CentrePoint News Real News – Not Fark

By Michael Carl

An expert on the advance of radical Islam in the United States says the Muslim Brotherhood is effectively employing a strategy of presenting “Islam lite” to organizations, including Christian churches.

A spokeswoman for an Islamic awareness program which monitors how Islamic law motivates Muslims to participate in jihad reported she heard of a United Church of Christ congregation where an Islamic speaker was a guest.

She contacted the church to see if she would be allowed to present some of the harsher truths about Islam.

“The pastor pushed the material back at me and said, ‘It’s people like you who are responsible for an escalation of the violence,’” the spokeswoman said.

She said organizations such as Hartford Seminary are sending imams “to condition members of the area churches to believe the light version of Islam.”

Steve Emerson, director of the Investigative Project for Terrorism, concurred.

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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124173

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By Jamestown Foundation

Insurgent violence has continued unabated in the North Caucasus this week, with five federal servicemen dying in a shootout with insurgents in Chechnya yesterday (February 4) and Russia’s security services again accusing Georgia of aiding militants in the North Caucasus.

A source in Chechnya’s security apparatus told Kavkazsky Uzel today (February 5) that five federal troops were killed yesterday during a firefight with insurgents in Chechnya’s Urus-Martan district. The source said the battle between members of a unit of interior ministry internal troops and a group of militants numbering up to 15 took place several kilometers to the south of the village of Komsomolskoe. Four servicemen were killed and another four wounded, including two officers. The federal forces then ordered an artillery strike on the area in which the rebels were blockaded, after which another shootout occurred when the rebels tried to break out of the encirclement. Another serviceman was killed and two wounded during this second shootout.

Yesterday’s battle in Urus-Martan coincided with the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s announcement that a special operation had been successfully carried out elsewhere in the republic –in a wooded area near the Grozny district village of Dachu-Borzoi.

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http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36016&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=bc1c342bdd

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By Ethan Cole

North Korea made good on its word and freed American Christian activist Robert Park, who arrived in Beijing Saturday.

A spokesperson for the United States Embassy said Park would fly to the United States later that day.

Park, 28, had been held by North Korea since late December after he crossed the frozen Tumen River on Christmas Day and entered without permission. The Christian activist from Tucson, Arizona, said he wanted to draw international attention to the human rights abuse in North Korea.

A copy of a letter written by Park, posted on the Seoul-based activist group Pax Koreana’s Web site, called on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to repent and to open up the country to humanitarian aid and shut down concentration camps.

According to Pax Koreana leaders, who witnessed Park’s entry into North Korea, the Christian activist carried the letter and a Bible into the reclusive country.

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http://www.christiantoday.com/article/north.korea.releases.us.christian.activist/25254.htm

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By GMBDR

The Dallas Morning News has reported on the suspension and criminal inquiry by the U.S. military into the activities and lectures of Louay Safi, the Development Director for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). According to the report:

After the worst military base massacre in U.S. history, officials acknowledged that they failed to “connect the dots” – the shooter had been corresponding with an imam tied to al-Qaeda and had condemned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a war against Islam. But Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan wasn’t the only one working on a Texas Army base the day of the shooting who had links to radical Islamists. At Fort Bliss, an experienced military trainer was teaching soldiers about his Muslim faith. He, too, had denounced government counterterrorism efforts, and public records show he and some of his closest associates had ties to terrorism suspects. But when The Dallas Morning News first inquired about the instructor, Louay Safi, military officials praised him. Only later did they say that Safi had been suspended from working on military bases pending a continuing criminal inquiry….In January, military officials told the newspaper that Safi was under investigation and that his lectures had been suspended. The investigation, begun by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was recently referred to the Army, said Ed Buice, an NCIS spokesman. He would not elaborate, but other military officials said the inquiry began after a Dec. 3 complaint about ISNA. The complaint came in as Safi concluded three days of lectures at Fort Hood, which is still traumatized by the Nov. 5 massacre.

The Dallas Morning News report also provides some background on Dr. Safi:

Safi is a senior official of the Islamic Society of North America, the country’s largest Muslim organization. ISNA has been consulted for years by Washington and is described as a partner in the fight against terrorism. In addition to serving as ISNA’s communications director, Safi runs its program certifying Muslim chaplains for work in the U.S. military and prison system. He publicly denounces terrorism and advocates peace. Safi was also named by government prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in one terrorism case in 2005. His last two employers were implicated in other government terrorism investigations while he worked for them. He was never charged, nor included among the targets of those investigations. But Safi has called the widespread raids on Muslim organizations after 9/11 “a campaign against Islam” – a term that 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow says is part of “the jihadi narrative.” Safi has also complained that Muslims are treated differently from Christians and Jews when they do wrong. They are unfairly identified by and questioned about their religion, he says, treatment that can lead to isolation and aggression. “The extremist ideology responsible for violent outbursts is often rooted in the systematic demonization of marginalized groups,” Safi said in an Internet posting after the Fort Hood shooting.

