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They were dressed as women they were not “dressed with modesty” and so they were found guilty by the Sharia Law Court:

Islamic officials last week detained 16 transvestites competing in the “Miss Universe Asia 2008″ contest at a beach resort hotel in the north-eastern state of Kelantan, which is ruled by the fundamentalist PAS party.

PAS, which has ambitions of turning Malaysia into a theocratic state under Islamic rule, has made headlines for banning skimpy clothes and enforcing laws on separate male and female queues in shops.

Dhimmi Watch: Malaysia: sharia raid on tranvestite beauty pageant.

Yes, we are hearing the demonstrations, the cries, the protests of gay organziations throughout the world. Ah, no, no.. there have been none. Sorry.

Technorati Tags: transvestites, Malaysia, homosexuality, Sharia+Law, Sharia+Law+Court

The explosion took place in the Tehran suburb of Khavarshahar as the military convoy left a munitions’ warehouse controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. According to reports received by Western officials, the convoy was taking a consignment of military equipment to Hizbollah, the Shia Muslim militia Iran supports in southern Lebanon, when the explosion occurred.

Senior Revolutionary Guard commanders immediately imposed a news black-out following the explosion, even though it could be heard throughout the capital Tehran, and no details of the incident have so far appeared in the Iranian media.

But Western officials yesterday said they had received reports that the explosion took place in Tehran on July 19, and that the Revolutionary Guards had launched an investigation into the causes of the blast.

Right Truth: It’s dangerous shipping arms to Hezbollah.

Technorati Tags: Hizbullah, Iran, terrorism, explosion, Revolutionary+Guards, Iranian+Revolutionary+Guards

The Chinese government for months has warned about the risk terrorism poses to the Olympic Games, but when an Islamist group claimed responsibility for recent blasts and threatened to target the games this past weekend, officials played it down.

In a video message, a Uighur group based in China’s northwestern Muslim region said it would employ “tactics never used before” in its planned attacks. The Olympics begin in Beijing on August 8.

A commander named as Sayfallah (“sword of Allah” in Arabic) said the message was a last warning to those planning to participate in or attend the Olympics to “change their plans,” according to translations provided by terrorism analysis sites IntelCenter and Laura Mansfield.

The group said it carried out two bus bombings in Kunming earlier this month and one in Shanghai in May, as well as two other recent blasts in the southern cities of Wenzhou and Guangzhou.

CNSNews.com – Islamists Threaten Olympics.

Chinese authorities said first Kumning explosions were actually terrorism, while the “city authorities” denied that possibility. So now, some Uighur Muslim says they threaten the Olympics. The “curious” thing is that Uighurs want independence and have not often before claimed anything related to Jihad. And CHina has been sending weapons to the Talibans before Sept 11 and to Sudan till 2005, even after the embargo.

So, considering its not-very-clear-role towards Islamic extremism, what is the real threat of Muslim Uighurs to the Olympic Games?
Technorati Tags: Uighurs, Jihad+in+China, terrorism, China, Olympic+Games, Beijing+2008

it is quite likely that the ISI is involved in the killing to some degree. The question is: by how many degrees of separation from it? During a 60-year rivalry, Pakistan has made skilful use of Islamist militants against India, in the contested region of Kashmir, and elsewhere. This must have bequeathed its current spooks a heavy case-load of proven and would-be terrorists, in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many parts of India.

It is almost inconceivable that the ISI is no longer trying to keep tabs on these men. It is also likely that some in its ranks, despite the progress of a four-year effort to make peace between India and Pakistan, want to keep up the fight. But the extent to which they are having their wish seems to be largely a matter of guesswork.

India | Blast after blast | Economist.com.

The article is altogether very interesting, but those two paragraphs are the most important for me. Because this is not the first time Pakistani intelligence is accused of being behing a terrorist attack. It is not the first time India accuses Pakistan of that same thing.

Related reading:

The number of Indian Muslim youth involved in anti-US activities and in support of the pan-Islamic objectives of Al Qaeda and the IIF is estimated to be still small, but larger than in the past. For the first time, this could provide an opening to Al Qaeda and the IIF to recruit Indian Muslim youth for their terrorist strikes directed against the US. Till now, the Indian Muslim youth, whether in India or the Gulf or in the West, were not subject to the same close surveillance by the Western intelligence agencies as the Arabs and the Pakistanis were. Thus, recruitment of Indian Muslims in India or abroad would provide Al Qaeda and the IIF with the possibility of recruiting volunteers for their anti-US operations, who will be able to evade detection by the Western intelligence agencies much easier than the Arabs or the Pakistanis. This is a danger which should not be lightly dismissed.

