Another Convert To Islam

(with a hat tip to A New Dark Age Is Dawning for the first link below)

The United States envoy in Sudan — of all people — has converted to Islam.

He has been forced to resign:

WORLD BULLETIN: The US charge d’affaires in Khartoum, Joseph D Stafford, resigned from his post after he converted to Islam, Sudanese local media sources said.

Stafford told the foreign ministry that his resignation was made for "personal reasons" but Sudanese sources claimed that the envoy was forced to resign after he turned to Islam.

Sources said that Stafford has recorded visits to the headquarters of Ansar al-Sunnah in Sudan and established a close relationship with a number of Sudanese clerics through these visits.
 
The U.S. State Department has not made any statement to confirm or deny the news on Joseph Stafford....

After what he saw going on in Sudan, Stafford still converted to Islam? How is that even possible?

From the Al Jazeera Center for Studies:

Traditional Salafism: The Ansar al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyyah Group

Sunni Islam was introduced to Sudan very early in Islam’s history and was largely dominated by the spirit of Sufism. The religious affiliation of more than sixty per cent of the people of Sudan (of a total population of 16 million people) is tied to Sufism, while Salafi groups accounted for only ten percent of the religious landscape of Sudan. Alongside the Sufis and Salafis were people unaffiliated to any of these sects as well as those belonging to groups affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Salafi ideas were brought to Sudan from the Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) through the hajj pilgrimages and not from Egypt or West Africa from which Sunni Islam and Sufism entered the country. According to Ahmed Mohammed Taher, who wrote about the Ansar al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyah group in Sudan, the Salafi current arrived in the country through a group of Islamic scholars, most notably Abdul-Rahman ibn Hajar of Algeria (1870-1939) who lived in Sudan for a while. The effects of ibn Hajar’s Salafi proselytising activities began to crystallize in Sudan in 1897. In 1936, Sheikh Yusuf Abu announced the formation of the Ansar al-Sunnah group in order to call towards Tawhid (monotheism) and true faith. In 1947, the group was authorised to establish a public centre. In 1967, the group built its first mosque which was inaugurated by Saudi King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.

The group did not limit its activities to proselytising but also played an active role in the political field. In the wake of Sudanese independence in 1956, the group was active in mobilising political parties behind the call for the application of an Islamic constitution based on shari’ah (Islamic law). It also participated in the Islamic Charter Front, which competed in the Sudanese general elections in 1964. In subsequent years, Ansar al-Sunnah took a clear position against the rebel movement in southern Sudan and organised a campaign to support the Sudanese armed forces. The group then created a special branch within its hierarchy called the Shari’ah-Based Policy and Research Secretariat....

Sudan: Cardinal unharmed after failed assassination at Mass

A would-be assassin failed to harm Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako during an Oct. 10 Mass celebrating the feast of St. Daniel Comboni. The knife-wielding suspect had reportedly tried to blend in with liturgical dancers.

Cardinal Wako, who is the Archbishop of Khartoum, was leading the Mass at the Comboni Playground in the capital city when Hamdan Mohamed Abdurrahman, a Misseriya Arab from Southern Kordofan state, infiltrated the crowd.

The man disguised himself and joined the liturgical dancers at the crowded stage where the altar had been set up, the Catholic Information Service of Africa (CISA) reports. He proceeded up to the stage amid the dancers and pretended to dance while waving a dagger.

The assassin was within four steps of the stage when Master of Ceremonies Barnaba Matuec Anei, seated next to the cardinal, spotted him. Matuec caught and disarmed the man before handing him over to the security guards.

Matuec told CISA that Hamdan might have infiltrated the area early enough to hide himself among the faithful. There was “very intense” security at the gates.

“We want to find out what was his mission in the Church was, and why he did carry a dagger with him. After that, we will see what to do next. We must know his background and identity. If he has people backing him to carry out such actions in the church, we would like to know,” he added.

Source.

Back in 2005, he stated:

"The Government of Sudan set themselves the target of getting Christianity out of the country by the year 2000. We have foiled their plan ... so far."

"To drive us out still remains the objective of our oppressors."

Background:
Sudan: Sudanese bishops' conference concerned about persecution if South supports independence.
Sudan: Christian leaders urge UN about humanitarian disaster.
Sudan rejects Gadaffi's "warning".

Cross-posted from T&P.