A report by the Hudson Institute has identified ISNA as a major part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

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http://globalmbreport.org/?p=2120

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By Kevin P. Donovan

Recently retired NFL quarterback Kurt Warner was presented with the 2010 Bart Starr Award Saturday for outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community.

Warner, who played in the NFL for 12 years before announcing his retirement last month, was noted for his participation in a number of charities including the First Things First Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Special Olympics, Neighborhood Ministries, and Habitat for Humanity.

In his acceptance speech, the Super Bowl champion and four-time Pro-Bowler reiterated his hope to not be defined by only his football feats, which include three MVP awards, a Super Bowl win, and the second-highest completion percentage in NFL history.

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http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100207/2010-bart-starr-award-goes-to-kurt-warner/index.html

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By IPT

In August of 2008, an Islamist student made his way from London to Houston to attend a two-week program put on by the AlMaghrib Institute. This was his third course with the Institute, including two in London. On Christmas Day 2009, the very same student, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up a transatlantic flight with a suicide bomb he had sewn into his underpants.

AlMaghrib’s Houston-based director of the 2008 program and national Dean of Academic Affairs, Yasir Qadhi, expressed immediate concern for the aspiring terrorist’s feelings of alienation and hatred of the West.

The AlMaghrib program offered “mainstream Islamic stuff,” Qadhi told CNN, which did not challenge the claim.

“At some level,” he added, “we did not convince him of the validity of our views, and that is cause for regret.”

An examination of the views expressed by Qadhi and others at AlMaghrib, however, shows that they are far from moderate and the institute exhorts followers to carry out jihad and not integrate with the West. Such views are exposed to a wide audience, as the CNN report noted that 30,000 students have attended AlMaghrib courses throughout the English-speaking world.

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http://www.investigativeproject.org/1768/when-a-radical-directs-anti-radicalization

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By BBC

Exit polls from Ukraine indicate that the pro-Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has narrowly won the country’s presidential election.

They say Mr Yanukovych has a lead of several percentage points over opponent Yulia Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister.

He challenged Mrs Tymoshenko to quit, but she refused to concede.

If confirmed, it would be a remarkable comeback for Mr Yanukovych, who was swept aside five years ago by the peaceful “Orange Revolution”.

Under the 59-year-old former mechanic, Ukraine’s foreign policy is expected to become more pro-Russian.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8503177.stm

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By Persian 2 English

Iran New Agency reports that nine prisoners are planned for execution on Sunday, February 7.

From a letter sent to Iran News Agency:

The government’s fear of [upcoming] protests has resulted in its leaders using execution as a method to stop the people.

The previous day, I heard from a relative who is a [regime] guard high up in the system that on Sunday February 7, 2010, nine political prisoners are scheduled for public execution.

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http://persian2english.com/?p=5964

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By Murad Batal al-Shishani

Web forums associated with jihad and al-Qaeda sympathizers have become a major source of information about militant Islamist groups, as well as a platform for the dissemination of the audio, visual and textual literature of the Salafi-Jihadis. According to the U.S. State Department, only 15 sites were run by groups described by the United States as “terrorist” groups in 1998, but the number of these sites increased to more than 4,000 by 2005. [1]

Despite the proliferation of jihadi websites, such sites and forums are prone to monitoring and closure by the United States and its allies, as well as by self-appointed censors with hacking skills. These obstacles lead the Salafi-Jihadis to search for various methods to overcome the blockages, closures and security restrictions imposed on their platforms.

In this context, active pro-jihad contributors to “al-Faloja Islamic Forums” (which today hosts more than 250,000 contributions) urged al-Qaeda’s supporters to “invade” Facebook in December 2008 by creating sympathetic groups—a feature available on the networking site—to spread the Salafi-Jihadi message. Facebook is a social networking website devoted to connecting individuals and groups. According to Facebook’s statistics page, the site has more than 200 million active members, and more than 100 million of these enter Facebook at least once each day.

This outreach campaign seems to have had almost immediate results; according to Pakistani authorities, the five young American Muslims arrested in Pakistan last December were recruited online via YouTube and Facebook after the suspects used these sites to reach out to groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangyi (Dawn [Karachi], December 16).

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http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36002&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=3ade289d4e

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By Michael Carl

Terrorists actively are discussing another attack on the United States that could come within the next three to six months, and they even have included photographs of some government targets in their e-mails, including the Langley, Va., headquarters of the CIA.

The Middle East Media Research Institute confirms that the Al-Falluja jihadist forum has been discussing which American sites would make the best targets, referencing not only the CIA headquarters building but also the White House.

The top blogger has been urging attacks on the U.S. in an attempt to force American troops out of Iraq sooner than planned.

Likewise, the National Terror Alert Center is reporting al-Qaida is planning another attack within that time frame.

“There is no reason that the threats shouldn’t be taken seriously,” said a terrorism expert, who spoke with WND on condition of anonymity.

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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124228

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