US mosque plan draws protest on ‘threat of Islam’

WEST BLOOMFIELD: A Christian legal group that recently defended a US pastor who publicly burned a copy of the Quran is now attacking a plan to turn a vacant US school into a mosque, saying it wants to confront the ”threat of Islam” and stop a ”stealth jihad” to turn the country into an Islamic nation.

The Islamic Cultural Association in suburban Detroit bought the former school last year for $1.1 million. But the Thomas More Law Center is supporting a resident-led lawsuit to have the purchase overturned and has asked for a grand jury to investigate alleged corruption in the deal. A judge dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to file a complaint, but residents are appealing.
The effort is ”targeting innocent Americans because of their faith and willingness to engage in the community and to contribute,” said the Islamic association’s attorney, Shareef Akeel.
The dispute is playing out in one of the largest Muslim communities in the US
The law center has also represented Terry Jones, the minister who in 2011 burned a copy of the Quran at his Florida church, an act that led to violent protests in Afghanistan that killed more than a dozen people.
Richard Thompson, the law center’s president and chief counsel, did not return messages left by The Associated Press.
The law center and residents accuse the school district of negotiating with the association behind closed doors and accepting illegal campaign contributions made by an association official.
The law center also accuses Islamic organizations in the United States of taking advantage of the legal system to wage a ”stealth jihad” that aims to transform the US into an Islamic nation.
It alleges that the Islamic association has ties to terrorism because of its links to other Muslim groups.
The confrontation and similar clashes have made Detroit ”an active front in a kind of culture war,” said Andrew Shryock, a University of Michigan anthropologist and expert on the city’s Islamic presence.
The Islamic association, comprised of more than 100 families, including many doctors, lawyers and other professionals, is “threatening to people who see Muslims as alien,” Shryock said.
Muslim critics regard the social and economic advancement of Muslims in the Detroit area as “somehow anti-American,” he said.
The Detroit area is home to 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims, many of whom emigrated from the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere. The population has sometimes drawn anti-Muslim protesters.
Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette has yet to decide on the request for a grand jury investigation, but the law center says it’s confident because he made corruption a priority of his administration.
Jim Manna, who sits on the West Bloomfield Planning Commission, will consider the mosque proposal in October.
The Catholic from Iraq, who is part of Detroit’s large Chaldean community, said he will base his decision solely on whether features of the project, such as a 45-foot minaret, conform to the township’s rules and regulations.
But that hasn’t stopped him from asking questions about whether the Islamic association has received money from outside groups, whether it would accept money from an Islamic government or what kind of message the imam will preach.
“We have every right to be cautious,” he said.
 (Dawn)

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Iran could strike US bases if Israel attacks: Hezbollah

BEIRUT: Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities even if American forces played no role in the attack, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah has said.
"A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television.
"The response will not be just inside the Israeli entity - American bases in the whole region could be Iranian targets," he said, citing information he said was from Iranian officials. "If Israel targets Iran, America bears responsibility."
Heightened Israeli rhetoric about Tehran's nuclear facilities, which the West says could be part of a weapons programme, has stoked speculation that it may attack Iran before U.S. elections in November.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world powers on Sunday to set a "clear red line" to convince Iran they would prevent it from obtaining nuclear arms.
Israel, thought to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, views Iran's nuclear programme as a threat to its regional dominance and to its very existence. Tehran says the atomic work is for peaceful purposes only.
But Netanyahu's cabinet is divided over the wisdom of attacking Iran, and Israeli officials have dropped heavy hints of a climbdown strategy, under which Netanyahu would shelve threats of an attack now in return for a stronger public pledge from President Barack Obama on conditions that would provoke U.S. action in future.
Nasrallah said there were divisions in Israel over attacking Iran. "Personally I do not expect the Israeli enemy - at least in the coming months or foreseeable future - (to wage) an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
Nasrallah pointed to the fragile global economy, which would be weakened further by any sharp rise in crude oil prices stemming from conflict in the Gulf, and to likely Israeli casualties in any war with Iran.
"Netanyahu and (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak inflate the benefit and play down the cost," he said, referring to Barak's estimates that Israel could suffer up to 500 fatalities in any conflict aimed at wiping out Iran's nuclear facilities.
Hezbollah guerrillas fought a 34-day war with Israel six years ago in which 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 people in Israel, mostly soldiers, were killed.
War with Iran would be more deadly, Nasrallah said. "We don't know what will happen in the region."
NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS
He repeated a warning he made last month that Hezbollah could cause widespread destruction if it came into conflict with Israel again, but denied that the Shi'ite Islamist guerrilla and political movement would ever use chemical weapons.
"We do not have chemical weapons and we will not use chemical weapons," Nasrallah said. "The use of chemical weapons is forbidden - for us that is absolute.
Unrest in neighbouring Syria, which acknowledged for the first time in July that it possessed chemical or biological weapons, has led to Western fears that those weapons might fall into the hands of Islamist groups including Hezbollah.
"I do not need chemical weapons - regardless of the religious or practical position," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel. "You have factories, and you have bases, and compounds, and I have rockets."
Israel had several "weak points" which could be targeted, including "economic, industrial, electrical, chemical and nuclear" sites, the Hezbollah leader said.
Even if Israel launched a first strike attack on Lebanon, destroying a large part of Hezbollah's missile arsenal, the militant group would retain the capacity to hit back with deadly force, he added.
Two weeks ago Nasrallah said Hezbollah could kill tens of thousands of Israelis by hitting targets with what he described as precision-guided missiles.
"Hitting these targets with a small number of rockets will turn ... the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists to real hell," he said at the time. – AGENCIES