Country Reports on Terrorism 2008

U.S. Department of State

April 30, 2009

State sponsors of terrorism provide critical support to non-state terrorist groups. Without state sponsors, terrorist groups would have greater difficulty obtaining the funds, weapons, materials, and secure areas they require to plan and conduct operations. The United States will continue to insist that these countries end the support they give to terrorist groups.

Sudan continued to take significant steps towards better counterterrorism cooperation. Iran and Syria have not renounced terrorism or made efforts to act against Foreign Terrorist Organizations and routinely provided safe haven, substantial resources, and guidance to terrorist organizations. Cuba continued to publicly defend the FARC and provide safe haven to some members of terrorist organizations, though some were in Cuba in connection with peace negotiations with the Governments of Spain and Colombia.

On October 11, the United States rescinded the designation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a state sponsor of terrorism in accordance with criteria set forth in U.S. law, including a certification that the Government of North Korea had not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period and the provision by the government of assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.

State Sponsor: Implications

Designating countries that repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism as state sponsors of terrorism imposes four main sets of U.S. Government sanctions:

1. A ban on arms-related exports and sales.

2. Controls over exports of dual-use items, requiring 30-day Congressional notification for
goods or services that could significantly enhance the terrorist-list country's military
capability or ability to support terrorism.

3. Prohibitions on economic assistance.

4. Imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions, including:

• Requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions;
• Exception from the jurisdictional immunity in U.S. courts of state sponsor countries, and all former state sponsor countries (with the exception of Iraq), with respect to claims for money damages for personal injury or death caused by certain acts of terrorism, torture, or extrajudicial killing, or the provision of material support or resources for such acts;
• Denying companies and individuals tax credits for income earned in terrorist-list countries;
• Denial of duty-free treatment of goods exported to the United States;
• Authority to prohibit any U.S. citizen from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorist-list government without a Treasury Department license; and
• Prohibition of Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies in which a state sponsor government owns or controls a significant interest.

CUBA

Although Cuba no longer actively supports armed struggle in Latin America and other parts of the world, the Cuban government continued to provide safe haven to several terrorists. Members of ETA, the FARC, and the ELN remained in Cuba during 2008, some having arrived in Cuba in connection with peace negotiations with the governments of Spain and Colombia. Cuban authorities continued to publicly defend the FARC. However, on July 6, 2008, former Cuban President Fidel Castro called on the FARC to release the hostages they were holding without preconditions. He has also condemned the FARC's mistreatment of captives and of their abduction of civilian politicians who had no role in the armed conflict.

The United States has no evidence of terrorist-related money laundering or terrorist financing activities in Cuba, although Cuba has one of the world’s most secretive and non-transparent national banking systems. Cuba has no financial intelligence unit. Cuba’s Law 93 Against Acts of Terrorism provides the government authority to track, block, or seize terrorist assets.

The Cuban government continued to permit some U.S. fugitives—including members of U.S. militant groups such as the Boricua Popular, or Macheteros, and the Black Liberation Army to live legally in Cuba. In keeping with its public declaration, the government has not provided safe haven to any new U.S. fugitives wanted for terrorism since 2006.

IRAN

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Iran’s involvement in the planning and financial support of terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy.

The Qods Force, an elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is the regime’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad. The Qods Force provided aid in the form of weapons, training, and funding to HAMAS and other Palestinian terrorist groups, Lebanese Hizballah, Iraq-based militants, and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Iran remained a principal supporter of groups that are implacably opposed to the Middle East Peace Process. Iran provided weapons, training, and funding to HAMAS and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Iran’s provision of training, weapons, and money to HAMAS since the 2006 Palestinian elections has bolstered the group’s ability to strike Israel. In 2008, Iran provided more than $200 million in funding to Lebanese Hizballah and trained over 3,000 Hizballah fighters at camps in Iran. Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iran has assisted Hizballah in rearming, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Iran’s IRGC Qods Force provided assistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Qods Force provided training to the Taliban on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives to select Taliban members.

