Source: ABC News

The same group that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kenyan mall this weekend that has claimed at least 62 lives has previously recruited dozens of Americans to join their cause.

U.S. officials estimate that as many as 50 Americans have traveled to training camps in Somalia, the home of the al Qaeda-linked terror group al-Shabaab, over the last six years.

Just last month, al-Shabaab released a video showing three young men claiming to be from Minneapolis who the terror group said later died as martyrs.

“This is the best place to be honestly,” one of the men says. “I can only tell you from my experience being here, that you have the best of dreams, you eat the best of food, and you’re with the best of the brothers and sisters who came here for the sake of Allah. If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here. This is the real Disneyland, you need to come here and join us and take pleasure in this fun.”

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Source: Associated Press

LONDON –  In Britain this week, a judge struck a blow against religious oppression. Or for religious freedom. It all depends who you ask.

Judge Peter Murphy ruled that a female Muslim defendant may stand trial wearing a face-covering veil — but must remove it when giving evidence.

The case has reignited a debate about Muslim veils that has flared across Europe, sparking protests and exacerbating religious tensions in several countries.

Those tensions exist in Britain, too, and attacks on Muslims and mosques rose after the May slaying of an off-duty British soldier by Islamist extremists. But both the compromise court ruling and the response to it suggest there is little appetite from the center-right coalition government for a ban like that introduced in France.

This is a country where many politicians agree with the aide to former Prime Minister Tony Blair who famously said: “We don’t do religion.”

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Source: The Christian Post

Excerpt from article:

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), told CP in a Tuesday interview, “I don’t even know how to explain it – how a Christian would be helping advance the implementation of the Islamic state under Sharia…he would not be able to make laws.”

Jasser, a Syrian-American who is vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, attempted to explain Rafiq’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood by referring to Syria. “Many Christians worked for Assad even though they weren’t pro-Baathist,” he said.

“But the Muslim Brotherhood’s motto is directly in conflict with being a Christian,” Jasser argued. The motto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!”

“There’s no way a non-Muslim would ever believe that would be the motto of their state,” Jasser said. He speculated that there must be some larger goal Rafiq is trying to accomplish by “compromising himself to work with Islamists.”

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Source: The Washington Times

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.

 

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Source: Foreign Policy

U.N. inspectors have collected a “wealth” of evidence on the use of nerve agents that points to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against his own people, according to a senior Western official.

The inspection team, which is expected on Monday to present U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with a highly anticipated report on asuspected Aug. 21 nerve agent attack in the suburbs of Damascus, will not directly accuse the Syrian regime of gassing its own people, according to three U.N.-based diplomats familiar with the investigation. But it will provide a strong circumstantial case — based on an examination of spent rocket casings, ammunition, and laboratory tests of soil, blood, and urine samples — that points strongly in the direction of Syrian government culpability.

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