U.S. Copts Association

Walid Phares

It is unprecedented in American counter terrorism annals: in one day the nation was dealing with three separate Jihadist plots to blow up civilian and other targets inside the Homeland. Although the cases were addressed at different time periods by the FBI and other agencies, nevertheless, the thickening web of Terror attempts breached the crossing line of US national security.

This week, authorities revealed three conspiracies by American Jihadists: Michael C. Finton, a 29-year-old man who wished to follow the steps of American-born Taliban John Walker Lindh, was arrested after trying to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian national was arrested after placing what he believed was a bomb at a downtown Dallas skyscraper. But perhaps the most troubling case is of Afghan-born Najibullah Zazi who set up shop in suburban Denver, scouting the Web and visiting beauty supply stores in a hunt for chemicals needed to build bombs for Al Qaeda. Sources called the alleged plot one of the most significant terror threats to the U.S. since 9-11. Add to the list the North Carolina Jihad cell, led by Saifullah Boyd, which was planning on attacking civilian and military targets across the country.
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Twenty Saudi youths have been given 30 lashes each following disturbances on the country’s national day, local reports say.

The Saudi press reported that gangs of hooligans had smashed shops in the eastern city of Khobar.

Other reports say clashes broke out when religious conservatives tried to stop the celebrations which they regard as blasphemous.
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HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Twelfth session
Agenda item 9
RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED FORMS OF INTOLERANCE: FOLLOW-UP TO AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DURBAN DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION
Written statement* submitted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a non-governmental organization in special consultative status
The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

Religious registration in OIC Member States
Religious freedom and the ICCPR
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by Frank Gaffney, Jr

Center for Security Policy

A Denver airport shuttle driver from Afghanistan who plotted to blow up subway trains in New York City. A Jordanian who tried to destroy one of Dallas’ tallest skyscrapers. An American who thought he was detonating a truck bomb aimed at a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois.
Law enforcement authorities who successfully stymied these alleged attacks have been at pains to emphasize that there are no connections between the three.

Of course there are.
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by Lee Jay Walker

The Seoul Times

Coptic Christian minority in Egypt suffer enormous persecution
The United States is now gradually waking up to a growing internal Islamic menace which desires to kill in the name of Islam. In the past week you have had three different cases involving Islamists who desired to kill and intimidate the people of America.

In the United Kingdom the same problem exists but just like in America, under President Obama, both nations are pandering to Islam and propagating false lies about this religion. Therefore, it is time to focus on the real factors behind the growing Sunni Islamic threat within America and in other nations.
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Number of jailed Muslim Brotherhood members over 250 ahead of parliamentary elections.

CAIRO - Egyptian authorities have detained 16 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, the movement’s number two said on Sunday, bringing to 250 the number of members in jail.

Security officials carried out the arrests late on Saturday in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, detaining former MP Gamal Heshmat as part of the group, Mohammed Habib said.

While members of his oppostion group are periodically detained, Habib believes the latest wave could be linked to next year’s parliamentary elections in which the Brotherhood is planning to run.
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By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - In a country where asylum seekers are blocked long before reaching shore, Sabzali Salman is a rarely-seen face of Australia’s people smuggling problem.

Salman, an Afghan, was on board a leaky boat that exploded in April after being stopped by Australia’s navy, killing five of the 47 people on board and injuring many more, including several navy sailors, with most flung into open ocean.

Speaking in a Darwin court hearing evidence against two Indonesian men accused of people smuggling, Salman told a harrowing story last week of his flight from Afghanistan’s conflict to Pakistan, and eventual tragedy far off Australia’s remote northern coast.
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(CNN) — A purported audio message from Al Qaeda’s second-in-command appeared on radical Islamist Web sites on Sunday eulogizing Baitullah Mehsud, the former leader of the Pakistani Taliban.

