, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West — in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 — only 12 percent of those killed (371 deaths) were Westerners.

New Report Shows Many More Muslims Killed Than Non-Muslims

It is, of course, no surprise that al-Qaida kills more Muslims than non-Muslims — particularly for people in the Islamic world. But a new report by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States’ Military Academy at West Point in New York — which has gathered together these and other relevant figures in one report (“Deadly Vanguards: A Study Of al-Qaida’s Violence Against Muslims “), spells out the discrepancy in black and white.

The authors of the study admit that their report likely omits a number of Muslim victims. But that was the price of their rigorous methodology, used in an effort to avoid accusations of partisanship.

The researchers only counted the attacks for which al-Qaida claimed responsibility, thus preventing accusations that they were seeking to make al-Qaida look even worse than it is. Still, it is well known that al-Qaida does not claim responsibility for every attack perpetrated, meaning that many victims are likely left out of the report. Furthermore, the researchers only included attacks reported on by the Arab media and relied on the numbers they reported — out of a conviction that the Arab media is more highly regarded in the Muslim world than the Western media. That, though, is not always the case.

Blurred Figures And Inexact Categories Are Problematic

The greatest potential for inaccuracy in the report, however, is the placing of victims into only one of two categories: Western or non-Western. The assumption being that Western would also mean non-Muslim and vice versa. The problems with such a system of categorization are myriad. Not all those living in the Muslim world are Muslim: In Iraq, al-Qaida has launched attacks against Kurds, Yazidi and Christians. Secondly, a lot of the Muslim victims are actually — and deliberately — Shiites. A Sunni group, al-Qaida considers the Shiites to be unbelievers.

Unfortunately news reports don’t tend to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, explains Scott Helfstein, one of the writers of the report. This is also the reason for the non-Western and Western categories. “It is easy for journalists to count nationality but they rarely, if ever, identify religion,” Helfstein writes in reply to e-mailed questions from SPIEGEL ONLINE. The report’s writers were well aware of the problem. “But we were not able to find a way around it,” Helfstein notes.

Indeed, the report’s authors confront the shortcomings of their methodology head on. In one passage, they remove attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan from their calculations altogether, resulting in the share of Westerners killed in al-Qaida attacks rising to a much more significant 39 percent. If one removes the Madrid and London attacks from the statistics, though, the share of murdered Westerners drops back down to 13 percent.

Perhaps more significantly, if one only examines attacks in 2007 and disregards those having been perpetrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the share of non-Westerners killed by al-Qaida rises to 99 percent. In 2008, it was 96 percent.

Non-Westerners 38 Times More Likely To Be Killed

Put another way, between 2006 and 2008, non-Westerners were 38 times more likely to be killed by an al-Qaida attack than Westerners.

“Since al-Qaida has limited capability to strike against its Western enemies, the group maintains its relevance by attacking countries with Muslim majorities,” the study concludes.

The conclusions reached by Helfstein and his co-authors are hardly world changing. They are valuable nonetheless, in that they provide a numerical foundation to the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim al-Qaida victims.

Still, critics will no doubt point out that the study comes from the CTC, an organization that is part of an American military school. In recent years, the CTC has released a number of excellent studies on terrorism. But because it is actually supplying arguments, backed by scientific research, for the fight against terrorism to decision makers, politicians and military personnel in the US, it cannot be considered strictly neutral. That also applies to this case, especially since a number of American officials have recently begun stressing the point that al-Qaida is particularly violent toward Muslims and can now rely on solid data to back up their argument.

This perceived lack of neutrality doesn’t change the fact that the fundamental findings of the report are correct and meaningful. The authors conclude that if they compare statistics for the years from 1995 to 2003 (excluding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US as a solitary event), they find that al-Qaida is becoming more violent and “increasingly indiscriminate” in its attacks.

Just how big a problem this discrepancy between Muslim and non-Muslim victims will become for al-Qaida remains to be seen. Even prior to the report’s release, however, it had become a subject of intense debate within the Jihadist seen — with more and more ideologues coming to the conclusion that al-Qaida’s fight on behalf of the downtrodden Muslims isn’t worth it.

Source

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• Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than Muslims in Muslim countries
• 93% of Muslims Worldwide Condemn 9/11!

Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.

In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts

Looks like there is another terrorist entity right here in America.

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Doctors in Iraq’s war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja’s over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems – are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women’s affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.

Read more here.

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You know what I find really hilarious from this story is when they tried to join a group in Pakistan, they were rejected for not being Pakistani. Sounds like a lot of BS to me.

