Archive for November 2009
FBI moves to seize CAIR records from author
In an unexpected move, the FBI and the Justice Department are wading into a court battle between a conservative author and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The feds reportedly served a grand jury subpoena Friday to seize thousands of pages of records allegedly stolen from CAIR by author David Gaubatz and his son Chris as part of an undercover infiltration of the group. The records were about to be returned to CAIR pursuant to a court order in a civil suit the organization brought against the pair.
Gaubatz, co-author of ”Muslim Mafia,” which accuses CAIR of being a front for Islamic terrorism, agreed earlier this month to the order requiring the return of more than 12,000 pages of disputed records while a federal judge considered the lawsuit.
However, on Friday afternoon, the U.S. Government, which previously had no role in the civil lawsuit, filed a motion in the case. The legal papers were filed under seal, perhaps in response to complaints that the Justice Department unfairly smeared CAIR in a public court filing in 2007 suggesting CAIR had links to Hamas.
At about the same time, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation served the Gaubatzes’ attorneys with a grand jury subpoena demanding the records, according to World Net Daily, a conservative media outlet whose book division published “Muslim Mafia.”
“Obviously, we were prepared to honor the court order,” WND’s Joseph Farah said. “Now we will have to confer with the attorneys to determine what happens next. Which takes precedence – a federal court order or an FBI warrant? … Personally, I would like to see these papers in the hands of trained FBI investigators. The revelations raised about CAIR in Muslim Mafia have clearly piqued the agency’s interest.”
CAIR has denied any ties to or support for terrorism, but the Justice Department’s suspicions have prompted a ban at the FBI on some, but not all, outreach efforts involving the Islamic group.
A spokesman for CAIR, Ibrahim Hooper, told POLITICO Saturday that the group was still attempting to make sense of the legal developments.
“We are trying to find out what is going on,” Hooper said in an e-mail.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI said they were unaware of the reported FBI move against CAIR.
Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem: Mouths filled with hatred?
Larry Derfner , THE JERUSALEM POST
Father Samuel Aghoyan, a senior Armenian Orthodox cleric in Jerusalem’s Old City, says he’s been spat at by young haredi and national Orthodox Jews “about 15 to 20 times” in the past decade. The last time it happened, he said, was earlier this month. “I was walking back from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and I saw this boy in a yarmulke and ritual fringes coming back from the Western Wall, and he spat at me two or three times.”
Wearing a dark-blue robe, sitting in St. James’s Church, the main Armenian church in the Old City, Aghoyan said, “Every single priest in this church has been spat on. It happens day and night.”
Father Athanasius, a Texas-born Franciscan monk who heads the Christian Information Center inside the Jaffa Gate, said he’s been spat at by haredi and national Orthodox Jews “about 15 times in the last six months” – not only in the Old City, but also on Rehov Agron near the Franciscan friary. “One time a bunch of kids spat at me, another time a little girl spat at me,” said the brown-robed monk near the Jaffa Gate.
“All 15 monks at our friary have been spat at,” he said. “Every [Christian cleric in the Old City] who’s been here for awhile, who dresses in robes in public, has a story to tell about being spat at. The more you get around, the more it happens.” Read the rest of this entry »
Growing, Yes, but India Has Reasons to Worry
Military trucks in Arunachal Pradesh, where India has maintained a heavy military presence since its 1962 war with China.
By AKASH KAPUR
PONDICHERRY, India — During President Obama’s recent visit to China, many in India speculated that an emerging “G2” would leave their nation out in the cold.
“Obama’s China (credit) card casts shadow on PM’s US visit,” ran a headline on The Times of India’s Web site shortly before India’s prime minister left for America and his own meeting last week with Mr. Obama — highlighted by the president’s first state dinner.
The country’s prickly response points to the lingering distrust with which India, which often leaned toward Moscow during the cold war, still views the United States. It is a reminder, also, of the many sensitivities that drive Indian foreign policy — sensitivities that are not always recognized in America.
For all the talk of a new era of Indo-American collaboration, Americans tend to view India through the narrow prisms of two shared concerns — a battle against Islamic extremists, and the benefits of international trade. But India is a complicated country in a complex part of the world — buffeted by internal insurgencies, surrounded by hostile neighbors, marginalized until recently as underdeveloped.
In the last decade, four of India’s neighbors (Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka) have dealt with rebellions that, to varying degrees, have filtered into India. Since independence in 1947, India has been involved in armed conflicts in at least five nearby lands (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, the Maldives); it has also become a nuclear power. Read the rest of this entry »
Pakistan’s Leader, Under Pressure, Cedes Nuclear Office
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Asif Ali Zardari has ceded his position in Pakistan’s nuclear command structure to his prime minister, in a sudden political maneuver widely seen as a fresh sign of turmoil on the eve of President Obama’s strategy announcement for the region.
The move, announced in a news release late Friday night, was an all-out attempt to head off domestic political pressure as Mr. Zardari’s two-year presidency hit a new low. With the end of a political amnesty program on Saturday, Mr. Zardari and his allies now face potential corruption and criminal charges, and the opposition is demanding that he relinquish many of his powers or resign.
Although analysts did not expect the move to harm Pakistan’s nuclear security, political stability in the country is critical for the Obama administration, which is set to announce its new strategy for Afghanistan this week. Pakistan is a central part of that strategy, and the country has been under tremendous pressure by the administration to step up its fight against militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, with two top American security officials visiting Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, in two weeks.
Until his latest move, Mr. Zardari held the top civilian position in the organization known as the National Command Authority, which controls every aspect of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal — decisions to move or launch any of its 60 to 100 nuclear weapons, to expand the country’s nuclear stockpile and to oversee the security of the weapons and nuclear laboratories. Read the rest of this entry »
A recollection of Mumbai
Thanks to Aziz at City of Brass
This is a guest post by Zeba Iqbal.
On the evening of July 11, 2006 a series of bomb blasts ripped through several suburban train lines in Mumbai. Over 200 people died and over 700 were injured. I was living in India then and was amazed at Mumbai’s resilience. The city did not miss a beat.
Trains were running again that night, and by the next morning, it was business as usual – offices and shops were open. Mumbai was a little bruised, a little sad, a little scared – but on its feet.
Mumbai did not recover so quickly from the attacks of November 26, 2008. Almost 200 were killed and over 300 injured in ten separate shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai (mainly South Mumbai). The siege which lasted 60-hours began at 9 pm on the 26th and ended on the 29th – paralyzed Mumbai for three days, and stunned it for many more.
Halfway across the world in America, I celebrated a subdued Thanksgiving with family. We watched with disbelief and sadness as the horrific events of 26/11 unfolded in Mumbai. For those who don’t know Mumbai, it is the New York City of India. A big tough safe city that never sleeps. Like New York City, Mumbai is surrounded by water.
By all accounts, last year’s decentralized, prolonged form of real-time attack on ‘posh’ Mumbai was a successful mission for the perpetrators. Armed with a simple blueprint, the attackers vividly illustrated just how vulnerable cities near water are, and how difficult it is to safeguard them. A recent mock attack in Miami strengthened this hypothesis. Read the rest of this entry »
