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Muslim-majority countries protest, condemn France over Muhammad cartoons
Large rally held in Bangladesh, while Iran, Turkey and Saudis criticize France in statements
The Associated Press · Posted: Oct 27, 2020 10:22 AM ET
Around 10,000 people rallied in Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, on Tuesday to protest France's president and his staunch support of secular laws that deem caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad as protected under freedom of speech.
10,000 people, appear to be 10,000 men. Do you see any women?
It was the largest protest against the cartoons in recent days.
Protesters from the conservative Islami Andolon Bangladesh group — which supports the introduction of Islamic law in the Muslim-majority South Asian country — carried banners and placards reading: "All Muslims of the world, unite" and "Boycott France."
Some carried portraits of French President Emmanuel Macron with an "X" on his face. One carried a cutout image of Macron with shoes around his neck as a sign of insult.
The demonstrations follow a gruesome beheading near Paris of a French teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class. The 18-year-old Chechen refugee who carried out the attack was later shot dead by police.
The teacher, Samuel Paty, has been heralded as a symbol of France's staunch secular ideals and its rejection of religious intrusion in public spheres. Macron and members of his government have vowed to continue supporting such caricatures as protected under freedom of expression.
Muslim politicians, religious scholars and everyday people have condemned such depictions as a form of hate speech and view them as sacrilegious and insulting to Islam. Muslims have been calling for both protests and a boycott of French goods in response to France's stance on caricatures of Islam's most revered prophet.
Five years ago, French-born al-Qaeda extremists killed 12 employees of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in response to its publication of caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Those cartoons also sparked mass protests in Muslim-majority countries, with some turning deadly.
Supporters and activists of the Islami Andolon Bangladesh, an Islamic political party, denounce French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Reuters)
Elsewhere, Iran summoned a French diplomat to protest France's stance on the caricatures. A report by state TV Tuesday said an Iranian official told the French diplomat that Paris' response after Paty's killing was "unwise" and that France was permitting hatred against Islam under the guise of support for freedom of expression.
A powerful association of clerics in the Iranian city of Qom also urged the government to condemn Macron. Iranian hard-line newspaper Vatan-e Emrooz depicted Macron as the devil and called him Satan in a cartoon on its front page Tuesday.
Pakistan's parliament passed a resolution condemning the publication of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.
Islamic unreality
In Saudi Arabia, the country's state-run Saudi Press Agency on Tuesday put out a statement from the Foreign Ministry saying the kingdom "rejects any attempt to link Islam and terrorism, and denounces the offensive cartoons of the prophet." Saudi clerics have too condemned the caricatures, but have also cited the prophet's "mercy, justice, tolerance". Another prominent sheikh called on Muslims not to overreact.
These are astonishingly naive statements, if not outright madness. They are talking about Islam, which was responsible for some 600 wars in 1400 years. God only knows how many deaths, rapes, slavery, tortures, kidnappings, complete destruction of property, and forced conversions that continue to happen in several countries in the world today. "Mercy, justice, tolerance" attributed to Mohammed is absurd, if not an outright delusion.
There is only one thing these terrorists and child rapists have in common, and that is Islam!
The Arab Gulf state of Qatar also condemned what it described as "the dramatic escalation of populist rhetoric" inciting religious abuse. In a statement, the government said inflammatory speech is fuelling calls for the repeated targeting of nearly 2 billion Muslims around the world through the deliberate offending of the Prophet Muhammad and has led to an increase in hostility toward Muslims.
Of course, they have it backwards, it is the targeting of western values and western people by Islamic terrorists that is increasing the hostility toward Muslims.
Bangladeshi protesters gathered in front of the main Baitul Mokarram Mosque in downtown Dhaka Tuesday morning. The group walked toward the French Embassy, but police intercepted the march, which ended without violence.
Protests have also been held recently in Iraq, Turkey, Gaza and in opposition areas of northwestern Syria controlled by Turkey-backed rebels.