This is an amazing quote from his lawyer:

“If this is the FBI’s idea of a terrorist, they are using a net that is designed to catch minnows instead of sharks.” — J.W. Carney, Mehanna’s lawyer, after his 2008 arrest (Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 2008)

I agree 100%.

Let’s not forget innocent until proven guilty.

This should be warning to all Muslims. If some shady Muslim guy is telling you he has connections to go perform Jihad overseas, you know what to say. “Nah bro, I’m good.”

In the early-morning hours of Oct. 21, federal authorities arrested 27-year-old Massachusetts resident Tarek Mehanna on charges that he conspired to provide material support to terrorists and planned to carry out a “violent jihad” by killing U.S. politicians, attacking American troops in Iraq and targeting customers at U.S. shopping malls. U.S. attorneys claim that Mehanna worked with two other men on various plans designed to “kill, kidnap, maim or injure” U.S. citizens and soldiers from 2001 to 2008. He will be held in federal custody pending a detention hearing on Oct. 30. If he is found guilty, Mehanna faces up to 15 years in prison.

Fast Facts:
• A U.S. citizen, Mehanna is the fifth person living in the U.S. to be arrested on terrorism charges in the past five months.

• Was arrested at his parents’ house in Sudbury, Mass., an affluent Boston suburb.

• Graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in May 2008. His father is a professor of medicinal chemistry at the school.

• Had been planning to move to Saudi Arabia to become a pharmacist.

• Was questioned by the FBI on Dec. 16, 2006, about Daniel J. Maldonado, a Methuen, Mass., resident who was suspected of training at a terrorist camp of al-Qaeda’s and plotting to overthrow the Somali government. Maldonado later admitted to training with al-Qaeda and is now serving a 10-year prison sentence.

• Arrested in November 2008 for statements he made during the 2006 questioning. Mehanna had claimed that Maldonado was living in Egypt and working for a website, but FBI agents recorded a phone conversation between the two men in which Maldonado urged Mehanna to join him in “training for jihad” in Somalia. Was indicted for allegedly lying to authorities in January 2009.

• According to U.S. attorneys, Mehanna’s current plot had two co-conspirators — a man named Ahmad Abousamra and a third person, who is cooperating with authorities and has so far been unnamed. The three men met before the Sept. 11 attacks and attempted to join terrorist groups in Pakistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

• A 2004 trip to Yeman proved fruitless when the men were unable to locate anyone affiliated with terrorist camps. They returned to the U.S. and allegedly plotted attacks on shopping malls. They abandoned their plans after failing to obtain automatic weapons.

• Used the code terms “peanut butter and jelly” when discussing fighting in Somalia and “culinary school” for terrorist camps.

• Appeared in federal court just hours after his arrest wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants. Witnesses say he refused to stand up at his bail hearing, kicking his chair over and making rude comments.

Quotes By:
“When the FBI asked me where Dan was … I told them I was still in Egypt … and he had called me the day before from Somalia.” — From an unsealed FBI affidavit (Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 2008)

“I don’t ever remember if he said the word Somalia on the phone, but that’s a problem because, like, lying to them in and of itself is a crime.” — Regarding his 2008 arrest (Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 2008)

“I can only think of the countless imprisoned Muslims in the jails of tyrants around the globe and hope that if it is not Allah’s Decree to free them in the near future, that they taste the sweetness that Allah has placed them in prison to taste.” — Letter allegedly written from prison and published on MuslimMatters.org after his 2008 arrest (Associated Press, Oct. 21, 2009)

Quotes About:
“If this is the FBI’s idea of a terrorist, they are using a net that is designed to catch minnows instead of sharks.” — J.W. Carney, Mehanna’s lawyer, after his 2008 arrest (Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 2008)

“The killing of civilians was considered O.K. because civilians are taxpayers and are non-believers.” — U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks, on Mehanna’s beliefs (Bloomberg, Oct. 21, 2009)

“No, definitely not.” — Ahmed Mehanna, father of the accused, when asked if he believed the charges filed against his son had any merit (Associated Press, Oct. 21, 2009)

May Allah make it easy for him and his family.

Source

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• Message from Tarek Mehanna’s Brother
• Dozens killed in Yemen air strike on al-Qaeda suspects, al-Awlaki may have been amongst them UPDATE: Awlaki is reported to be alive and well

There were around total 800+ attendees and some estimates put it closer to 1,000 making it the largest Ilmfest yet. Most of the audience were from the student groups (student tribes – Qaba’il [singular: Qabeelat]) from New York (Tayybah), New Jersey (Durbah) and the host Maryland-DC-Virginia (Nurayn). There were also people from all the way the West Coast to down south Texas to all the way up north to Seattle, Washington. I also met a brother from the UK. A lot of credit and respect is due to the core set of volunteers (which was very small for such a large event) from Nurayn.

