Judicial Watch, a conservative-leaning organization dedicated to uncovering abuse and corruption in the legal system, petitioned Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency to publish 59 images of bin Laden’s corpse after the terrorist leader was killed during a May 2011 raid in Pakistan. The US Court of Appeals in Washington DC found that releasing the pictures could cause “exceptionally grave harm” to American citizens. The three judges wrote, in a 14-page opinion, that the portrayal of the bullet that killed bin Laden were “quite graphic” and “gruesome,” but the real motivation could have been to quell the possibility of terrorism.“It is undisputed that the government is withholding the images not to shield wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment, but rather to prevent the killing of Americans,” read the opinion from Judges Merrick Garland, Judith Rogers and Harry Edwards. The decision made references to violent outbursts from radical Islamists after US media wrongfully reported that troops stationed in the Middle East desecrated the Koran. Cartoon depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad have prompted similar outrage. Lawyers from Judicial Watch, promising to file an appeal, told the Washington Post that the judicial system “needs to stop rubber-stamping this administration’s secrecy.” … Read More
Clashes leave casualties in Tunisia as radical Islamists defy protest ban
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One protester has died and several others have been injured in Tunisia after radical Islamists defied a ban on their demonstration and clashed with police.
The 27-year-old man was killed in the capital; there was also trouble in the central city of Kairouan.
In Tunis police arrested dozens of people in one district. In the midst of the clashes some of the protesters reportedly lowered the Tunisian flag and replaced it with an al Qaeda banner.
The Salafist group Ansar al-Sharia is the most radical to emerge since the revolution two years ago.
It had wanted to demonstrate in Kairouan where but was forbidden from doing so. The ban did not stop the protesters: they threw stones at police who responded with tear gas.
The demonstrators’ cause gained no sympathy among one group of Kairouan residents. “Why would we want an Islamist state? Earning a living, security and stability, that’s what the Arab world needs!” exclaimed one man.
In Tunis a police union official said: “We’re here to stop their behaviour. We’ll stay for a month if need be. The law must be respected.”
Ansar al-Sharia presents a clear challenge to Tunisia’s government, led by the more moderate Islamists from Ennahda. The Prime Minister Ali Larayedh claimed on Saturday that the group is linked to terrorism.
Al Qaeda’s regional wing has urged it to defy the crackdown.
More about: Clashes and riots, Tunisia
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‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’
Turkish authorities have detained nine people in connection with Saturday’s deadly car bombings in a town near the Syrian border.Two blasts killed 46 and injured over 100 as Turkey was quick to blame Syrian intelligence for the attack, but the government in Damascus denies all the accusations.Middle Eastern history and politics professor at Bilkent University in Turkey, Jeremy Salt, says it’s the Islamists among the Syrian rebels, who look the only party to benefit from the attacks.RT: Why did the Turkish government label the Syrian government as the “usual suspects” in the bombings – before the investigation even started?Jeremy Salt: The Turkish government claims it arrested nine people and it claims to have evidence that they’re connected with the Syrian intelligence service. We haven’t seen that evidence yet. We’ll have to wait and see what it says. At this stage, it seems to me quite inconceivable that Syria would do that because if we look at what’s happening on the ground right now. The Syrian army is rolling back the insurgency. The insurgents have taken huge losses in the last few months, in particular, around Damascus, near the Lebanese border, and even around Halab – Aleppo – and in the North Syria. And along with this is the fact that the Americans are changing pace and are going into negotiations with Russia to come out with a solution. So it doesn’t make any sense that Syria would do that right now. RT: Just in the last few hours, Syria’s information minister said that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s responsible for this by playing a “dangerous game with al-Qaeda”. What did he mean by that?JS: We know for a fact that – because the main Islamist fighting group in Syria has admitted this – al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria are one in the same. And all the fighting groups in Syria are Islamist and they’re working tactically with Jabhat al-Nusra. So, al-Qaeda is in Syria. We know that. It’s now confirmed, but this was more or less suspected from the start. What we’re seeing now is kind of charge and counter-charge as people try to put the blame for this on to someone else. My feeling about this – and obvious kind of guess is that the party responsible for this is one of the armed groups because if anyone has a reason to try to heat up the situation and drag outside countries it would be them. They’re in very serious problems right now. RT: Turkey’s Interior Minister urged the international community to get involved against Syrian President Assad. Doesn’t this undermine the peace efforts proposed by Russia, US and the UK? JS: The whole point is that they (the international community) have been deeply involved for more than two years and they haven’t succeeded in their objective, which is ultimately to overthrow the Syrian government – to bring it down. And so they’re still kind of chanting the same refrain, but there’s actually no possibility that the Syrian government can be brought down without direct intervention from outside governments. And the emphasis on Bashar al-Assad takes the emphasis where it should be, which is the Syrian army. Because the Syrian army is fighting – this is