Despite its pledge to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iranian authorities continued to provide lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi militant groups that targeted Coalition and Iraqi forces and killed innocent Iraqi civilians. Iran’s Qods Force continued to provide Iraqi militants with Iranian-produced advanced rockets, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, and mortars that have killed Iraqi and Coalition Forces as well as civilians. Tehran was responsible for some of the lethality of anti-Coalition attacks by providing militants with the capability to assemble improvised explosive devices (IEDs) with explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that were specially designed to defeat armored vehicles. The Qods Force, in concert with Lebanese Hizballah, provided training both inside and outside of Iraq for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of sophisticated IED technology and other advanced weaponry.

Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida members it has detained, and has refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody. Iran has repeatedly resisted numerous calls to transfer custody of its al-Qa’ida detainees to their countries of origin or third countries for trial. Iran also continued to fail to control the activities of some al-Qa’ida members who fled to Iran following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Senior IRGC and Qods Force officials were indicted by the Government of Argentina for their alleged roles in the 1994 terrorist bombing of the Argentine Israel Mutual Association which, according to the Argentine State Prosecutor’s report, was initially proposed by the Qods Force.

SUDAN

Sudan remained a cooperative partner in global counterterrorism efforts. During the past year, the Sudanese government continued to pursue terrorist operations directly involving threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan. Sudanese officials have indicated that they view their continued cooperation with the United States as important and recognize the benefits of U.S. training and information-sharing. Though the counterterrorism relationship remained solid, some hard-line Sudanese officials continued to express resentment and distrust over actions by the USG and questioned the benefits of the bilateral cooperation. Their assessment reflected disappointment that Sudan's counterterrorism cooperation has not resulted in its removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Nonetheless, there was no indication at year’s end that the Sudanese government will curtail its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

Al-Qa’ida (AQ)-inspired terrorist elements, and elements of both Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and HAMAS remained in Sudan. In light of the continuing hybrid UN-AU deployment to Darfur, various terrorist threats against this mission have emerged, and AQ leadership has called for “jihad” against UN forces in Darfur. In the early hours of January 1, 2008, attackers in Khartoum sympathetic to AQ shot and fatally wounded two U.S. Embassy staff members – an American and a Sudanese employee – both of whom worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Sudanese authorities cooperated closely with the USG in investigating this terrorist crime. On February 1, five alleged conspirators were arrested and put on trial for murder on August 31. Their trial was ongoing at year’s end. Other extremist groups also have threatened attacks against Western interests in Sudan. The July 14 request by International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges related to atrocities committed in Darfur has further inflamed tensions. Therefore, the terrorist threat level remained critical in Khartoum and Darfur, and potentially other parts of Sudan.

Elements of designated terrorist groups remained in Sudan. With the exception of HAMAS, whose members the Sudanese government consider to be “freedom fighters” rather than terrorists, the government does not appear to openly support the presence of extremist elements. We note, however, that there have been open source reports that arms were purchased in Sudan's black market and allegedly smuggled northward to HAMAS.

The Sudanese government has prevented foreign fighters from using Sudan as a logistics base and transit point for extremists going to Iraq. However, gaps remained in the Sudanese government's knowledge of and ability to identify and capture these individuals. There was evidence to suggest that individuals who were active participants in the Iraqi insurgency have returned to Sudan and were in a position to use their expertise to conduct attacks within Sudan or to pass on their knowledge. There was also evidence that Sudanese extremists continued to participate in terrorist activities in Somalia, which the Sudanese government has also attempted to disrupt.

SYRIA

Syria was first designated in 1979 as a state sponsor of terrorism. Syria provided political and material support to Hizballah and allowed Iran to use Syrian territory as a transit point for assistance to Hizballah. HAMAS, Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), among others, based their external leadership within Syria's borders. The Syrian government insisted these groups were confined to political and informational activities, but groups with leaders in Syria have claimed responsibility for deadly anti-Israeli terrorist attacks.

Over the course of the year, Syria's public support for the Palestinian groups varied, depending on Syrian national interest and international pressure. President Bashar al-Asad continued to express public support for Palestinian terrorist groups. HAMAS Politburo head and defacto leader Khalid Meshal and his deputies continued to reside in Syria. Syria provided a safe haven for Meshal and security escorts for his motorcades. Meshal's use of the Syrian Ministry of Information as the venue for press conferences this year could be taken as an endorsement of HAMAS's message. Media reports indicated HAMAS used Syrian soil to train its militant fighters. Though the Syrian government claimed periodically that it used its influence to restrain the rhetoric and activities of Palestinian groups, the Syrian government allowed a Palestinian conference organized by HAMAS, PFLP-GC, and PIJ to occur in January, and another HAMAS organized conference, reportedly funded by Iran, to take place in November.

