From International Business Times:
A prisoner in Saudi Arabia, who was sentenced to death as a child, faces “death by crucifixion” after a final appeal has been dismissed. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested on 14 February 2012 when he was just 17, during a crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shiite province of Qatif. He was accused by the authorities of participation in illegal protests and of firearms offences, despite there being no evidence to justify the latter charge.
From The Daily Express:
One plot foiled by MI5 involved a massive bomb blast at a ceremony in London on August 15 on the 70th anniversary of VJ Day. The Queen, Prince Charles and other senior members of the Royal Family were present.
Another foiled attack was aimed at Armed Forces Day in London in June.
Six UK terror plots have been thwarted in 12 months, Mr Cameron said. Amin, Khan and another Islamist fighter died when a precision guided missile fired by an RAF remote-controlled drone blasted their vehicle near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqah in Syria on August 21.
From The Daily Express:
The rooftop execution is the latest in a string of public killings, which are seen as a trademark of the savage jihadis.
It is the terror group’s preferred method of murder for the men they suspect of being gay, an ‘offence’ which is punishable by death.
The warped justifications for the murders say they can be carried out on the grounds of religion – as are the rapes of ‘non believers’, including Yazidi girls.
From The New York Times:
In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.
“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,†the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.â€
The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.
From The Washington Post:
Islamic orthodoxy, which controls mosques and institutions worldwide, is out of step with the world in which the majority of Muslims live. In few places is orthodox Islam independent of the state; it is often a political tool used by authoritarian regimes, which explains why the Muslim intelligentsia does not respect it. Its hallmark is archaism in theology and ethics, and its reach covers most of the global community of faith. Once a robust intellectual tradition, today Islamic orthodoxy is in serious need of a makeover. Mainstream theologians who cater to the majority of lay Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite, are unable to address such critical moral and theological challenges as evolution, gender and sexuality, or the role and meaning of sharia in a modern nation. That’s because theological education is steeped in ancient texts with little attention to reinterpretation.
From BBC Watch:
The IranWire article details some of the interesting points made by Araghchi in that meeting, including the following:
“Araghchi confirmed that Iran is arming Lebanese Hezbollah: “We said that we cannot stop giving arms to Hezbollah, and we’re not ready to sacrifice it to our nuclear program. So we will continue doing it.â€â€
Khodnevis attributes the information in its article to a report published by the BBC Persian service (“Araghchi what was said at the meeting with managers of radio and television?“) and another article concerning the removal of the reports by Persian-language outlets was also produced by BBC Persian.
From Investors Business Daily:
Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson refuses to call Islamic terror “Islamic,” arguing it’s “critical” to refrain from the label in order to “build trust” among Muslims.
In jaw-dropping remarks Friday at Aspen Institute’s annual security forum, Johnson said the government will call such attacks “violent extremism” over “Islamic terrorism” out of respect for the Muslim community.
From Politico Magazine:
A few years back, Melvin Bledsoe was living a black middle-class, Southern Baptist version of the American dream. Both of his children were college bound, a step up the socioeconomic ladder that Melvin’s own parents could never afford. The Bledsoes were a tightly knit family clasped in the bosom of a supportive and familiar community. And then a personal crisis opened the door to an utterly unfamiliar intruder, and an idea was planted in a wounded psyche that improbably blossomed into a dark and noxious ideology. And before they even understood the gathering peril, the Bledsoes’ American dream became a nightmare.
Somehow, in ways that a heartbroken Melvin Bledsoe even now doesn’t fully comprehend, his beloved son Carlos was transformed into a murderous jihadist, a hate-filled man who called himself Abulhakim Mujahid Mohammed.
From Commentary Magazine:
It is a demonstration of the terrifying fact that there will always be holes in the net and, despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the threat to the homeland cannot be entirely abrogated without neutralizing the source of terrorism overseas.
Abdulazeez is hardly the first American to try to execute attacks on soft targets in the United States, but he was among the more successful. Since the start of 2015, there have been a substantial number of terror plots that were halted in the planning stages and aspiring terrorist actors charged with conspiring to stage attacks.
From Washington Free Beacon:
Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who was handpicked by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to deliver the prayers, delivered a message of hostility toward the United States in the first official remarks since a final nuclear deal was signed between Iran and world powers in Vienna last week.
A Persian-language message on the podium declared, “We will trample upon America†while the English phrase “We Defeat the United States†can be seen underneath.