Going back to the title of the post I must say that with all the hate, labeling, negative opinions, etc. on AlMaghrib Institute over the past years (which I myself have engaged in, may Allah forgive me), they have really stood ground, ignored the haters and continued to grow leaving behind the rest of the organizations. They have set the standard year after year and continue to increase it with new ideas and projects. I think Allah took all the barakah from the haters and gave it to AlMaghrib. From almost every perspective, AlMaghrib has excelled, although there is always area for improvement, but overall it is the only organization which I find myself recommending to young Muslims who are trying to get back into or start practicing Islam. Of course I recommend other outlets, but by far the most popular one is AlMaghrib.

Ilm to Action

So how is AlMaghrib putting knowledge into action? They don’t stop after they leave the seminar. Seriously they don’t stop. Over the past few years where ever there is an AlMaghrib Qabeelah (tribe, literally – student group in AlMaghrib) there were consistently doing and planning something in between each seminar. Some of them are planning/doing something once a month (the larger ones in large Muslim populated areas). What do they do? Anything to please Allah. Social work, relief work, dawah, teaching, etc. are some of the areas they try to implement within their local community in order for it to grow.

As an organization, even AlMaghrib has done a lot outside of it’s main focus. They had an online fundraiser for Gaza raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in hours. They joined up with other organizations to help Imam Siraj Wahhaj and also to fight Malaria. They also answered the call from MuslimServe.org which was trying to get Muslims to answer the call from President Obama to become active in doing social work and projects in their local communities. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the projects that are listed there were done by AlMaghrib students.

It doesn’t even have to be large it could be making a short film or having a picnic for Eid to feeding homeless people or organizing halaqaat to teach those who haven’t attended a seminar what they learned. It’s literally anything that improves their local community and brings them closer to Islam and worshiping Allah. One thing I’ve noticed that AlMaghrib Institute doesn’t really highlight or list all the work each Qabeelah has done over the past several years of it’s existence.  If they were I’m sure it would be a lengthy list of many social, dawah and community projects.  I think this is an extraodniray feat since it’s further proof of their intentions.  They aren’t doing it to show Muslims that AlMaghrib is doing all this good or to show non-Muslims that Muslims are good.  They are doing it simply for the pleasure of Allah (swt) and solely because it is their duty as a Muslim and a firm believer.

Army of Volunteers and Leadership

AlMaghrib is an instant pool of volunteers that can get things done. Wherever there is a qabeelah there is a group of brothers and sisters ready to work for Islam. There are over 15+ cities with active qabeelahs with hundreds of volunteers. On top of this, there is leadership. Each qabeelah has their own Ameer (Leader Male – like my first name) and Ameerah (Leader – female). They report to the AlMaghrib headquarters to get their guidelines and how to run their student group. From what I noticed, it is fairly simple for each Qabeelah to run independently. The obvious and clear guideline is the Islam with the Qur’an and Sunnah. What AlMaghrib headquarters offers is the basic administration advice and help. Other then that the leaders of each qabeelah function by themselves doing whatever work that needs to be done for their local community.

The AlMaghrib shuyukh specifically, Shaykh Muhammad AlShareef, Shaykh Waleed Basyouni and Shaykh Yasir Qadhi are the leaders. The basically run the show and give the final say. This is probably one of the most unique factor and major difference between AlMaghrib and other organizations. Without naming any names, most other organizations have a set group of non-scholars running the show and simply tell the scholar what to do. With AlMaghrib the scholars are actually the ones in control. I believe this is one of the reasons why they are so successful. With an ummah that lacks leadership from the local masjid to an entire Muslim country, AlMaghrib doesn’t lack this. As much as many may differ with their leadership you have to respect the fact they have leaders.

Forget about the bad apples and focus on the action

The theme of this year’s Ilmfest was Generation Islam with each speaker covering various subjects. The main point that was repeated in every lecture I listened to was simply apply our knowledge with action to our communities. From helping the youth to respecting our elders to fighting terrorism to doing social work and more. Now with all groups and organizations there will be a few haters and bad apples. Recently there was some haters complaining of Sh. Waleed’s lecture “Reclaiming Islam from the Jihadists”.  I thought this lecture was extremely important and should be played in front of the entire Muslim community in America.