Highlighting Syria's ties to the world's most notorious terrorists, Hizballah Operations Chief Imad Mugniyah, perished in a February 12 car bombing near Syrian Military Intelligence (SMI) headquarters in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafr Sousa. Among other atrocities, Mugniyah was wanted in connection with the 1983 bombings of the Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed over 350. Despite initial attempts to cover up the incident, the Syrian government reluctantly acknowledged some days later that one of the world's most wanted terrorists had been present and died on Syrian soil.

Syrian officials publicly condemned some acts of terrorism, while continuing to defend what they considered to be legitimate armed resistance by Palestinians and Hizballah against Israeli occupation of Arab territory, and by the Iraqi opposition against the "occupation of Iraq." Syria has not been directly implicated in an act of terrorism since 1986, although an ongoing UN investigation into the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri continued to investigate Syrian involvement.

Syria itself was the location of at least one major attack. On September 27, the car-bombing of a Syrian government facility reportedly injured 14 and killed at least 17 individuals, marking the first significant attack against regime institutions in nearly 20 years. Not since the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the early 1980s had Syrian institutions been targeted by terrorists. Regional media reports indicated this bombing was directed at the Palestinian Branch of the Syrian Military Intelligence; the perpetrators remained unknown at year’s end.

Throughout the year, Syria continued to strengthen ties with fellow state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Syria's Minister of Defense visited Tehran in May and initiated a Memorandum of Understanding on defense cooperation. Syria also allowed leaders of HAMAS and other Palestinian groups to visit Tehran. President Asad repaid a 2007 visit to Damascus by Iranian President Ahmadinejad with a visit of his own to Tehran in early August, his third visit since 2005. Asad continued to be a staunch defender of Iran's policies, including Iran's "civil" nuclear ambitions.

Syria increased border monitoring activities, instituted tighter screening practices on military-age Arab males entering its borders, hosted two Border Security Working Group meetings with technical experts from the Iraqi Neighbors group, and expressed a desire to increase security cooperation with Iraq. At the same time, Syria remained a key hub for foreign fighters en route to Iraq.

The USG designated several Iraqis residing in Syria and Iraqi-owned entities, including Mishan Al-Jaburi and his satellite television channel Al-Ra'y, under Executive Order 1348 for providing financial, material, and technical support for acts of violence that threatened the peace and stability of Iraq. The United States also designated known foreign fighter facilitators based in Syria, including members of the Abu Ghadiyah network, that orchestrated the flow of terrorists, weapons, and money from Syria to al-Qa’ida in Iraq, under Executive Order 13224.

Despite acknowledged reductions in foreign fighter flows, the scope and impact of the problem remained significant. Syria continued to allow former Iraqi regime elements to operate in the country. Attacks against Coalition Forces and Iraqi citizens continued to have a destabilizing effect on Iraq's internal security. Though Syrian and Iraqi leaders met throughout the year both publicly and privately to discuss border enhancements and other measures needed to combat foreign fighter flows, there were few tangible results. While Syria has taken some positive steps, the Syrian government could do more to interdict known terrorist networks and foreign fighter facilitators operating within its borders.

Syria remained a source of concern regarding terrorist financing. The Commercial Bank of Syria remained subject to U.S. sanctions. Industry experts reported that 70 percent of all business transactions were conducted in cash and that nearly 90 percent of all Syrians did not use formal banking services. Despite Syrian governmental legislation requiring money-changers to be licensed by the end of 2007, many money-changers continued to operate illegally in Syria's vast black market, estimated to be as large as Syria's formal economy. Regional "hawala" networks remained intertwined with smuggling and trade-based money laundering, facilitated by notoriously corrupt customs and immigration officials, raising significant concerns that Syrian government and business elites are, at the very least, complicit in illicit financing schemes.

Syria's government-controlled press continued to tout Syrian regime efforts to combat terrorism. The Syrian government, using tightly-controlled press outlets, was quick to blame a Lebanon-based, al-Qa’ida-affiliated group, Fatah al-Islam, for the September 27 attack against a prominent military intelligence installation. Syrian TV broadcasted a November 7 program featuring the confessions of some 20 Fatah al-Islam members, including the daughter and son-in-law of Fatah al-Islam leader Shakr al-Absy, of their involvement.

