On this day, August 20th, in 1534, Fleet Admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the city of Tunis for the Islamic Ottoman Caliphate from the Islamic Hafsid Dynasty.  While we are told that Muslims would never attack and kill fellow Muslims, and while the Qur’an is quite clear on the subject, in fact Muslims wage war against Muslims almost constantly, and Muslims are among the biggest victims of Islamic jihad.

The Hafsid Sultan was quickly re-instated in Tunis by the warships of the King of Spain, Charles V.  Rather than fight professional soldiers, Barbarossa decided to instead flee, and continued to bombard, sack, and destroy cities all along the Mediterranean Sea, including the Italian cities of Sicily and Sardinia, the island of Capri off Italy’s coast, Hippo in Algeria, Mahdia in Tunisia, and the Spanish cities of Majorca and Minorca.  And Nice, Cannes, San Remo, Monaco.  And Naples, Genoa, Elba, Tuscany, Sardinia, Salerno, and Reggio Calbria.  Besides bombing civilians and burning cities, he also found time to take tens of thousands of Greeks as slaves to Turkey.  He also converted the Cathedral of St. Mary in Toulon into a mosque.

After a successful career of blowin’ stuff up and running a lucrative extortion and protection racket, he retired in 1545 and died in 1546.  At the conclusion of the second World War, as a reminder of the former glory of the Ottoman Caliphate, Turkey build a memorial to Barbarossa in 1944.

Previous Days in the "Religion of Peace™":

Aug 19: Stoning Sentence in Nigeria
Aug 18: Iranian Jihad Against Kurds
Aug 17: Mass Murder in Lahore
Aug 16: Taliban Bans Bakeries
Aug 9: Pseudo Coup in Mauritania

Thousands of pounds of charity donations were used by the London bombers to fund propaganda activities, it has been reported.
BBC Children In Need confirmed that it gave £20,000 to the Leeds Community School in Beeston, West Yorkshire, between 1998 and 1999 "in good faith" to fund educational work for local children.
The school shared premises and funding with the Iqra bookshop, where the 7/7 bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer worked.
It was reported the money was used by Siddique Khan and Tanweer to produce hundreds of propaganda videos glorifying armed Islamic resistance and to pay for outward bound trips.
A former employee of the school and bookshop, Martin Gilbertson, said some of the funding was used by Khan and Tanweer.
He said he had become increasingly alarmed by their extremism: "They blamed everything on the Jewish conspiracy, they hated western culture; it was like living with jihad on a daily basis."
Children In Need chief executive David Ramsden said he was "incredibly concerned" about the donation.
A spokesman for the Charity Commission said Leeds Community School was no longer a registered charity. He added the commission would look at the evidence put forward and assess whether there was any need for further action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBuHPebSdeY

BBC:

Eleven people have been killed and 31 injured by twin car bombs near a hotel and a barracks in Bouira, south east of the Algerian capital, state media say.

Background from CFR (thanks to Alan):

What is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb?

What's the connection between AQIM and al-Qaeda?

What are AQIM's goals?

From Aftenposten: 

Nalan Koc, a senior researcher who leads an Arctic climate program at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, told Aftenposten that the melting tempo has suddenly increased.

There are four weeks left before the annual ice melting season officially ends in the Arctic. Last year, the melting tempo abruptly rose in August and September, and now the same thing appears to be happening.

Koc, who's also a professor at the University of Tromsø, said neither she nor her colleagues could explain why the ice is melting more quickly. She said the developments, however, were "dramatic" and "can have major consequences."

Data from American satellites indicate that ice conditions in the Arctic are changing quickly, Koc said. Figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the US have shown that the Northwest Passage is now open.

Last fall, around a million square kilometers of ice disappeared in a few weeks. Koc said there's a real danger that with so much ice already melted away, it won't be possible to return to conditions earlier viewed as "normal."

As the ice melts, warmer sunlight warms up the seas. At the same time, warmer waters from the Gulf Stream are being pressed northwards.

The temperature of the Gulf Stream along the Norwegian coast has risen two degrees Celsius in the past 20 years, while the average air temperature around Svalbard has risen four to five degrees.

"We’ve already seen that fjords around Svalbard that normally have been covered with ice in the winter have been ice-free the past few years," Koc said. "The glaciers are shrinking in volume."

It remains unclear, however, why the melting rate has risen so dramatically this month and in August of last year. "We have to learn from the past to understand the future," Koc said. "Now we're facing new challenges."

New Duranty: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Political order in Pakistan frayed further on Tuesday, the day after President Pervez Musharraf resigned, raising questions about who in the deeply divided civilian government would be in charge and for how long.

The instant deterioration in relations within the government became evident when Nawaz Sharif, the leader of one of the two major parties in the governing coalition, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, walked out of a meeting here over the restoration of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who had been dismissed by Mr. Musharraf. He then headed back to his home in Lahore, a four-hour drive away.

Party members said Mr. Sharif had delivered an ultimatum to the senior coalition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, led by Asif Ali Zardari, to consent to the return of the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, within 72 hours, or Mr. Sharif’s party would leave the government. Mr. Chaudhry was among about 60 Supreme Court and other high court judges suspended by Mr. Musharraf last year.

