Americans have to care because this global gobbledygook is coming to our shores, thanks to our globalist president. The European human rights group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership. A statement on the SIOE Web site criticizes the secrecy of the process: “It was shocking to hear about the plans and at the same time knowing that Danish politicians and a [cowardly] Danish press – who is otherwise proud to be critical – has told nothing to the Danish people about this project which begins in January. This also showed clearly at the conference. Only very few politicians showed up and no media. Those politicians who showed up had obviously never heard about the Euro-Mediterranean project.

The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a “comprehensive political partnership,” including a “free trade area and economic integration”; “considerably more money for the partners” (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and “cultural partnership” – that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe. According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan “Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe.

Fifty million North Africans from Muslim countries are to be imported into the EU.” Skeptical? It’s already happening. The British newspaper the Daily Express reported in October 2008 on “a controversial taxpayer-funded ‘job centre’ ” that opened in Mali at that time as “just the first step towards promoting ‘free movement of people in Africa and the EU.’ Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will ‘need’ 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the ‘demographic decline’ due to falling birthrates and rising death rates across Europe.” To offset this decline, a “blue card” system is to be created that will allow card holders to travel freely within the European Union and have full rights to work – as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits. A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane – after he was allowed to board the plane without a passport.

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier. And once in Europe, Muslims have already begun demanding special privileges and accommodations. IslamOnline reported on Dec. 21 that “Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law.” Ali Abu Shwaima, a Muslim leader in Italy, explained: “We think European human rights groups are not doing enough to defend the rights of Muslims. Therefore we thought that we need this new council, especially that all laws and constitutions in Europe respect freedom of religion and oppose all forms of discrimination and racism.” “Islamophobia,” “discrimination” and “racism” are all terms Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Mr. Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands, instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting against. It has to be this way, to increase harmony among the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Euro-Med Partnership. This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Mr. Obama seems to want to do the same to America.

Khan has been tied to Ilyas Kashmiri, a high-level Al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan who recruited another Chicago Muslim for a plot to kill the author of cartoons in Sweden mocking Mohammed. Recently, two American women were arrested as part of a larger plot to kill the same author.

The court papers state that Khan was recorded describing a plot to attack a U.S. stadium in August, describing the sound of the explosives as “boom, boom, boom, boom.”

The India Times reports that an FBI sting operation helped lead to Khan’s arrest. He told an undercover agent that he met with Ilyas Kashmiri in 2008 in northwestern Pakistan. Khan is also accused of planning to give money to Kashmiri. FoxNews.com says that Khan told the agent that he has known Kashmiri for 15 years.

Khan also said that Kashmiri told him that Osama Bin Laden is in good health and is still acting in a leadership capacity, according to OneIndia News.

“…these charges, once again, affirm that law enforcement must remain constantly vigilant to guard against domestic support of foreign terrorist organizations,” a statement from U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald reads.

The pair, an Indian flight attendant and her cabin services supervisor, were convicted of “coercion to commit sin” over the messages and initially sentenced to six months in jail, The National newspaper said on its website, citing court documents.

The sentence was reduced on appeal last week to three months and deportation orders against the pair were lifted, it added. It did not reveal the content of the messages.

Dubai’s foreign population has expanded rapidly in recent years as expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.

The changes have challenged the Emirati population, which is now vastly outnumbered by foreigners, raising concern that their emirate’s rapid pace of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in what remains a deeply conservative region.

An Emirates spokeswoman declined to comment on the case as it was still ongoing.

The paper said the case emerged after the flight attendant’s husband filed a lawsuit against his wife a year ago accusing her of being in an illicit relationship with her supervisor. It said the couple had been embroiled in a divorce battle since 2007.

The case is the latest decency case against foreigners accused of not respecting local mores.

In a separate case, a British pair caught kissing in public in Dubai is appealing a month-long jail sentence handed down after an Emirati mother complained her child had seen their indiscretion.

The pair, a British man living in Dubai and a female friend, were arrested in November on accusations of kissing and touching each other intimately in public and consuming alcohol, their lawyer said. They were ordered jailed for a month.

In a high-profile case in 2008, a British couple narrowly escaped jail after a court found them guilty of engaging in drunken sexual activity out of wedlock, and for doing so in public on a beach in the emirate.