It remained unclear why Fatah al-Islam would have launched an attack against Syrian security elements, but media reports suggested Absy's disappearance inside of Syria as a possible motive. In response to the September 27 bombing, the Syrian security services conducted at least one reported raid on an alleged terrorist cell residing in the Damascus area, killing and arresting several suspected militants and confiscating a cache of weapons and explosives.

Racism- The Arab world's dirty secret

Photo- February 2006: A Sudanese man is beaten by Egyptian
riot police. Egypt is under fire over the deaths of 25 Sudanese
refugees after riot police wielding sticks and water cannon forcibly
removed hundreds of demonstrators camped outside UN
offices in Cairo. (Click picture for story)

Mona Eltahawy writes of the widespread racism in the Arab world:

We are a racist people in Egypt and we are in deep denial about it. On my Facebook page, I blamed racism for my argument and an Egyptian man wrote to deny that we are racists and used as his proof a program on Egyptian Radio featuring Sudanese songs and poetry!

Our silence over racism not only destroys the warmth and hospitality we are proud of as Egyptians, it has deadly consequences.

What else but racism on Dec. 30, 2005, allowed hundreds of riot policemen to storm through a makeshift camp in central Cairo to clear it of 2,500 Sudanese refugees, trampling or beating to death 28 people, among them women and children?

What else but racism lies behind the bloody statistics at the Egyptian border with Israel where, since 2007, Egyptian guards have killed at least 33 migrants, many from Sudan's Darfur region, including a pregnant woman and a 7-year-old girl?

The racism I saw on the Cairo Metro has an echo in the Arab world at large, where the suffering in Darfur goes ignored because its victims are black and because those who are creating the misery in Darfur are not Americans or Israelis and we only pay attention when America and Israel behave badly. (Read it all)

Related:

1. "These are not men- they are animals": Egyptians "lynch" 4 Sudanese trying to cross border to freedom in Israel.

2. Arabs capture black slaves in the Sudan:

After the slave raid, Bok, a Christian, told the audience he was taken to the Muslim North to work for one of the Arab raiders’ families as a child slave for the next decade. During the pitiless trip north, the little Dinka boy witnessed the depth of racism, cruelty and religious hatred of his captors and their world towards black Africans when an Arab slaver cut off the leg of a Dinka girl who would not stop crying because she had seen her parents butchered in the market place. Upon his arrival at his master’s home, Bok was to experience himself this racial viciousness when he was immediately surrounded and beaten by the masters’ children who called him “abeed” (slave), an Arabic word also used for black Africans in general. ((Read article))

3. Black refugees from Arab terror meet persecution in Egypt-- but some manage to escape to freedom in Israel: From Darfur to Israel: Surviving a Genocide; Making a New Life

4. Some related articles on Newsvine by topic: Arabs, Egypt, racism, Sudan, videos,



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(Cross-posted on A Deeper Look)

The "Darfur Crisis": Sudan's Silent Jihad

French President Nikolas Sarkozy made the claim, the other day, that the "Darfur Crisis" is driven by Global Warming:

Sarkozy: Climate change driving Darfur crisis

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday said the war in Darfur had been sparked in part by climate change, and warned global warming could lead to "dozens" more conflicts.

In a speech at a major conference in Paris, Sarkozy said the conflict in Darfur resulted from "an explosive mixture" in which climate change had affected agriculture, forcing a migratory wave that had then helped to unleash war. (AFP)

This makes me so angry I want to take every word he spoke, wad them up into little dense turds, and I want to shove them back down his throat, so he chokes on his own fecal-verbage.

The "Darfur Crisis, is not simply a crisis, a word which whose sense of inevitability lends itself to passivity. What's going on in the Sudan is a genocide. It is the Arab-government of Sudan using it's henchmen, the Janjaweed Militia, to kill everyone who is not a Muslim.

The "Darfur Crisis" is a Jihad against the Infidel.

That's what it is, my friends. To call it anything else is to lie about it, and to lie about an ongoing genocide is to prolong the genocide, so that more people will die.

Here's an important article written by Robert Spencer in 2004 which explains the genocide in the Sudan:


Just in time to mark the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide that it largely ignored, the human rights community is beginning to take notice of the genocide in Sudan. As welcome as this is, and as refreshing as it is that the New York Times and Washington Post have done extensive reporting on Darfur in recent weeks, few have noted that the tragedy of Darfur is actually the second Sudanese genocide of our age. The first killed over two million African Christians and animists in southern Sudan.