Even by the standards of Pakistan’s hard-boiled and volatile politics, the public discord between the political leaders was surprising, politicians said, a sign that opposition to Mr. Musharraf may have been the strongest thread tying them together.

The departure of Mr. Sharif’s party would greatly weaken the government — at a difficult time in this volatile nuclear power — but would not necessarily mean there would be new elections. Still, the situation did not bode well for future stability, with Pakistan facing a sharply declining economy and an emboldened Taliban insurgency that is fast moving past its sanctuaries in the tribal region and reaching into other parts of the country...

As we saw yesterday, the U.S. gave money to Pakistan to secure its nuclear arsenal, but we don't know what they did about it, if anything. If Pakistan falls into the hands of a radical Islamic government, naturally by the will of the people, what will "securing their arsenals" mean anyway?

If I see one more doctoral thesis on “Riddles in the Codex Cumanicus and The Exeter Book: A Diachronic Comparison,” honestly, I think I’m going to scream. 

I am inclined to agree with Walid Phares that now is exactly the wrong time for intra-Western hostilities to be exacerbated because it can only profit the forces of Islam by weakening the West. The West should be encouraging intra-Islamic warfare and creating alliances with our Cold War enemies to counter the advance of Islam instead.

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia says its response to the further development of a U.S. missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.

Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the U.S. missile shield plans are clearly aimed at weakening Russia.

The U.S. says the missile defense system is aimed at protecting the U.S. and Europe from future attacks from states like Iran.

The United States and Poland signed a deal Wednesday to place a U.S. missile defense base just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost fringe.

(...)

Many Poles consider the agreement a form of protection at a time when Russia's invasion of Georgia has generated alarm throughout Eastern Europe. Poland is a member of the European Union and NATO, and the deal is expected to deepen its military partnership with Washington.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski also expressed "great satisfaction" at the outcome of the long months of negotiations.

Poland and the United States spent a year and a half negotiating, and talks recently had snagged on Poland's demands that the U.S. bolster Polish security with Patriot missiles in exchange for hosting the missile defense base.

Washington agreed to do so last week, as Poland invoked the Georgia conflict to strengthen its case.

The Patriots are meant to protect Poland from short-range missiles from neighbors—such as Russia...

Excerpt from a modern translation of "The Wanderer", an Anglo-Saxon poem from The Exeter Book (h/t Hugh):

Often I had alone
to speak of my trouble
each morning before dawn.
There is none now living
to whom I dare
clearly speak
of my innermost thoughts.
I know it truly,
that it is in men
a noble custom,
that one should keep secure
his spirit-chest (mind),
guard his treasure-chamber (thoughts),
think as he wishes.
The weary spirit cannot
withstand fate (the turn of events),
nor does a rough or sorrowful mind
do any good (perform anything helpful).
Thus those eager for glory
often keep secure
dreary thoughts
in their breast;
So I,
often wretched and sorrowful,
bereft of my homeland,
far from noble kinsmen,
have had to bind in fetters
my inmost thoughts,
Since long years ago
I hid my lord
in the darkness of the earth,
and I, wretched, from there
travelled most sorrowfully
over the frozen waves,
sought, sad at the lack of a hall,
a giver of treasure,
where I, far or near,
might find
one in the meadhall who
knew my people,
or wished to console
the friendless one, me,
entertain (me) with delights.
He who has tried it knows
how cruel is
sorrow as a companion
to the one who has few
beloved friends:
the path of exile (wræclast) holds him,
not at all twisted gold,
a frozen spirit,
not the bounty of the earth.
He remembers hall-warriors
and the giving of treasure
How in youth his lord (gold-friend)
accustomed him
to the feasting.
All the joy has died!
 

I don't know where the "fundamentalist loner" terrorist stereotype comes from except from people who haven't been paying attention.  The only common denominator is they are all Muslims and they are not shunned by their Muslim communities - quite the contrary. From The Telegraph which carefully avoids the M-word.

British terrorists are just as likely to be married with children and have little religious background as they are to be fundamentalist loners, a leaked MI5 study has concluded.

Research from the security service found it was impossible to draw up a typical profile of a "British Terrorist" contradicting the perception that all are traditional religious fanatics or Islamic fundamentalists.

The classified report on radicalisation concluded there was no single pathway to violent extremism and no easy way to identify those who would become involved in terrorism in Britain.

Researchers concluded terrorists "are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism".

The Home Office has refused to comment about the document.

The analysis was based on hundreds of case studies and found that unlike the common stereotype, most terrorists are unremarkable and live normal lives within their communities.

(...)

While most are male, women are often aware of their husband's and sons activities but do nothing to stop them.

Nor did anybody else in the community try to stop them funding, supporting, planning or carrying out violent jihad, also known as qital, also known as terror attacks. Other kinds of jihad are not even on the radar as yet.

He couldn't compromise his religion, you see. At this joint Muslim/Christian burial for a one year old boy, where he was officiating, the parents had put toys in the coffin. The outrage! Allah will punish them!

Imagine.