They were sentenced to three months in prison followed by deportation, but had their jail terms overturned on appeal.

In a separate case this year, a British couple who shared a hotel room managed to escape trial in Dubai for having sex out of wedlock by producing a marriage certificate.

by Cynthia Johnston

The events took place in the small village of “Dmas” Meet-Ghamr, after a rumor spread around of a relationship between the 25-year-old Copt Shihata Sabri, and the sister of a Muslim man named Yasser Ahmed Qasim.

Yasser went to Coptic Shehata, holding a gasoline canister, poured it over him and set him on fire, as bystanders looked on in horror. The young Copt threw himself into the adjacent canal to try to put out the flames from his burning body. The fire left burns all over his body, leading to his death.

Following this incident, people in the village rallied and when the 60-years-old Sabri Shehata, father of the Coptic victim arrived, he was attacked by a group of Muslims stabbing him with knives and daggers; one stab penetrated his back to come out of his abdomen below the rib cage, resulting in his death, after being transferred to hospital.

A Coptic witness said that Yasser Ahmed, who is reputed to be a thug, and others have also beaten the Coptic victim’s younger brother, 22-year old Rami Sabri Shehata, causing a deep injury to his head.

The security forces moved into the village of Dmas, which has a population of 60,000 people, including over 1000 Copts, surrounded the victims’ house and deployed extra forces throughout the village.

The offenders were arrested together with the accused Yasser Ahmed Kassem and his friend, as well as the Copt Shehata Sabry who was held in custody in Dmas Hospital. The offenders were charged with deliberate homicide.

The body of Coptic victim Sabri Shehata was released for burial after prayers took place at the Church of Our Lady in the village of Dakados, which lies 20 kilometers from Dmas, amid a tight security siege.

A Muslim villager portrayed the incident as an honour killing stressing that it was because of Coptic Shehata Sabri teasing Yasser about a relationship he has with his sister, which prompted him and his friend to pour gasoline all over the Copt before setting him on fire. He denied that this incident will have an impact on the relations between the Muslims and Copts in the village.

The prosecution and the State Security Services are still investigating the incident amid media blackout.

On Wednesday, he nodded as prosecutors read aloud a hundred remarks he has made condemning Islam, Muslims, and immigrants — notably one comparing the Quran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Wilders is one of a dozen European politicians who are testing the limits of freedom of speech while voicing voters’ concerns at the growth of Islam.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Wilders told the judges he has nothing against Muslims, but opposes the “Islamization” of the Netherlands because he believes “Islam is diametrically opposed to freedom.”

Muslims make up about six percent of the Dutch population of 16 million.

Brutal treatment of women and young girls is rampant throughout the Muslim world. The abuse and murder is condoned by Muslim governments. Muslim women are regularly subjected to beatings at the hands of their husbands, for a host of reasons. They may suffer a savage attack for having an affair, or for simply disobeying their Muslim husband’s daily orders.

It is also perfectly socially acceptable within the Islamic community, for a father to beat his daughter. The young girl may have spoken with a boy of whom the father does not approve, or forgotten to cover her face in public.

While the physical abuse of one’s spouse or child is taken very seriously by American police officers and courts, the practice is ignored by even the so-called ‘moderate’ Muslim states. The term ‘domestic abuse’ does not exist within the Muslim world.

A few years ago, a book entitled “The Islamic Woman” was published which detailed beating techniques to be imposed on Muslim women–at the hands of their abusive husbands. The book’s author is a Muslim Imam living in Spain, named Mohamed Kamal Mostafa.

“The Islamic Woman” instructs men to hit women “on their hands and feet, making sure to use a cudgel that is not too thick so as not to leave permanent scar tissue.” Mostafa also warns his fellow Muslims to “inflict blows that are not too strong nor too hard, because the aim is to make them suffer psychologically.”

Murder is also inflicted upon Muslim women by their husbands, fathers, and brothers. The practice is called “honor killings.” A Muslim woman or young girl will often be killed by a male family member, after she is believed to have committed an act which defies Islam.

In February 2009, in Orchard Park, NY, Muslim television executive Muzzamil Hassan, was arrested and charged with murder, after allegedly beheading his wife Aasiya.