Rezaul Karim, the head of the Islami Andolon group in Bangladesh, called on France to refrain from displaying caricatures of the prophet.
"We, the Muslims, never did caricatures of other religious leaders," he said.
No, you simply slaughtered or enslaved anyone who believed in Someone other than Mohammed and Allah.
"Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad as an ambassador of peace . . . Macron and his associates did not learn anything from history," he added, before calling on Muslims to boycott French goods.
This is a joke. I have been complaining for years that the French, Germans and Swedes have learned nothing from history or they would never have welcomed so many Muslims into Europe. History teaches us that Mohammed was an instrument of war, not peace, and he still is even though he's dead.
Turkish pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak is shown Tuesday with a headline pressing for a boycott of goods from France. (Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images)
Karim also said Macron should be treated for his "mental illness," remarks similar to those made days earlier by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who's been the most vociferous in his criticism among political leaders in saying Macron needed his head examined and had lost his way. France has since recalled its ambassador to Turkey and other European nations have defended Macron.
Bangladesh's leadership, however, has not come out in criticism of France, as Turkey, Pakistan and other Muslim-majority nations have done. Bangladesh, a nation of 160 million mostly Muslim people, is governed by a secular constitution.
In the Middle East, Kuwaiti stores have pulled French yogurts, cheese and bottles of sparkling water from their shelves, Qatar University cancelled a French culture week, and calls to stay away from the French-owned Carrefour grocery store chain were trending on social media in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Islamic Insanity:
“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…impossible…
for any human being to read the biography of Mohammed and believe in it,
and then emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.”
- Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan
'Our region won’t go back to 19th century,' Greek FM tells Turkey,
as Athens seeks closer cooperation with Israel
27 Oct, 2020 16:07
Turkish Navy frigate Gaziantep escorts drilling vessel Fatih off the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, Turkey,
October 30, 2018. © Reuters / Can Sezer
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has said Athens wants to expand economic and military partnerships with Israel and other countries in the region to counter “the hostile policy” of neighboring Turkey.
Foreign ministers from Greece, Cyprus and Israel pledged on Tuesday to increase cooperation in the defense and energy areas. The three states are at odds with Ankara over energy boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean.
“Our region is not going back to the 19th century,”
Greek FM
“Our region is not going back to the 19th century,” Dendias said. The warning to Turkey came after he met with Israel’s Gabi Ashkenazi and Cyprus’ Nikos Christodoulides.
What he means, of course, is that Greece will not stand by and allow Erdogan to turn the Middle East into the Ottoman Empire again. This, I believe, is his ambition, with himself as Caliph. As he gets older, he gets more desperate to make this happen. Don't be surprised if Turkey is the country that starts a regional war.
Among the new projects the three states are planning is an electricity grid connection between Israel, Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete via undersea cable. It could be constructed by the end of 2023.
Dendias said he informed the ministers about Ankara’s recent “provocative” moves, including the new “illegal NAVTEX” for surveys inside the Greek continental shelf and the visit of the Turkish vice president to “the occupied Cypriot town of Varosha.”
The “antidote” to Turkey could be found in multilateral cooperation in the region, Dendias noted.
No specific defense agreements were announced, but late last week Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat tweeted that “Israel reiterates its full support and strong solidarity with Greece in its maritime zone.” Israel also opposes “any attempt to violate these rights.”
“Certain unilateral actions taken by Turkey may escalate and pose a threat to the fragile stability in the region,” Haiat added.
Tensions have been simmering for months since Turkey expanded its oil and gas maritime research exploration in waters Greece claims as part of its jurisdiction. Turkey insists Ankara and Turkish Cypriots should not be excluded from energy exploration in the region.
To those of us who watch the Middle East closely, it was obvious that MI6 has been involved in aiding the rebels in the Syrian civil war. They may well be involved in some false flag operations, like Douma, as well. Deep State is all about moving the military inventory, whatever the cost in lives and livelihood.