They may be forgiven for being slow on the uptake, however; after all, Darfur marks the third genocide in Africa that Kofi Annan is declining to notice: Rwanda, Sudan I and now Sudan II. Over 100,000 people have been killed in Darfur. By autumn the number of those who have been displaced or impoverished, or whose lives have been destroyed by the war in other ways, will most likely exceed three million. Yet Annan declared that he cannot consider it “genocide or ethnic cleansing yet.”

There is another word that Annan has never uttered in connection with Sudan. For a decade Khartoum has waged what the regime itself calls a jihad against Christians and tribalists in the South.

A 1992 fatwa issued by a group of pro-Khartoum Sudanese imams declared: “An insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate and a non-Muslim is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them.”

This allowed for the murder of Christians and animists in the south; now it has been turned against the Muslims of Darfur, whose Islam doesn’t measure up to Khartoum’s hardline standards.

Yet Annan has never acknowledged that what is going on in Sudan is a jihad. And this is just one manifestation of the by-now inescapable fact that the United Nations is damaged beyond repair. The Islamic states maintain an unbreakable solidarity. The only exception to their unwillingness to condemn other Muslim states came when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attacked Kuwait. Meanwhile, the Europeans and Chinese have oil interests in Sudan that dovetail nicely at the UN with the Islamic bloc’s determination to repel any criticism. France, the most energetic opponent of UN sanctions against the Khartoum regime, is heavily invested in Sudan through its oil giant ElfTotal.

The emperor has no clothes, but Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and Oxfam are still paying enthusiastic obeisance. A perusal of each of their websites demonstrates that they criticize the UN only with extreme reluctance and in the most muted tones. In a startling recrudescence of the old “white man’s burden” mentality, they tend to focus more anger at the United States and Western Europe for failing to stop killings than at the murderers themselves.

And above all, they won’t describe the conflict as what it really is: a jihad, another example of the crying need for large-scale reform within Islam.

Yet until they do so, they give jihadists carte blanche to continue their work. Instead of providing a platform for those who will work for Islamic reform, the human rights organizations, out of political correctness and a reflexive inability to see any non-white, non-Western entity as anything but a victim, are treating the symptoms but not the cause.

Search for “jihad” at the Amnesty International website, and you will find articles alleging that Israel has mistreated a man named Jihad Shaker Abu Ayesh, as well as members of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad.

You won’t find the word mentioned in connection with Sudan.

Human Rights Watch analyzes the Sudanese crisis exclusively in economic and ethnic terms, with no notice of how the murderers themselves have explained what they are doing.

So the very people who are supposed to tell us the truth — that the UN is broken, and no longer truly stands for human rights — can’t or won’t do so. Why? Are they so trapped in their old illusions about how the world works, and how to make peace, that they are in denial about the harsh realities of the post-9/11 landscape? It seems so.

The victims are the blacks of Darfur and southern Sudan, who continue to be murdered and enslaved by Islamic Arab fundamentalists.

The jihadists operate with impunity before a world that doesn’t dare give a name to the crime they are committing. How many more deaths will be needed before Annan and the human rights establishment admit the truth?

The Chadian Talibans

There has been nearly no news about something which is terrible for Africa and specially for Darfur: the conquest by Saudi and Sudan-backed Jihadis of nearly all Chad in less than a week. Some days ago I wrote about the possibility of Chad being converted into an Islamic state. I was not wrong though it seems that reality could even worse than I thought at first.

Throughout nearly 25 years a terrible genocide has happened in Sudan. Both Christians and Animists were killed by Janjaweed, the demons from the North, who caused death and displacement all over the place, without any Western country turning their eyes on it. Then Janjaweed began killing Black Muslims and world attention happened to turn to the place. There were rumours that something was going to be done.

Finally both US President Bush, who called it a genocide, and UN agreed something should be done. They wanted to launch a humanitarian operation to save Darfur (or at least to save what was left of Darfur). But China also had very important interests in Darfur, being oil and other natural richesses the first Chinese interest, helping to kill Darfurians over the oil revenues. So they blocked nearly all possibility of an operation as Sudanese government had given them several concessions over oil in Darfur precisely.