After several incidents of domestic abuse, Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce, and secured an order of protection against her husband. A few days after divorce papers were filed, she was beheaded. Her remains were left in the offices of the television station she and her husband owned, near Buffalo.

Muzzamil Hassan has been held without bail since his arrest, and is currently awaiting trial.

Despite the horrific nature of this crime, Aasiya Hassan’s murder has received very little media attention.

On New Years Day 2008, in Irving, TX, two Muslim girls, Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, were allegedly shot to death by their father Yaser, in an apparent “honor killing.” Amina had been accepted to Texas A&M University, and was planning to become a doctor.

Their father was enraged because the two girls had boyfriends.

Shortly after the murders, the girls’ aunt, Gail Gartrell, told reporters, “This was an honor killing.” She said that Yaser Said had been physically abusing the girls, and upon discovering the pair had boyfriends, he had threatened to kill them. Their mother took the girls and ran. “She ran with them,” said Gartrell, “because she knew he would carry out the threat.”

Yaser Said is still at large.

In 2005, a Kuwaiti man confessed to the murder of his own teen aged daughter, he believed that the girl was having sex. The father, Adnan Enezi, had just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, the day he killed his daughter.

He tied and blindfolded 14-year-old Haifa, then slit her throat. He did this in front of her two brothers and one sister. As it turned out, the girl was in fact still a virgin, as was determined in an autopsy.

In 2003, a Jordanian man was sentenced to one year in prison, for the murder of his own sister. The young woman became pregnant as a result of being raped by a neighbor. Her family then decided that she must marry the rapist. Before the forced marriage could take place, word of the pregnancy spread throughout the community. The woman’s brother returned from a trip to slurs and jeers, his male friends were calling him the “brother of a slut.”

According to the Jordan Times, the man was so angry with his sister over the fact that she had been raped and impregnated, he slipped into her room at night and strangled her with a telephone cord.

The Jordanian paper published excerpts of the court’s rulings. They are as follows: “The victim’s actions were an unlawful and dangerous act that brought disgrace and shame to her family. He (the brother) could no longer control himself and became very angry. It does not matter that the defendant killed his sister hours after returning from Aqaba. He was still under the influence of extreme anger, which caused him to lose his ability because of the unlawful act committed by his sister.”

In Muslim society, it is always the woman who is wrong…even when she has been raped!

Until recently, the nation of Jordan did not bother to prosecute, nor even question a man who committed an “honor killing.” Though many are now put on trial, the sentence usually ranges from one month to one year.

Can you imagine a man convicted of murdering his sister or daughter in the United States, receiving a one-month sentence? Even the most liberal among us would consider taking the law into their own hands. The murderer would not last a week after his release, and the judge would be chased from the bench. However, the “practitioners of peace” have a free hand to abuse and even kill their women.

The Jordanian government passed legislation in order to reduce sentences for those convicted of “honor killings.” The law explains that leniency is recommended for acts committed in a “fit of rage,” which was brought on by an “unlawful action” by the murder victim.

The nation of Jordan considers itself to be a moderate Muslim state.

There are thousands of these so-called “honor killings” which take place in Muslim countries every year. The United Nations reports the annual number at 5,000. However, it is believed that most of them go unreported. Muslim women are brutalized daily by their own family members. However, this fact of life in the Islamic world is completely ignored by the liberal left in this country.

You will never hear a spokeswoman from the National Organization for Women, nor from the ACLU speak about these atrocities.

Those on the left, which includes this nation’s mainstream media often tell us that the majority of Muslims are good and decent people. I would like to know if the majority of Muslim women feel that they are living in decent societies. I would like to ask these women their opinion of a community and a religion which sanctions their torture and murder.

Unfortunately, these women will never be allowed to speak.

On Sunday, in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Casey Jr. also warned the public of drawing any conclusions about Maj. Hasan, and lamented that “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”

Most of us have come to expect such politically correct rhetoric from the mainstream press, but when a top military commander is more concerned with sugar coating the threat posed to this nation by radical Muslims than he is with protecting the public or even his own soldiers…It is a sad day indeed.

Despite the cover-ups and the spinning by government officials and the press, we do have radical Muslim terrorists plotting and attacking inside the United States. If we are to survive, we must open our eyes to the facts and stop worrying about who may or may not be offended.