These haters complained how Sh. Waleed was attacking the “mujahideen” (as they call them).  What mujahideen are they talking about?  The mujahideen of Omar al Mukhtar defended Muslims not kill them.  The mujahideen of Salah ad-Deen defended Muslims not kill them.  These so-called “mujahideen” kill any human that doesn’t agree with them.  The proof is clear and anyone can see who is real and who is fake.  I’d rather call them a bunch of Muslim thugs with guns, big beards and turbans.  They have the heart to kill Muslim women without any hesitation then they are not worthy of the title of ‘mujahideen’.  They buy their kafir-made weapons from kafir drug dealers and kafir human traffickers to kill Muslims. Wow, amazing “jihad”!? Now don’t get me wrong there are true soldiers who are fighting to protect their people and defend their home, but there are those who are just out there for blood from anything.

What’s even more interesting is that if they were alive during the Khilafat of the 1800s or 1700s or 1600s or even back to the 1000s or 1100s they’d be fighting the Caliph since he would be a “deviant” or in other words not following “their way”.   How much more Muslim blood do they have to spill before they stop? Instead of trying to rebuild their countries and stop the violence, they want to continue until everyone who’s not with them is dead.   It’s like their the crips and everyone else is a blood or vice versa (same difference).  In fact they are like the khawarij.

Back to the lecture that Sh. Waleed gave at Ilmfest.  He totally owned them and refuted them.  Especially the young ones who are in America who support these extremists.  One point he made that has stuck in my head was the fact that most of these brothers (mostly brothers, very few sisters) who support this terrorism are inactive in their communities.  They don’t give back to their communities but instead sit online discussing on forums.  They don’t do anything with their lives.  You don’t see them organizing relief efforts or helping raise money for those in need.  All this is so true, because I know a few examples of this. Many of them blog online in America and post online forums sitting in their suburban home while the government watches them.  Ever wonder why innocent people like Aafia Siddiqui or Fahad Hashmi or Sh. Ali Tamimi or Ahmed Abu Ali or Sami Arian end up in jail while these fools are still sitting in front of their computers blatantly and publicly supporting terrorism?  I would not be surprised if they were actually working for the government just to trap more innocent brothers and sisters.

The reality the ones who support this type of terrorism in the name of Jihad are bums.  Straight up online internet bums.  These are the haters that hate on AlMaghrib and all other organizations who are actually doing something.   They are the ones who would blog “media releases” from various media wings from international Muslim gangs.  I applaud Sh. Waleed for calling these fools out and refuting their deviant and violent beliefs.  I pray that the Ilmfest lectures are available soon.

They are like bad apples.  When they hit the ground, no one eats them. They just rot and decay into the ground.  The good apples are the ones that are consumed and make their benefits reach their communities bodies and make them healthier and stronger.  So let’s all be good apples and let the bad apples rot and decay into the ground.  May Allah (swt) increase the good apples and decrease the bad apples.  Ameen!

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• AlMaghrib Institute and Islamic Relief raise over $150,000 within 4 hours for Gaza
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• AlMaghrib finally puts a sister on stage – Dalia Mogahed to be speaking at Ilmfest 2009 in Baltimore

May Allah’s protect the innocent people! Ameen!

Blackwater (now known as Xe) is paid by the government as a private military army to work in Iraq.

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The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said:

“If two Muslims meet each other with their swords, then both the killer and the killed will be in the Hell-fire.”

Someone then said:

“O God’s Messenger, that is the case for the killer but why should that be the case for the killed?”

He (peace and blessings of God be upon him) replied:

“Because he wanted to kill his companion.”

Sources: al-Bukhari and Muslim

I pray to God that the Muslims stop fighting each other and start helping each other build their communities and putting families back together. Ameen!

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One was reading the New York Times newspaper and began talking about the Iraq war and how America should leave. There reasoning was instead of just America losing men and money in Iraq, they should just “let the Sunnis and Shia slaughter each other.”

One then said, “Chenay is already selling arms to both sides. He’s a true American.”

I don’t know how true this is, but the reality is Muslims don’t make guns. All the weapons the mujahideen and Muslim thugs use to defend themselves or attack are made and from non-Muslims. It’s funny that some groups hate the kuffar so much but yet they buy from them for weapons. Then they use it mostly to kill Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The arms dealers are laughing at the Muslims. Allah will take care of them on Last Day. The Muslims who buy these weapons are only helping to kill more Muslims.

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US troops have withdrawn from towns and cities in Iraq, six years after the invasion, having formally handed over security duties to new Iraqi forces. A public holiday – National Sovereignty Day – has been declared, and the capital, Baghdad, threw a giant party to mark the eve of the changeover. Hours before the Monday night deadline, four US soldiers were killed in combat. US-led combat operations are due to end by September 2010, with all troops gone from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Source

It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in whose interests over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops have been killed. The Iraq war was, and continues to be, an imperialist war waged by the American ruling elite for control of oil and geo-strategic advantage.

Source

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