Anyway, any operation in Darfur must be carried from Chad, whose Government backed the Western humanitarian intervention, as the Sudanese Government was financing the Chadian "rebels" and the flood of refugees from Sudan didn't have an end in a near future.

But we must take a look at this "rebels" and the main factions in it. There are mainly four "group of rebels" each with interesting past and leadership:

1. The major rebel faction is Gen. Mahamat Nouri’s Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD). General Nouri, who is well past 50, served as minister of defence under President DEby four years ago before being appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He resigned dramatically while in Saudi Arabia to become a rebel in eastern Chad, accusing the president of plunging the country into an abyssal depression. Sources say UFDD boasts between 3,000 and 6,000 fighters.
2. Observers regard the Rally of the Forces of Change (RFC) as the second largest rebel movement hostile to the regime in N’djamena. The rebel faction is typical in that it is composed of former Presidential Guard officers that attempted to overthrow President Déby on 16 May 2005. The head is the president nephew, Timane Erdimi, nicknamed Rasputin, who after trying to kill the president in Ma 2005, was placed under closed surveillance, but he managed to join his men, after a visit to the Gulf countries. His men were in Eastern Chad, in the frontier with Sudan. (Eastern Chad had been a troubled area for months, without any important press coverage considering the importance of the place).
   
3. The Chadian National Convention (CNT), which is led by Colonel Saleh Al Hassane Gadam Al Jinedi, a former trainee of the Tripoli military academy in Libya, is the third largest rebel movement active in eastern Chad. An internecine crisis has been rocking the rebel movement for a few days after the hardliners led by Colonel Hamid Abdelkader toppled Colonel Al Jinedi and his deputy Sheikh Al Fal. Jinedi was blamed for weakness toward President Déby Itno. A board headed by Colonel Hamid Abdelkader, a hardliner, now rules CNT, which is also credited to have a thousand men.
4. The fourth largest movement, UFDD-Fundamental, a splinter group from General Nouri\’s original UFDD, came into the limelight last Wednesday when it captured the south-eastern town of Addé. UFDD-Fundamental is led by Abdelwahid Aboud Mackaye and is also believed to boast at least 500 fighters.

As you can see, everyone of these leaders have real relationships with the Wahhabi-Jihadi world.

But there is more: Walid Phares has written a very interesting essay today about what happened in Chad these last days. I'm going to post the most important part of it as it is somewhat long, but I recomment you to read it all if you have time for it.

The bottom line is that in one day, what could become the future Taliban of Chad have scored a strategic victory not only against the Government of the country (which was supposed to back up the UN plans to save Darfur in Sudan) but also against the efforts by the African Union and European Union to contain the Sudanese regime and stop the Genocide. Today's offensive, regardless of the next developments, has already changed the geopolitics of Africa. Outmaneuvering the West and Africans, those regimes and forces standing behind the "opposition" have shown that they are restless in their campaign against human rights and self determination on the continent. But even more importantly the events of today shows how unprepared are Europeans and Americans in front of Jihadi regimes which seem weak on the surface but highly able to surprise and crumble Western efforts of containment.

[...]At first sight a non seasoned observer would conclude that this is yet another African troubled country with a bunch of "separatists," "rebels" and "insurgents." In fact it is not that simple. These forces have been backed by the Jihadi regime in Khartoum and some of its funding -according to the Chadian Government- has been sent from Saudi Arabia.

[...] Using the classical doctrine of Khid'aa (or deception) the Khartoum regime bought as much time as it needed to allow the arming and training of the "rebels" inside Chad. The equipment used by the militias has been obtained in few months and "offices" were opened in several countries in the region. Oil dividends quickly poured on the future Taliban of Chad and their political and media training went very fast. All what the Sudanese regime had to do to abort the forthcoming Darfur UN operations was to collapse the basis from where these operations will be launched: Chad. The question is not about how did the Jihadists figure this out, it is rather how the strategists in Washington and Paris failed to predict it. Although it was very simple: Movements on the ground inside Chad and intense media activity in support on al Jazeera for months projected what was to come. How did the Atlantic allies fail to see the threat gathering is stunning?