With 86 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Christians, radical Muslims realize that they will never convert us, and as directed by the Quran, many have now decided to kill us. However, you will never hear that painful truth from the mouths of network anchors, nor from our rather spineless politicians.

What follows is a list of uncovered plots and terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslim radicals on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001:

-In September 2009, a grand jury indicted Afghan national Najibullah Zazi on a charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The FBI claims that he was plotting to blow up certain U.S. targets and was in possession of plans for making hydrogen peroxide-based bombs.

Since his arrest, Zazi has admitted to receiving training at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

-In September 2009, FBI agents arrested 19-year-old Jordanian national Hosam Maher Husein Smadi Smadi, who claism to be an al Qaeda supporter, after he allegedly parked a van filled with what he thought were explosives outside a high-rise office building in Dallas, TX.

Smadi was taken into custody as soon as he dialed a cellphone which he thought would ignite the fake bomb placed into the vehicle by FBI agents posing as fellow terrorists.

Smadi came to the attention of the FBI through postings he allegedly made on the internet six months earlier.

The following are postings which the FBI claims Smadi made, and presented at Smadi’s araignment:

“We shall attack them in their very own homes. Brother, by God, we shall attack them in a manner that hurts, an attack that shakes the world. Oh Brother, let the backsliders know that the time for their destruction has come.”

“I want to destroy … targets … everything that helps America on its war on Arabs will be targeted.”

“By God who created me, there will not be a retreat at all, even if they take me to Guantánamo for the rest of my life. I will never forget Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, or any land where the call of, ‘There is no God but God, Muhammad is God’s Messenger’ is raised.”

“It will shake the currently weak economy in the state and the American nation because this bank is one of the largest banks in this city.”

“Millions of people would incur losses: unemployment, poverty, hunger, and a strike to the head of the government. Don’t forget the psychological impacts for the loss of this beautiful building. … Of course, our joy will be in the success of this operation.”

-In June 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23 pulled up outside of an Army-Navy recruiting station in Little Rock, AR, where two soldiers were taking a cigarette break, and opened fire. Muhammed killed Army Pvt. William Long, 23 and wounded Army Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18.

Police stopped and arrested Muhammad only 15 minutes after the deadly shooting. They found several guns in Muhammad’s vehicle, in addition to the one he used to allegedly murder Pvt. Long.

Prosecutor Larry Jegley said: “If there had been more recruits out there at the time, he would have killed more of them, or tried to. It’s my understanding that after his conversion to Islam he decided that he had a bone to pick with the military officers because of what he perceived to be mistreatment of Muslims around the world.”

Muhammad is an American convert to Islam. The attack on the recruiting station took place during the same week in which Obama traveled to Egypt and made his historic and apologetic speech to the Muslim world.

-In December 2008, five Muslim men were convicted of conspiracy to commit an armed attack at Fort Dix, NJ.

U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler sentenced Mohamad Shnewer, Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, and Shain Duka, to life in prison. Only Serdar Tatar, was spared a life sentence, as Judge Kugler ordered him to spend 33 years in prison for the 2007 plot.

Three of the terrorists were illegal aliens who entered this country over the unprotected U.S./Mexican border.

-In August 2008, the body of a Somali-born Muslim man was found in a Denver hotel room. Police and fire officials found a pound of sodium cyanide in crystal form, inside the man’s room.

Saleman Abdirahman Dirie was staying at the Burnsley Hotel, which is only a few blocks from the State Capitol.

The FBI was quick to announce that there was “no connection” to terrorism. This, despite the fact that a Muslim man was found with a enough crystallized cyanide to kill at least hundreds of people, just two weeks before the Democratic National Convention is to be held in that city, but the FBI decided it is not related to terrorism.

Are we supposed to believe that the one pound of crystallized cyanide was for his own personal use? Or perhaps, the luxurious Burnsley Hotel simply has a tremendous rodent problem of which we are not aware?

While the lack of response by our own government, combined with the lack of coverage by the mainstream press to this event may seem absurd, it is standard operating procedure for both.

-The July 2006 deadly attack by a Muslim gunman upon the Seattle Jewish Federation was a classic act of Islamic terrorism. Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way into the Jewish Federation building and shot six people, killing one. He attacked only women, one of whom was pregnant. Once surrounded by a SWAT team, this coward surrendered.