AL QAEDA AND INDIA « WORLD MONITOR.

Technorati Tags: India, Islamification, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, ISI, Bangladesh

The driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday.

~~~

The military commission trying Hamdan has ruled he has no rights against self-incrimination.

Hamdan, a Yemeni father of two with a fourth-grade education, is the first Guantanamo prisoner to face trial before the controversial tribunal at the remote base on Cuba. He faces life in prison if convicted. His trial is the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.

Prosecutors are seeking to portray Hamdan as a close associate of bin Laden who was aware of plotting for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and supported them with his efforts. Defense attorneys have characterized Hamdan as a simple employee.

Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » Osama bin-Laden’s Driver Complains He Wasn’t Read Miranda Rights.

From Stix Blog:

Michael Ramirez.

And now I’m going to translate something which appeared on Spanish media some days ago:

According to Bin Laden’s Driver, Salim Hamdan, he heard Al-Qaeda’s leader, Bin Laden saying that he “was happy with the numbre of people killed in 9/11 terrorist attacks” and thought that the kidnapped plane which crashed in Pennsylvania was “knocked down”.

The proofs offered by Ali Soufan, an ex-FBI agent, should be a considerable support in the case of the Prosecutors against Hamdam, tried by war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He is accused of being near the Al-Qaeda’s leadership. The Driver, a Yemeni father of two sons, is the first Guantánamo’s prisoner judged before the base’s tribunal. He can face life imprisonment if he is condemned.

“Bin Laden was happy with the resuls and he (Hamdam) heard Bin Laden said that he never hoped the operation would be so succesful”, said Ali Soufan. “Bin Laden hoped that the dead would be between 1,000 and 1,500, so he was happy with the results”.

Soufan also declared that Hamdam had spoken to him about a conversation he overheard by hazard when he was driving Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, after the attacks. Both men were looking at a magazine which showed the flying routes of the kidnapped flights on Sept 11.

“If they haven’t knocked it down, this fourth plane would have crashed on the dome”, Bin Laden told Al-Zawahiri, according to the conversation Hamdam had with Soufan. “I assumed”, said the latter, “that “the dome” meant the Congress or the White House”, he continued. “Hamdan said he didn’t knew what they were meaning with “the dome”".

Flight 93 of United Airlines crashed on a field in Pennsylvania. US civil servants have never admitted that the plane was knocked down, but in that moment there was some speculation regarding that possibility.

To describe the relationship between the driver and the Al-Qaeda leader, Soufan spoke about some marital advice Bin Laden had given Hamdan, suggesting him to go back to Yemen and find a “woman who belonged to a family of piety and religion”.

City FM Radio.

Hmm, magnificent. Are they really sure he wasn’t read his Miranda rights?

Technorati Tags: Hamdan, Bin-Laden’s+driver, Ali+Soufan, terrorism, Flight+93+of+United+Airlines

Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar has been reported killed before

Reports from Pakistan say a leading al-Qaeda chemical weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, has been killed in a missile strike.

Taleban officials in the tribal area of South Waziristan confirmed to the BBC that he was killed in a missile strike that left at least six people dead.

The US, which has a reward of $5m on his head, said it had no information.

He was wrongly reported to have been killed in 2006 in a strike aimed at al-Qaeda deputy head Ayman al-Zawahiri.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Al-Qaeda chemical expert ‘killed’.

Flopping Aces has more on the subject. They link Ed Morrisey who points out why this man was “famous”:

Khabab may be most remembered for his experiments with chemical weapons. In video that shocked a world grown somewhat used to terrorism, the AQ terrorist exposed dogs to chemicals used for weapons and watched them die horrible deaths.

Well, err, I’m not the least surprised: why being good to animals if you aren’t good to humans?

Technorati Tags: Midhat+Mursi+al-Sayid+Umar, Pakistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda+chemical+expert, South+Waziristan, USA, Khabab