Iranian President prays in the main Baku mosque

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 Baku :The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Teze-Pir Mosque during his official visit to Baku.

During the visit, he met with the head of the Muslims of Azerbaijan and the Caucuses, Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pasha-zade, who highly appreciated the state of relations between Azerbaijan and Iran and recalled the long-term historic relations of religious figures with Iran Muslim leaders in the time of the Soviet Union.

Pasha-zade expressed his gratitude to Iran for supporting Azerbaijan’s position with the international institutions.

The President spoke at a meeting of Muslim scientists and officials of Iran and Azerbaijan and addressed the students of Baku Islamic University.

President Ahmadinejad also visited the mosque library to see ancient religious manuscripts and conducted the common prayer together with other believers.

Chechen Leader Calls for Decisive Struggle Against Wahhabism

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 Grozny : Chechnya “needs neither good, nor bad Wahabis,” Kadyrov said. “Such an approach must be applied everywhere. Otherwise, they will again start moving at the slightest relaxation on the part of the authorities. But, I give my word, not in Chechnya,” the Chechen leader said

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that Wahhabism cannot be eradicated with half-measures.

“Wahabis did not come along today or yesterday. They have been around for a long time. And prominent Islamic religious figures noted that they bring woes, sufferings, destruction and shed blood,” Kadyrov said after a prayer service at a mosque, according to the Chechen government’s website.

“There are people who are trying to present this movement as an innocent phenomenon, as some doctrine, and who characterize Wahabis as almost the most gentle people,” he said.

“This is self-deception. This is deception of thousands of people who might think that this is how things are. In reality, their [Wahabis’] key goal is to cause chaos, to kill primarily those are really Muslim, who truly believe in Allah and revere the Prophet,” Kadyrov said.

He cited multiple examples of “atrocities” by Wahabis, having recalled how “they shot dead a well-known North Caucasus religious figure in the Vedeno District, how they broke into a house in Geldagan and killed a 72-year-old imam when he was reading Quran, although all he asked for was not mercy but to let him finish reading the Surah,” Kadyrov said.

“There is nothing saint for them. A son can kill his father if he criticizes him. He can kill his brother. By acting like this they are seeking to denigrate Muslims, to set them against millions of people who do not understand the difference between Wahabis and true believers,” the Chechen leader said.

As a Chechen mufti and later the first Chechen president, Ahmad Kadyrov “emphasized the need to wage against Wahabis, while admitting that this evil can spread across many regions if it is not nipped in the bud,” he said.

“However, in the 1990s and even in the early years of this decade the majority of regional leaders did not see the whole depth of the problem and denied the existence of such a threat. Wahhabism was brought to Chechnya by Bagautdin Kizilyurtovsky. There (in Dagestan) he was not dealt with on time, so the ‘infection’ spread, and today we are harvesting the consequences of irresponsibility shown by the authorities and public in those years,” Kadyrov added.

Chechnya “needs neither good, nor bad Wahabis,” he said. “Such an approach must be applied everywhere. Otherwise, they will again start moving at the slightest relaxation on the part of the authorities. But, I give my word, not in Chechnya,” the Chechen leader said.

“No criminal will remain unpunished for attempting on the life of law enforcement officers or ordinary citizens or organizing such crimes,” Kadyrov said.

17 Shia Huthi Killed By Car Bomb in Northern Yemen

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 : At least 17 Huthi fighters have lost their lives and 30 others sustained injuries when a car bomb targeted a religious procession in northern Yemen.

The exact location of the attack is still not known.

The incident took place only one day after an army soldier was killed and two others were injured when a roadside bomb targeted their military vehicle south of the country.

The Yemeni government launched Operation Scorched Earth on August 11, 2007 to uproot the Shia Houthi fighters, whom Sana’a accuses of seeking a return to the Zaydi imamate overthrown in a 1962 coup.

The northern Houthi fighters have on occasions complained about widespread religious discrimination against them by Sunni fundamentalists who hold sway because of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s cordial relations with staunchly Wahabi Saudi Arabia.

Saada and neighboring Amran province, the strongholds of the Shia Houthi fighters, were frequently pounded by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The conflict zones in northern Yemen remained cut off from the rest of the country and the locals were grappling with a pressing shortage of food and other basic supplies.

The United Nations puts the number of displaced people at around 150,000 civilians.

Kabul blames UK for Taliban imposter

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 : Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff says British diplomats brought a fake Taliban commander to sensitive government meetings.

Mohammad Umer Daudzai made remarks in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday.

“The last lesson we draw from this: International partners should not get excited so quickly with those kind of things.”

The imposter tried to impersonate Taliban commander Mullah Mansour. He disappeared after an employee who knew the real Mansour raised the alarm.

The imposter is said to have met with Afghan officials three times and flown on a NATO aircraft to Kabul.

It appears that he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to take on the role. British officials say the money came from the Afghan government not the UK.