Jewish Federation employee Marla Meislin Dietrich told reporters that as Haq walked the halls firing, he shouted: “I’m Muslim-American” and “I’m angry at Israel.” It should be noted that Haq’s father is a founder of a Seattle area mosque.

While this was clearly an act of terrorism, the authorities refused to classify it as such. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels instead said: “This is a crime of hate.” Seattle’s FBI counter terrorism chief David Gomez characterized the attack by saying Haq was: “acting out antagonism toward this particular organization.”

Almost laughable was the announcement of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, when he told reporters: “We are protecting mosques because there is always concern about retaliatory activity.”

How many mosques have been attacked by Jews?…I’m guessing none because if such an act ever occurred, the networks would never stop talking about it. Chief Kerlikowske’s politically correct comment was an obvious attempt to equate unprovoked violence with a Jew’s or Christian’s justifiable need for self-defense.

-In March 2006, a young Muslim man named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar rented an SUV and drove it into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina. The Iranian native told police that he decided to carry out the attack due to “the treatment of Muslims around the world.” The attack left nine people injured.

At his arraignment, he told the Judge that he was “thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah.”

Despite lively student protests, UNC Chancellor James Moeser, as well as the press refused to characterize the attack as terrorism.

Taheri-azar recently pleaded guilty to nine counts of attempted murder.

-In October, 2005, a 21 year old Muslim student attending the University of Oklahoma accidentally exploded his backpack bomb outside of a sold-out football game at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. According to eyewitness accounts, Joel Henry Hinrichs was sitting on a park bench about 100 yards from the stadium fidgeting with his backpack, when the
bomb detonated. He was apparently arming the bomb which was to be carried into the stadium crowded with 84,000 fans.

Hinrichs attended a local mosque with his Pakistani roommate. Police searched their apartment and discovered it to be filled with bomb-making materials as well as anti-Semitic, anti-American Islamic literature. Though the FBI would claim that Hinrichs was simply a “troubled” young man without any connection to terrorist organizations.

Oklahoma FBI agent Salvador Hernandez said that Hinrichs had simply decided to commit suicide “near a packed football stadium using an explosive attached to his body.” Despite the government white washing, it is obvious that Hinrichs simply made a mistake and prematurely discharged his bomb. If he had successfully armed the device and entered
the stadium, many people would have been killed and more seriously wounded.

-On July 4, 2002, Egyptian national Hesham Mohamed Hadayet walked into Los Angeles International Airport and shot and killed El Al stewardess Vicky Chen and L.A. resident Yaakev Aminov. Hadayet, and also stabbed an El Al security guard (Haim Safir), who in turn fatally shot the terrorist.

El Al being the official Israeli airline, the nature of this attack was correctly described…at least by the Israelis.

Israeli L.A. consul general Yuval Rotem said: “The way [the attack] was conducted is very much similar to previous attacks throughout the years at El Al counters. Therefore, unfortunately, given this history, we presume that it may and would appear to be a terrorist attack.”

Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres said: “The terrorists deliberately chose the Fourth of July to carry out their crime on the soil of the United States.”

In stark contrast, FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin told reporters: “There is no indication of any terrorism connection in this matter.” Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn said: It appears this was an isolated incident.”

All of the aforementioned terrorist attacks disappeared from the nation’s newsrooms, just as quickly as they appeared. Many of you have no doubt either forgotten or simply never heard of these attacks. That is exactly the effect which our government and press wants to achieve.

Even during the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks, the feds continued to play down the possibility of Muslim terrorism. The ATF even announced that they believed the sniper to be a 33 year old white-supremacist named Robert Gene Baker!

The snipers turned out to be two black Muslims (one was an illegal alien). Despite the fact that one of them admitted to targeting “as many white people” as they could kill, neither Lee Boyd Malvo, nor John Allen Muhammed was characterized as a terrorist nor even charged with a hate crime. The pair killed 20 innocent people before their reign of terror
ended.

It is clear that our political leaders still do not understand the threat posed by the radical Muslim world. Our politicians and law enforcement officials seem to believe that the policy of appeasement will work with murderers. They are mistaken and if we do not wake them up to this fact…We will have no nation left to defend!

