NATO air strike kills 33 Afghan civilians, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

NATO air strike kills 33 Afghan civilians

KABUL: A NATO air strike killed at least 33 civilians, the Afghan government said today, in the third such mistaken bombing raid in Afghanistan in a week and forcing another apology from a top US commander.

Four women and a child were among the civilians killed yesterday when they were attacked after being mistaken for Taliban militants who are waging an eight-year insurgency to evict Western troops.

The top ground commander, US General Stanley McChrystal, apologised for the incident to President Hamid Karzai, who has repeatedly warned foreign and Afghan forces to take all measures possible to avoid harming civilians.

The air strike came days after NATO forces pressing a major offensive in the south killed at least nine Afghan civilians when a rocket slammed into a house -- for which McChrystal also apologised.

A statement from the decision-making council of ministers, which is chaired by Karzai, condemned the latest incident as "unjustifiable".

"Initial reports indicate that NATO fired Sunday on a convoy of three vehicles in Gujran district of the province of Daykundi, killing at least 33 civilians including four women and one child and injuring 12 others while they were on their way to Kandahar," the statement said.

Yesterday's incident was the third mistaken NATO air strike in Afghanistan reported by Afghan officials in a week.

Last Thursday, a NATO bombing raid in the northern province of Kunduz killed seven Afghan policemen, according to hospital and government officials.

http://newageislam.com/nato-air-strike-kills-33-afghan-civilians/islamic-world-news/d/2491

Seminar on Terrorism and Our Composite Culture to be held in Mumbai on 28 February 2010, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Seminar on Terrorism and Our Composite Culture to be held in Mumbai on 28 February 2010

Concept and the list of Speakers:

India and South Asia are passing through turbulent times. The rise of fundamentalist terrorism is holding most of the countries of South Asia to ransom. The global situation is aggravating the problem and India is at the receiving end.

The situation in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh is a matter of concern. Religious fanaticism born in religious institutions like madrasas is contributing in a big way to the problem. Hence, there is a need to build up a massive campaign against the dubious and anti-social role of the fanatics and to reinforce secular-democratic values.

When we talk of the country’s composite culture we mean the unity in diversity which has brought India into being. There are many forces working today to wreak this unity by preaching sectarian and fissiparous ideologies that divide the people and pit brother against brother.

The present situation calls for reiteration of our national heritage and our composite culture. In this regard Urdu has played an important role to contain and detoxify the poison being spread by vested interests both within the country and from outside.

The need of the hour is to have healthy discussion and discourse to counter all kinds of anti-national, anti-secular, anti-democratic and fanatic ideas. A seminar on the country’s composite culture, therefore, will go a long way in providing fodder to secular forces to work as a bulwark against divisive forces.

http://newageislam.com/seminar-on-terrorism-and-our-composite-culture-to-be-held-in-mumbai-on-28-february-2010/current-affairs/d/2507

Al Qaeda’s safari, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Al Qaeda’s safari

Melanie Phillips

January 6th, 2010

There has been general shock at the attempted downing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit. It isn’t just that yet another aeroplane terrorist atrocity was averted only by luck and courage after US and British intelligence were caught with their pants down once again. Nor is it just the lax airport security.

No, the real amazement has been that the perpetrator, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian who apparently got his orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen; that the genesis of the pants bomber’s radical journey lies not in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor in Israel/Palestine, but in Africa.

It was while at school in Toga that Abdulmutallab reportedly adopted the most belligerent version of Islam. As a fully fledged Islamic extremist, he was naturally received with open arms in “Londonistan”, where he was further radicalised to terrorism before being kitted out in Yemen with the latest accessories of mass murder.

He is first and foremost a religious fanatic — and the crucial context for his extremism is Africa. Radical Islamists in countries such as Abdulmutallab’s Nigeria, Somalia or the Sudan have been steadily butchering, ethnically cleansing or brutally converting Christians and other “infidels”, imposing Sharia law at gunpoint and radicalising the continent to the cause of Islamic holy war.

http://newageislam.com/al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-safari/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2352

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK

In Somalia another four converts from Islam have just been beheaded by radical Sunni Islamists who desire a 100 percent fanatical state. The four Christians were killed by the Al-Shabab on the grounds of "fitna." Fitna applies to creating religious discord and in the minds of Al-Shabab, all converts who leave Islam must be killed in accordance with the Koran and Hadiths.

Therefore, a natural liberty, religious freedom, which exists in the "free world" is being denied many and clearly radical Sunni Islamists are intent on Islamizing the world by killing all minorities within their Islamized states, for example in Afghanistan and Somalia.

On the one hand, we have radical Sunni Islamists beheading people or burning people alive; and on the other hand we have state sanctioned victimization of religious minorities and the persecution of apostates from Islam.

Given this, it is clear that the methodology of radical Sunni Islamists is more brutal with regards to beheading people or burning them alive. Yet the mentality of religious persecution exists within mainstream Islam because the majority of mainly Muslim nations have policies which infringe on religious liberty.

Not only this, the mindset of discrimination is rampant within religious communities and while the liberals enjoy lambasting their own respective cultures and appeasing Islam in the West; they remain silent about mass discrimination within the Muslim community towards non-Muslims and apostates.

http://newageislam.com/killing-of-apostates-from-islam--pakistan,-somalia-and-uk-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1691