a national project. The foot soldiers in the Syrian army are mainly Sunni Muslims and, so, they have a national spirit. And that kind of refrain that the outside government should do more, should send in arms, should declare a no-fly zone are only going to worsen the situation.What we clearly need now is progress towards negotiating a solution, which is the path Obama has taken. And I think, in spite everything we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks – the chemical weapons propaganda, the Israeli attack – that I don’t think Obama is going allow himself to be drawn into this.RT: Turkey says it will take “every kind of measure” in response. What could that be?One has to take it seriously, but the fact is that [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is going to Washington this week and Syria will be on top of the agenda and my feeling is that Turkey won’t do anything by itself – that if Obama won’t bite, if he won’t commit America to take a more involved position over Syria, I don’t think that Turkey will do anything. Now, the key issue here is what kind of evidence are they going to come up with. Will they come up with any evidence that’s going to convince us that this, in fact, was an action carried out by the Syrian intelligence services. So there are many many unknowns right now and, of course, everything is going to depend on the outcome of the talks in Wahington between Obama and Erdogan. … Read More
Egyptian security forces thwart Al-Qaeda embassy bombing – interior ministry
“The interior ministry was able to direct a qualitative blow to a terrorist cell which was planning to carry out suicide attacks against vital, important and foreign establishments,” declared Ibrahim, who did not specify which country was to be targeted by the attack. He did, however, say that the extremists planned to use either a car stuffed with explosives, or a remotely detonated home-made device to carry out the terrorist act.Ibrahim said the three suspects were captured with 10 kilograms of ammonium nitrate – an ingredient in explosives – and a computer containing bomb-making instructions.The minister told journalists at a Cairo press conference that the radical Islamists had been in contact with Al-Qaeda in Algeria, Pakistan and on the Syrian-Turkish border, where their contact is monitoring the inflow of jihadists into the war-torn country. Ibrahim claimed one of the suspects also traveled to combat training camps in Iran and Pakistan.A lawyer for the three men has told local Al-Ahram website that the charges against them were “fabricated.”Ibrahim stated that the men shared the same contact, a man called Kurdi Dawud al-Assadi, as the ‘Nasr City Cell’ – another group of suspected terrorists currently on trial. Al-Assadi reportedly told the men to contact members of the cell, who are accused of involvement in the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi on September 11 last year, as well as preparing a host of embassy attacks.Ibrahim denied that the spate of arrests constituted a systematic Al-Qaeda presence in the country whose security apparatus has been weakened through the upheaval of the past two years. Nonetheless, radical Islamist attacks in the deserted region of Sinai have occurred intermittently over the past months. The Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists there also launched two rockets at the Israeli city of Eilat from their base on the peninsula last month.The authorities also failed to maintain security, when the US embassy in Egypt was breached and the US flag burnt by a crowd protesting the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ video last year.The current leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, is himself an Egyptian by birth (though has spent large stretches of his life outside the country) and has masterminded previous attacks in his homeland. … Read More
Four killed in Bangladesh uproar over ‘blasphemous blogging’ (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
“One point, One demand: Atheists must be hanged”, chanted the demonstrators as they marched along at least six highways, blocking transport between Dhaka and other cities and towns.The demonstrators gathered in the capital’s Motijheel commercial district, amounting to between 150,000 to 200,000 people according to AFP. On their way, they set shops and vehicles on fire, according to police accounts.Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters after they reportedly set off homemade explosives and threw stones at security. Local authorities had to deploy more than 15,000 security forces to the area.The protesters are reportedly the activists from the Hefajat-e-Islam group, which blames some Internet users for blasphemy; accusing people of using their blogs to spread atheism and apparent lies about Islam.The members of the radical Islamist group demanded the death penalty for those who they think defame Islam. The 13-point list of demands also included a ban on the right of women to work outside the household and the prohibition for women to mix with men. The Islamists also demanded the release of those accused of war crimes during country’s liberation war in 1971, which established the sovereign nation of Bangladesh.The government of Bangladesh has declined the group’s demands to enact an anti-blasphemy law saying that the country lives by secular liberal laws. The leaders of Hefajat-e-Islam promised to launch a campaign to dethrone the government unless their demands are met.The radical Islamist group was formed in 2010 to protest the government’s secular policies in education and politics. Last month it organized a general strike as well as a gathering attended by hundreds of thousands of activists, during three people died and more than 50 were injured. … Read More
Tunisian dean acquitted of slapping veiled female student
The Tunisian university dean accused of slapping a veiled female student said he was acquitted on Thursday, in a case that has come to symbolise bristling tensions between Islamists and secularists. Habib Kazdaghli said “Tunisian justice acquitted me,” adding that two students on trial…