There are currently more than 300,000 Muslims living in the Dearborn, MI area. There is also a large population of converted Muslims inside this nation’s prison system. The potential for recruitment for terrorist attacks within the United States, is overwhelming.

While it is certainly true that most Muslims will never commit an act of terrorism, we cannot ignore the terror which has been occurring before our very eyes. We cannot afford to sit back and watch our government allow our citizens to be murdered. We must demand action now!

We can do very little about the cover-ups taking place inside this nation’s newsrooms. It is apparent that the left-wing subversives sitting behind network anchor desks will only stop covering for Muslim murderers, when it is their own heads which are sawed from their bodies. However, we can direct our politicians to defend this nation…Remember, they work for us, not the other way around! Let us take to the streets in peaceful (though loud) protest, let us fill Congressional offices, and let us cast our votes next year.

Let those on the left remain suicidal, those of us who have not been intellectually castrated will shout Islamic terrorism every time we see it!

If we lack the courage to name our enemy or to even recognize their violent acts…How can we expect to keep this country safe?

The teenager was arrested while walking to the market in the Khartoum suburb of Kalatla. The police officer took her immediately before a Sharia court, and whipped by another police officer after being ordered by the judge to do so.

The girl’s mother, Jenty Doro, told Reuters: “She is just a young girl but the policeman pulled her along in the market like she was a criminal. It was wrong. I only heard about it after she was lashed. Later we all sat and cried … People have different religions and that should be taken into account.”

Because the family is Christian and the girl is a minor, they are planning on filing a lawsuit.

The family’s lawyer Azhari al-Haj said: “She was wearing a normal skirt and blouse, worn by thousands of girls. They didn’t contact a guardian and punished her on the spot.”

Of course, the brutal treatment of women living under Islamic law is nothing new.

One night in July 2009, Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein was having dinner with several of her friends, when between 30-40 police officers rushed into the restaurant and placed all of the women under arrest for wearing pants, which the police claim is forbidden by Muslim law.

Many of the women opted to be punished at the time of their arrest, and received 10 lashes, along with a $100 fine. However, Hussein decided to go to court, which risks the stiffer penalty of 40 lashes if she is convicted.

Hussein wanted to go to trial in order to bring world attention to the brutal treatment to which women are often subjected inside Muslim countries. She printed up 500 invitations for the trial which began Wednesday.

Hussein told the BBC: “I want to change this law, because hitting is not human.”

In April 2009, the Taliban in Pakistan released a video of a teenaged girl being beaten repeatedly, in punishment for hosting a man in her home. The video appeared on Pakistani television as a warning to others.

The disturbing footage shows the young girl being held down by two men, as a third man whipped her on her back over 30 times, while one of the men rubbed her face into the dirt.
Her painful screams cry out: “Stop. It’s killing me.” “For God’s sake, stop,” “I swear on my father and grandmother I won’t do it again.”

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told the Guardian: “She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross.” He also said that her offense is actually punishable by death, and that the whipping was in fact a “lenient” penalty.

Somalia has been reeling from a pitched battle between the transitional government and the insurgents, particularly in the capital, Mogadishu, where hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in recent weeks alone.

Responding to what he called an urgent request by Somali officials, the State Department spokesman, Ian Kelley, said Thursday that the United States had provided Somalia’s government with weapons and ammunition “to repel the onslaught of extremist forces” that were “spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability” to the nation.

The Shabab, one of the principal Islamic groups fighting to topple the government, was behind the punishment. It has imposed harsh sentences in other parts of the country that it controls and, at least once, stoned to death a teenage girl who said she had been raped, an act that drew international condemnation.

But residents described the amputations on Thursday as the first in the capital since a clan-based Islamic court carried out similar sentences about 15 years ago. Analysts said the Shabab, which is accused of having links to Al Qaeda, might be trying to win popular support in the capital by showing that it could achieve stability in the chaotic nation through a firm enactment of Shariah, or Islamic law.

The issue has emerged as a contentious element in the battle for control. The government is led by moderate Islamists who have, at least officially, agreed to make Shariah the basis of Somalia’s legal system, a move that could politically isolate the more extreme wing of the insurgency by undermining its claims of legitimacy.