Leaked papers appear to show UK ran secret training & PR op for Syrian militants costing millions, despite knowing the risks
27 Oct, 2020 13:05 /
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Westminster, London, England. © Getty Images / Mairo Cinquetti / NurPhoto
By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg
A swath of what appear to be secret Foreign & Commonwealth Office documents outline a multimillion-pound British effort to train rebel fighters in Syria via private companies, knowing but brushing off the risk of jihadist hijack.
The documents released by the hacktivist collective Anonymous appear to expose a variety of covert actions undertaken by the UK government against the Syrian state over many years.
The overriding objective behind them all, the papers suggest, was to destabilise the government of Bashar Assad, convince Syrians, Western citizens, foreign governments, and international bodies that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was a legitimate alternative, and flood media the world over with pro-opposition propaganda.
The dimensions of the assorted information warfare operations implied in the papers, some of which have been detailed by Grayzone Project, were vast. In a representative example, “social enterprise” firm ARK, founded by veteran Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) operative Alistair Harris, “rebranded” the Syrian Military Council, “softening the Free Syrian Army’s image” in order to “distinguish it from extremist armed opposition groups and establish the image of a functioning, inclusive, disciplined and professional military body.”
Of course, there was no difference between the FSA and other Islamic extremist terror groups. Then, once in the field, the trained men could divert to whatever terror group they felt like, with their weapons and ammunition.
Training ‘credible and effective’ militants
At least one cog in this cloak and dagger connivance was overtly militant in nature. From August 2016, a consortium of private contractors ran a programme for the FCO, through which “training, equipment, and other forms of support” was provided to the FSA’s ‘Southern Front’ coalition, to “foster a negotiated political transition, support moderate structures and groups in opposition held areas of Syria, counter violent extremism and prevent the establishment of a terrorist safe-haven.”
Under its clandestine auspices, up to 600 belligerents were trained every year the operation ran, an indeterminate total – the endeavour was dubbed MAO B-FOR (Moderate Armed Opposition Border Force Capability Project), and forecast to cost the FCO £15,767,599.
B-FOR’s ‘statement of requirements’ document sets out in succinct detail Whitehall’s objectives in pursuing the project.
“The aim… is to generate pressure on the Assad regime and on extremists, in the south the country… If MAO border groups are better able to secure and maintain control of specific areas of responsibility across liberated near-border communities along Syria’s southern border with Jordan… the MAO will demonstrate its tangible value to the local and international community as an effective security actor… This will reinforce perceptions that there is a credible and effective moderate opposition able to provide support for an alternative pathway to political transition,” the project tender states.
Which, of course, was completely untrue. There was never an alternative to Assad, and there still is not. But, as in Iraq and Lybia, the plan is to overthrow the dictator. There is no plan to replace him or manage the country in any orderly fashion once he is gone.
In practical terms, fighters in “international borders under MAO control” and “areas bordering MAO control under the control of another entity or under no control” – the Jordan-Syria border being the FCO’s “current priority area” – were intended to be “better able to control their AOR [areas of responsibility] through effective use of relevant tactics, operations, equipment, infrastructure, and ability to react to a changing tactical situation.”
To this end, the UK government provided a “dedicated training site” in Jordan “at no cost” to project contractors. The site is situated 45 minutes from the Jordanian capital, Amman, according to an annotated Google Earth snapshot found among the leaked papers. The 600-acre expanse comprised “accommodation, ablution, dining, classrooms, driving track, outside rural environment areas, and open space for equipment storage solutions.” In particular, trainees were to be tutored in the effective use of AK-47s, PK machine guns, and pistols, with 175 fighters able to be accommodated on-site at a time, four weeks the maximum period they could be tutored there continuously.
Contractors were also asked to ensure the project took into account, among other things, Whitehall’s “policy toward gender” – a reflection, just like the tender’s references to “reinforcing perceptions,” of B-FOR’s strong psychological component.