But the British newspaper The Times says the imposter was planted by the UK’s MI6 overseas spying agency.

An unnamed US official has also told Washington post that the Mansour impersonator was the Brit’s Guy.

Karzai recently formed a peace council to lead talks with the Taliban, electing Afghanistan’s former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as chairman of the council.

The newly-established peace council has been making efforts to initiate dialogue with discontented Afghans and militants who have engaged in warfare with the government.

The council has expressed willingness to listen to legitimate demands by the militants.

The development comes after senior officials in the UK floated the idea of making peace with the Taliban whose uprooting was one of the main objectives of the 2001 US-led invasion.

The US-led invasion was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the war-ravaged country.

Anti-war groups have highlighted the fact that Afghanistan remains unstable nine years after the invasion.

The Taliban have repeatedly rejected peace talks, calling for the withdrawal of US-led foreign forces from Afghanistan.

 

Bahrain resumes trial of 23 activists

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 Bahrain has resumed the third trial session of the 23 opposition activists detained on charges of forming an illegal organization and plotting to overthrow the government.

The third session had been adjourned to investigate fresh allegations of torture made by some of the detainees. They also claimed they had been forced to sign confessions at the prosecutor’s office.

The defendants had complained about being beaten in prison, deprived of sleep and forced to remain standing for long periods of time following the first session of their trial on October 28.

A member of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Maryam al-Khawaja, told Press TV on Friday that Thursday’s trial lasted for about 45 minutes. The lawyers requested that the trial be halted until torture allegations are looked into.

“One of the detainees, Sheikh Muhammad Habib al-Moqdad, spoke about torture, electric shocks that he and Dr. Abdel-Jalil al-Singace – a leading member of the opposition political group al-Haq – were both subjected to. He even exposed the name of the police officer who carried out the tortures,” she added.

“The judge basically did not respond to the request of the lawyers and he adjourned the trial until December 9,” Khawaja said.

Meanwhile, the Amnesty International has called on the Bahraini authorities to inspect new claims of mistreatment made by some of the detained opposition activists.

“The Bahraini authorities must conduct a prompt and independent investigation into both these allegations of torture,” said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

“They must also now take steps to protect the 23 defendants from possible further retaliation, following their new allegations.”

All the 23 men are charged with “forming an illegal organization” aiming to “overthrow the government and dissolve the constitution”, inciting people to “overthrow and change the political system of the country”, fundraising and planning terrorist acts, and other offences under Bahrain’s 2006 anti-terrorism law. They all deny the charges.

The detained opposition activists have had very little access to their lawyers. They were only allowed to see the defendants when they were brought before the Public Prosecutor about two weeks after their arrest and again during the first trial session.

Some of the defendants alleged that they were subjected to further torture or other ill-treatment after the court’s first session, their attorney said after the second session of the court on November 11

 

'Israel aided US-backed Hariri tribunal'

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says Tel Aviv has contributed to a US-sponsored tribunal probing the murder of former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri, a report says.

Lieberman has recently acknowledged Israel’s “cooperation” with Hariri’s tribunal, also known as the US-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), and said that Tel Aviv has been transparent and open to the investigation, Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday.

Hariri was killed alongside more than 20 other people in a massive car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on February 14, 2005.

The US-sponsored STL was subsequently set up by the UN and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the murder. The court is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010.

Meanwhile, the Israeli foreign minister accused Lebanon’s resistance movement of Hezbollah of trying to undermine the tribunal.

The accusation has been made despite Secretary General of Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah’s repeated rejection of the allegations and warnings against Isreali plots.

In an August speech, the resistance leader presented evidence proving that Israel masterminded the assassination. In his televised address Nasrallah presented footage captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists, substantiating that Tel Aviv had been behind the killing.

Nasrallah also pointed out that the investigators had been infiltrating deep into Lebanon and channeling date outwards even before the tribunal took its current form.

‘Israel aided US-backed Hariri tribunal’

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JNN 26 Nov 2010 Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says Tel Aviv has contributed to a US-sponsored tribunal probing the murder of former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri, a report says.

Lieberman has recently acknowledged Israel’s “cooperation” with Hariri’s tribunal, also known as the US-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), and said that Tel Aviv has been transparent and open to the investigation, Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday.

Hariri was killed alongside more than 20 other people in a massive car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on February 14, 2005.

The US-sponsored STL was subsequently set up by the UN and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the murder. The court is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010.

Meanwhile, the Israeli foreign minister accused Lebanon’s resistance movement of Hezbollah of trying to undermine the tribunal.

The accusation has been made despite Secretary General of Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah’s repeated rejection of the allegations and warnings against Isreali plots.

In an August speech, the resistance leader presented evidence proving that Israel masterminded the assassination. In his televised address Nasrallah presented footage captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists, substantiating that Tel Aviv had been behind the killing.

Nasrallah also pointed out that the investigators had been infiltrating deep into Lebanon and channeling date outwards even before the tribunal took its current form.