But the government’s enactment of Islamic law seems to have been delayed, in part because it is struggling to simply survive, much less carry out new measures. So it remains unclear exactly how the government’s interpretation of Shariah would be practiced.

The amputations of the four young men, who had been accused of stealing items like a cellphone or a pistol, took place near a former animal market in front of a crowd of more than 100 people, many of them women and children. Some shouted “God is great” at the spectacle, witnesses said, while others fell to the ground in shock and fear.

The Shabab said it would care for the men until their wounds had healed.

The FBI has launched an “aggressive” manhunt for the men, who have “gone to ground” and have mysteriously disappeared, terrorism experts tell Newsmax. Authorities fear the men may have been recruited by extremists to carry out suicide attacks inside the United States, or abroad.

Critics of the State Department programs that brought the Somalis to America express grave concerns about the practice of admitting refugees from failed nation-states known to harbor extremists. It can be difficult or impossible to verify a person’s identity in such a country, let alone obtain knowledge of their past associations, several experts tell Newsmax.

One Somali refugee who vanished in early November, Shirwa Ahmed, re-emerged in northern Somalia in February behind the wheel of a truck packed with explosives.

Ahmed, whose family immigrated to the Minneapolis area in the mid-1990s, drove his truck into a crowd and triggered a massive explosion that left some 30 persons dead. Ahmed’s case marked the first known suicide bombing conducted by an American citizen, according to FBI director Robert S. Mueller III.

“It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota,” Mueller told the Council on Foreign Relations, warning that in the past two years, about two dozen Somali men have disappeared from their residences near Minneapolis.

Authorities say the men may have been recruited by al-Shabab, a terrorist group believed to have ties to al-Qaida. There has been speculation the men were radicalized at mosques in the area.

Ahmed’s recruitment and training, and the subsequent suicide attack, is especially worrisome for the FBI because of the other missing Somali-Americans. “It raised the question of whether these young men will one day come home, and, if so, what might they undertake here,” Mueller said.

Fox 9, a Minneapolis television station, reported that eight local refugees left the Twin Cities area on August 1, and 10 more departed on Nov. 4. The men’s families later found flight itineraries for travel from Dubai to Nairobi and on to Kenya. From there, it is believed they most likely entered Somalia by boat.

Counterterrorism experts worry that operatives who are already familiar with U.S. society and culture would be much more difficult to stop, if they were employed to attack the U.S. homeland.

Terrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstien-Ross recently told CBN: “There’s a concern that … they’re going to training camps and receiving the kind of training they would need to carry out some kind of mischief in the United States.”

Critics of the program that grants immigrants their refugee status, even when their past activities and associations cannot be thoroughly documented, point out that since 1991 Somalia has exhibited the same type of failed-nation status associated with the rise of Islamic extremism in Afghanistan. That nation provided al-Qaida with a safe haven prior to 9/11.

They cite the spate of piracy off the Horn of Africa, including the dramatic rescue of Captain Richard Phillips — who was freed after U.S. Navy SEAL sharpshooters shot and killed three Somali pirates — as evidence that Somalia is a dangerous hotbed of extremism.

Experts disagree over the level of cooperation between the pirates and Somalia’s radical Islamic warlords. A recent Der Spiegel report warned: “The pirates are increasingly working hand-in-hand with Islamists, who are allies of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida. It’s a terrifying alliance: the Pirates supply money and arms, while the Islamists have troops and the power on land.”

Jane’s Intelligence Review reports the pirate-Islamist alliance is “fragile.” In some cases, the pirates pay a percentage of their ransom money to al-Shabab units, in return for protection against land-based attacks on their bases.

Jane’s Intelligence also states that pirates have paid for military-style training at the hands of al-Shabab, conducted in terrorist boot camps.

Conservative foreign-policy expert Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, is among those who perceives a definite link between Somali’s pirates and its violent Islamic extremists.

“Shariah-adherent Somali pirates are a threat to the world’s shipping,” Gaffney tells Newsmax. “Their refugee counterparts being dumped into American communities are a threat to our country and its people. It adds insult to potentially enormous injury that, as the State Department has acknowledged, 80 percent of those refugees are here on the basis of fraudulent family-reunification grounds.”

Gaffney says the State Department “imports pirate/jihadist types into this country.”