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US troops punished over Quran burning

WASHINGTON: The US military said on Monday it was disciplining US troops over two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year, one involving burned copies of the Quran and another over a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses.
The administrative punishments -- which could include things like reduce rank or forfeiture of pay -- fell short of criminal prosecution, and it was unclear whether they would satisfy Afghan demands for justice.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this year branded the Marine's actions in the video as "inhuman," and he initially called for a public trial for the soldiers over the Quran incident.
A detailed US military investigation showed that up to 100 copies of Quran and other religious texts from a detention center library -- a previously undisclosed figure -- were burned on Feb. 20. The investigation found that warnings from Afghans, including a Afghan soldier, had been ignored and attributed the incident in part to distrust between Americans and Afghans.
"However, I absolutely reject any suggestion that those involved acted with any malicious intent to disrespect the Quran or defame the faith of Islam," the investigating officer, Brigadier General Bryan Watson, wrote.
The question of distrust between American troops and Afghans has come into sharp focus in recent weeks due to a surge of "insider attacks," in which Afghans believed to be friendly turn their guns against US forces. (AFP)

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US arms sales to record $66.3bn in 2011

 WASHINGTON: Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, pumped up by $33.4 billion in sales to Saudi Arabia, but the international arms market is not likely to continue growing, according to a comprehensive new congressional report. 

The United States sold $66.3 billion of weapons overseas in 2011, accounting for nearly 78 percent of all global arms sales, which rose to $85.3 billion in 2011, the highest level seen since 2004. The previous US record was set in 2008, when arms sales reached $38.2 billion, measured in 2011 dollars.
"The extraordinary total value of US weapons orders in 2011 distorts the current picture of the global arms trade market," said the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, calling $66.3 billion in US arms sales "a clear outlier figure."
While Washington remained the world's leading arms supplier, nearly all other major suppliers, except France, saw declines in 2011, according to the annual report prepared for Congress.
France signed arms sales valued at $4.4 billion in 2011, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier, but Russia, the world number two arms dealer saw its sales nearly halved to $4.8 billion in 2011. The four major European suppliers -- France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy -- saw their collective market share drop to 7.2 percent in 2011 from 12.2 percent a year earlier.
Saudi Arabia was the biggest arms buyer among developing countries, concluding $33.7 billion in weapons deals in 2011, followed by India with purchases of $6.9 billion and the United Arab Emirates with $4.5 billion.
Total annual global arms sales ranged between $42 billion and $67 billion in the period from 2004 to 2011, reaching a cumulative total of $467.9 billion in that 8-year period.
A weaker global economy, the European financial crisis and the slow international recovery from the recession of 2008 have dampened demand for new weapons, with many countries putting off or scaling back their purchases, the report found.
Washington, for instance, generates a steady stream of orders for upgrades, spare parts, ammunition and support services from year to year, even when it does not conclude big deals for new weapons systems, the report said.
Concerns about Iran continued to fuel arms sales to the Middle East and especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but India, Taiwan and other Asian countries were important arms buyers as well, said the report, written by Richard Grimmett and Paul Kerr.
Key US weapons sales in 2011 included: - $33.4 billion to Saudi Arabia for 84 Boeing Co F-15 fighters, dozens of helicopters built by Boeing and Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp, $3.49 billion for Lockheed Martin Corp's Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, an advanced missile shield, to the United Arab Emirates, and $940 million for 16 Chinook helicopters built by Boeing, $1.4 billion for 18 F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin, a $4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 C-17 transport planes built by Boeing, and a $2 billion order by Taiwan for Patriot antimissile batteries. - DAWN

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