“Baitullah managed to create a massive Jihadi movement that launched wars, ambushes and battles against the crusaders and their agents in Afghanistan,” said the speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri. “He also managed to clearly show that the Pakistani government is not Islamic but instead an infidel treacherous government working as a servant to the crusaders.”

The praise of Mehsud came nearly two months after his death in August. The militant group had previously acknowledged his death.
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by St Francis Magazine

A Gallup Poll , posted Feb 2009, compiled findings about the importance of faith to individuals in 143 countries. Egypt was listed as the Most Religious Country in the world! When people were asked “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” Egypt registered in at 100%.

As the Bible provider for Egypt, the Bible Society of Egypt (BSOE) is fortunate to work with such religious people! A major problem of Bible publishers in many other countries, and especially the “Christian West,” is the lack of interest in the Scriptures, with one of their main tasks being to convince people of the relevance of the Bible.
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by IVAN MORENO and P. SOLOMON BANDA

The Washington Post

DENVER — Claims that an Afghan immigrant was on the verge of unleashing a terrorist attack on New York City on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 are missing a key element: explosives or the chemicals allegedly used to make them, the man’s attorney said.

FBI agents have yet to find those elements and connect them to Najibullah Zazi, charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in a plot authorities say was aimed at commuter trains, attorney Arthur Folsom told a federal judge in Denver Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ultimately ordered Zazi’s transfer to New York, and Zazi was taken there by federal marshals.
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They basically sentenced him to death. This is so illegal and so sad. He and his daughter will have to risk their lives to save their lives.

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) Egyptian authorities have prevented Maher El-Gowhary, a Muslim-born Christian convert, from leaving the country. He was detained at Cairo Airport. His passport confiscated and he was advised that he is barred from traveling on orders from a ‘higher authority’.

Maher and his 15-year-old daughter, Dina, who also embraced Christianity, were traveling to China on 17th September 2009, on a two-week holiday.

Ibrahim Habib, chairman of United Copts GB, who spoke with El-Gowhary during his detainment at the airport, said that Maher was treated very badly by airport security, and was told of his travel ban “less than an hour before departure.”
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by Nader Shukry

Two reconciliation sessions, one held earlier this month and the other scheduled for next week, may act as case studies for the manner in which local politicians and security authorities put an end to disputes or conflicts that arise between Muslims and Copts.

The details may be different between both cases, but the elements common between them and the pressure applied on the Copts is unmistakable. A reading of the machinations which finally led to ‘reconciliation’ is a veritable eye-opener.
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CAIRO (Reuters) - The Egyptian candidate who lost a bid to head the U.N. culture and education body after a row over remarks last year that he was ready to burn Israeli books has blamed the United States and Jewish lobby for his defeat.

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni lost to Irina Gueorguieva Bokova, a former Bulgaria foreign minister, in this week’s final round of voting to lead the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
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by Caroline Gammell
London Daily Telegraph

A Christian nurse will meet hospital bosses tomorrow to find out whether she will be forced out of her job for insisting on wearing a cross while on duty.

Shirley Chaplin has been taken off the wards at The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital after refusing to remove her necklace.

As first disclosed in The Sunday Telegraph, the 54-year-old grandmother has been told she cannot wear the one inch silver symbol openly because it breaches uniform policy and could prove a risk to patients.
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Muslim assailant gruesomely slays Christian, attacks two others with knife.

ISTANBUL, September 23 (CDN) — A funeral for a Coptic Christian gruesomely killed on a village street north of Cairo by a Muslim assailant last week turned into a protest by hundreds of demonstrators in Egypt.

Galal Nasr el-Dardiri, 35, attacked 63-year-old Abdu Georgy in front of the victim’s shop in Behnay village the afternoon of Sept. 16, according to research by a local journalist. Other Copts watched in horror as El-Dardiri stabbed Georgy five times in the back, according to interviews by Gamal Gerges, a reporter for newspaper Al-Youm al-Sabeh.
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