One major concern: The pirates’ statements following the freeing of Phillips appeared to be couched in jihadist terms. They identified America as their “No. 1 enemy,” and one pirate leader told The Associated Press: “In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying.”

Don Barnett, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Services, tells Newsmax that it is clear some young refugees of Somali extraction have been recruited by extremists, and could now be working with al-Qaida or al-Shabab.

“I think that really should cause us to look at taking any refugees from Somalia with a much more fine magnifying glass,” Barnett says.

There are about 150,000 Somalis now living in the United States, and law-enforcement officials consider the vast majority of them to be peaceful and law-abiding.

Once resettled, the refugees are free to relocate and live anywhere they like.

A State Department official who asked not to be identified says refugees receive U.S. papers that identify them and their status. They are eligible to apply for a green card after residing in the United States for one year. Five years after receiving green cards, the source says, refugees are eligible to apply for American citizenship.

There are three State Department programs that vet and process refugees for admittance:

# The Priority One (P-1) program provides a means for individuals from Somalia and other nations to immigrate to the United States based on referrals from the United Nations, from a U.S. embassy, or from a non-governmental organization (NGO).

# The Priority Two (P-2) program gives refugee status to all members of a specific, persecuted group. In 1999, for example, the State Department granted blanket refugee status to some 12,000 persecuted Somali-Bantus who had been driven from their native country to Kenya.

# The Priority Three (P-3) program awards refugee status specifically for the purpose of family reunification with other refugees already legally residing in the United States.

When a family or individual qualifies for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a Department of Homeland Security agency, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), conducts an interview with the “refugee applicant” to verify their eligibility and establish they are “otherwise admissible to the United States,” according to a State Department fact sheet about the program.

One of the purposes of USCIA is to ensure “that no one is admitted who is a threat to public safety,” according to its Web site.

The P-3 program was suspended in October, after reports of fraud led the State Department and DHS to conduct DNA testing on 3,000 applicants. Those tests revealed that as many as 80 percent of the family-reunification claims were false and did not involve relatives.

Officials suspended the program until new procedures — such as DNA testing — could be developed to verify claims of a family relationship. The P-1 and P-2 programs continue to be in effect.

Barnett tells Newsmax that the State Department is prepared to resume the troubled P-3 program in June. He also criticizes the P-1 program, due to U.N. refugee programs he describes as “one big long running fraud.” He adds: “The U.N. referral program itself has been subject to bribery and fraud.”

The State Department spokesman tells Newsmax it is unclear if the P-3 program will be reinstated by June, adding, “We do anticipate that the program will restart. A little later this year, we will have this program reinstated.”

Most critics of the program recognize that some resettlement in the United States is inevitable and probably beneficial. The problem, they say, comes when large numbers of immigrants arrive from chaotic nations known to harbor extremists. It is very difficult or impossible to review the backgrounds of people living in such countries, they say, because documentation and even birth certificates may be nonexistent. Advocates for refugees, on the other hand, point out that those are the very situations where resettlement may be most urgent.

Fred Burton, vice president of counterterrorism and corporate security for Stratfor, a global intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas, tells Newsmax: “Across the spectrum, when you attempt to vet the identify of that person, you have nothing to cross reference it to.”

Burton participated in the arrest of 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, and says the lack of intelligence about Somali extremists is quite serious.

“Whenever you have a suspected intelligence operative, whether it be from an espionage side or the terrorism side — and it’s more foreboding from the terrorism side — you really get a sense of dread, not knowing what he is up to,” he says.

Burton says the FBI is sparing no effort to locate the men who have gone missing in Minneapolis, but adds that it may be difficult.

“Knowing how the process works from a domestic terrorism perspective, there is no doubt the FBI is looking for the individuals involved, and probably very, very aggressively,” Burton tells Newsmax. “But then you go back to what has always been the Achilles’ heel in the counterterrorism business, your lack of human intelligence to tell you where that person is, because you lack the human sources to identify him.”

Burton states “I would certainly say the program appears to be a failure at this juncture.”

He says verifying identity is essential before admitting any refugee into the United States, and adds: “Having participated in several of those State Department meetings for many years, I would say, ‘Well, I’m sure we followed whatever process is in place, but what guarantees do we have that this process is not broken?’”