[...] s the "opposition" forces have reached N'Djamena the official minister of what could become the future Taliban regime in Chad, Jibrin Issa was comfortably seated in al Jazeera's studios in Qatar. Obviously he wasn't flown from Africa to the Gulf on the request of the booking Department of the Qatari funded network to "react" to the offensive. He was already at the station -or at least in Qatar-when the offensive began. Very interestingly, the man was wearing a classical Western business outfit and clean shaved. The PR strategy was to show the world, including France and the US, that the forces thrusting into their ally wasn't a sister of the Islamic Courts of Somalia or a Taliban "looking" militia. The game was to project this coup as "domestic" against "corruption" and the rest of the litany, thus boring for average Western public.

[...] Out of the blue he started to thank the "brave commander of the Islamic Republic of Sudan" General Omar al Bashir (the head of the regime responsible for the Genocide in Darfur) for his help to the "movement" and started to praise his "highness the servant of the two shrines," (that is the Saudi Monarch) for his support (obviously to the movement). Suddenly, and despite the frustration of the al jazeera anchor that the game may have been exposed, I connected the dots. It was indeed a Sudanese-backed operation to change the regime in Chad, and backed by Wahabi circles, as a preemptive move to crumble the forthcoming humanitarian operation in Darfur. The Jihadists, kings of strategies, won another day. To preempt a UN move against one of their regimes (Sudan) they took out the Government which had agreed to help the UN and the West. In my sense this was highly predictable. But the failure of the West to predict is highly questionable.

But there is something in here which is missing: China sent some months ago, several UN peacekeepers, amid a huge protest from Darfurians who consider China responsible in part for the genocide. Some days ago, that same UN Peacekeepers have received the UN medal for humanitarian interventions. Very on time, isn't it?

So now, Sudan is accusing UN of a bloodshed in Chad. International press is fearing for the poor oponents to Chadian president and, for example, the NYT writes:

The crisis in Chad, which reached a climax last week as rebels nearly toppled the president, has largely been seen through the lens of its effect on the catastrophe in the Darfur region of neighboring Sudan.

As we have seen it is not largely been seen, it's really the MAIN and ONLY importance for this rebellion.

Oh, and refugees from Sudan continue entering Chad: this weekend 12,000. How many Jihadis disguised as peaceful refugees?

The Murder Of John Granville

You can be forgiven if you don't immediately recognize the name in the title of this posting. The story hasn't received a whole lot of attention. In fact, if the story appeared on the newspaper's front page or as a lead story of a television newscast (as the story should have), in the middle of the media's feeding frenzy over the Iowa caususes, I certainly didn't see it.

Anyway, John Granville was the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan. According to this article, an Al Qaeda-linked group is boasting of their hand in his death:

Saturday, January 5th 2008, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - U.S. counterterror officials were caught by surprise Friday when an Al Qaeda-linked group in Sudan claimed its goons assassinated U.S. diplomat John Granville this week to "defend their religion."

Despite sending six FBI counterterror agents to Khartoum, Sudan, to probe the murder, the claim of responsibility on a credible jihadist forum was unexpected by many senior U.S. officials.

Most assumed the U.S. Agency for International Development officer died in a burst of random street crime, sources said. "This is now getting a lot of attention" inside the intelligence community, a U.S. official told the Daily News.

Jihadists calling themselves "Ansar al-Tawhid" boasted on a password-protected Internet site, Al-Ekhlaas, that the "global infidels" were slain so they couldn't "raise the cross over the land of Sudan," according to the private SITE Intelligence Group.

Granville, 33, of Buffalo, and his driver were killed in Khartoum on New Year's Day while driving home from a party. The little-known group said it "carried out an operation of killing the American diplomat and his Sudanese driver who sold his religion for few benefits of life."

Osama Bin Laden has urged jihadists to fight the U.S. and UN in Sudan's Darfur region. This week's slaying mirrors the 2002 murder of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan, whose killers included the late Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi....

Empty bragging on the part of "Ansar al-Tawhid"? Or have AQ-like groups sprung up all over Northern Africa? The latter is happening, according to Dr. Walid Phares, whom I heard warn of just such a new terrorist push at America's Truth Forum's First Symposium On Terror in April 2006.

2008 surely is off to a rocky start. Too much is happening in favor of the worldwide jihad.

Gibbons condemned over teddy bear named Muhammad

To 15 days in prison and then to be deported. She says she will appeal the sentence. In the link there is a recolection of today's deeds.

We will see what happens next.