Reinforcing perceptions, is outright lying, propaganda!
There is more on this article. It is found on RT, so take it for what it's worth. There seems to me no mention of it on any other media, but, perhaps, that's to be expected.
ISLAMIC State is taking over swathes of Africa like it did in Syria and Iraq with "staggeringly brutal" tactics, the Pentagon has warned
According to a report from West Point, the US officer training academy, the group's expansion and regrouping on the continent shows "Islamic State is far from defeated".
ISIS-linked jihadis have carried out attacks in Mozambique
Cars burnt down by suspected members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) during an attack on February 9 this year Credit: AFP - Getty
"By the summer of 2020, it had become resolutely clear that the Islamic State was a changed organisation, but by no means a beaten one," the report, published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Centre, said.
The Pentagon report said there has been a "marked upward curve of claimed cumulative attacks and casualties" across Africa, but the "largest and most sophisticated" presence is in West Africa and the Greater Sahara.
"Isis in West Africa is engaging in operations that are increasingly audacious, staggeringly brutal, and worryingly akin to what ISIL, as it was known at the time, was doing early 2014," it said.
In 2019, attacks claimed by Islamic State West Africa Province - or ISWAP for short - occurred in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
The report said ISWAP was the most active sub-group in Africa, with 186 attacks last year, mostly in the Lake Chad area and northern Nigeria.
More than 15 people were killed during at least 28 brutal attacks.
"Its supporters have been engaging in attacks that have exceeded the scale and complexity of those being deployed by their counterparts in Syria and Iraq for at least a year now," the report said.
Operations in West Africa include a daylight attack on the convoy of the governor of Nigeria’s Borno state in July.
Last week, Islamist rebels also freed 1,000 prisoners after an attack on Kangbayi prison in Beni, Congo, police said.
Two prisoners were shot dead and the building was locked down by the army. ISIS claimed responsibility, but police blamed the Allied Democratic Forces.
In southern Africa, ISIS-linked jihadis have also been beheading their prisoners and taking women as sex slaves in Mozambique's forest.
Growing numbers of the terrorists have been wreaking havoc in the country, with experts warning it is slowly becoming overrun by the group.
Hotels, homes and cars have been reduced to ashes by ISIS attacksCredit: Twitter @adriano_nuvunga
They have killed more than 1,500 people in northern Mozambique in their reign of terror since 2017.
Counter-terrorism and organised crime expert David Otto told Daily Star online said: "State forces and suspected spies have been captured and beheaded by the jihadist group to send a warning message.
"Women have been the subject of targeted kidnapping. Sources say the jihadists keep the women as sex slaves."
He added: "They can launch hit and run ambush tactics, escape to the high-sea to neighbouring states and have an ideal logistics route for smuggling of illegal goods, arms and ammunition."
Luxury islands off the coast of Mozambique, where A-list celebrities spend their holidays, have also been overrun by insurgents linked to Islamic State. Hotels, wildlife, and homes have been torched and "reduced to ashes" in the attacks.
The ISIS insurgents have ordered residents to abandon the islands of Vamizi and Mecungo - where celebrities like Daniel Craig, Bono and Prince Albert of Monaco have holidayed.
One resident of Mecungo island said the insurgents had arrived by boat at night and rounded everyone up. The local told AFP: "They told us to run if we want to live. Everyone left the island."
Francesco Milan, of King’s College London’s defence studies department, told The Times that Africa was now the front line of Islamic State.
The Pentagon report urges military and counter-terrorism policymakers "recognise what is at stake in Africa".
It warns: "It is paramount that strategic policymakers and military practitioners consider the threat posed by the Islamic State in Africa as a priority, not just a sideshow of the activities of its remnants in Iraq and Syria.
"The Islamic State is not just fighting a low-grade insurgency on the continent; in at least two countries, it has been able to seize and hold territory and subsequently engage in pseudo-state activities."
