From The Times
Afghanistan is replacing Iraq as the destination of choice for international jihadists, Western intelligence agencies claim. Analysts have monitored a surge in online recruitment of “lions of Islam” to join the war in Afghanistan through jihadist websites, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chechnya and Turkey, in the past year.  
That is now being matched by evidence of an increase in foreign fighters entering Afghanistan, mostly from training bases established in the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
One Kabul-based Western diplomat, who did not want to be named, said: “There is a change with an increase in attacks in the east [along the Pakistan border] and more chatter of foreign voices is being detected.”
. . . Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters: “There are clearly more foreign fighters in the Fata than have been there in the past. What that really speaks to is that's a safe haven and it's got to be eliminated for all insurgents, not just al-Qaeda.”
Brian Glyn Williams, who researches jihadist websites for the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US military academy at West Point, told The Times that jihadist websites across the Middle East had shown a huge increase in the number of epitaphs for foreign fighters killed in Afghanistan in recent months. They have also reflected the despair of many al-Qaeda followers at the reverses the group has suffered in Iraq since the Sunni Awakening, an alliance of US forces with previously anti-government Sunni militias that turned against al-Qaeda, particularly in the province of Anbar.
Dr Williams said: “The Anbar Awakening really broke the hearts of a lot of al-Qaeda followers who saw the jihad in Iraq in black-and-white terms. Sunni Arab al-Qaeda were pushed out by fellow Sunni Arabs. Iraq is seen as a defeat. The image of Afghanistan is seen as a more pristine jihad.”
Hekmatullah Sial, a political analyst based in eastern Afghanistan, told The Times: “The local people in the eastern part of Nuristan say that more than 400 fighters, both local and foreign, are moving freely in the area. There are reports that Chechens, Arabs and Pakistanis are among them.
“It is reported that Lashkar-e-Toiba plays the leading role there,” he added, in reference to a Pakistani militant group originally backed by the country's military for operations in Kashmir. More recently Lashkar fighters have been linked to al-Qaeda.
Some of the Arabs arriving in Afghanistan are, in the words of one Western diplomat, “Saudi kids on their gap years”. Others, such as Uzbek members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has been fighting for more than a decade alongside al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are hardened fighters. 

From This is London.
Gordon Brown threatened Iran with tougher sanctions against its nuclear programme today as he condemned its threat to wipe Israel of the map as 'totally abhorrent'.
The Prime Minister delivered a blunt message to Iran, declaring that Britain was ready to take the lead in fighting its nuclear ambitions.
Mr Brown, in a landmark speech to the Israeli parliament - the first by a British premier - also offered unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist.
'We say with one voice: it is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world,' Mr Brown told the Knesset. 'Our country will continue to lead, with the United States and our European partners, in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. We stand ready to lead in taking further sanctions and will ask the whole international community to join us.'
He told the Knesset that he shares its fears about the bloodthirsty rhetoric used by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Iran had a 'clear choice to make' between suspending its nuclear programme and agreeing to negotiate or face growing isolation and the 'collective response, not just of one nation, but of all nations round the world', he said. His words are seen as a clear commitment that Britain would use its military strength to protect Israel in the event of an Iranian attack.
The Prime Minister also praised Israel's 'monumental' achievements and said he considered himself a lifelong friend of the country because his father, as a church minister, had visited the new state regularly. He said: 'To those who question Israel's very right to exist, and threaten the lives of its citizens through terror, we say: the people of Israel have a right to live here, to live freely and to live in security. To those who are enemies of progress, we say: we condemn anti-Semitism and persecution in all its forms.  To those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice - it is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world.'
It is not all good news, of course; he has also pledged to throw good money after bad on the plight of the Palestinians.

Jeremy Olshan writes in the New York Post:

Allah board!

An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.

The group says its mission is to explain the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims who believe the religion is bent on acts of violence - but Siraj Wahhaj, the inflammatory imam who appears in a promotional YouTube video for the project, has defended convicted bomb-plotters and called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists."

US Attorney Mary Jo White even named Wahhaj one of 170 unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the thwarted plan to blow up a slew of buildings.

"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam," Wahhaj said in one of his sermons.

The stark, black-and-white ads of the Subway Project promote Islam with the goals of clearing up long-held misconceptions about the faith and reaching out to those interested in becoming Muslim, according to the Islamic Circle of North America, the group behind the campaign.

Timed to run during the month of Ramadan, the ads come in pairs, reading "Q: Prophet Muhammad?" or "Q: Islam?" and the corresponding answer is always "A: You deserve to know."

Those interested in knowing more are directed to call (877) WHY-ISLAM or to visit whyislam.org, which provide literature that teaches and proselytizes about the faith.

The group insists it is not looking to transform subway cars into the "G-had train."

"Anyone who looks at this ad objectively can see that it is not preaching anything," Azeem Khan, the group's assistant secretary general, told The Post. "There is a lot of Islamaphobia out there. We provide people with a chance to speak with an actual Muslim who is informed."

Wahhaj, imam of Al-Taqwa mosque, is a former member of the Nation of Islam and was the first Muslim to give an invocation at the House of Representatives.

Formal charges were never filed against him by White, although he did serve as a character witness for the defense in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, "the blind sheik" who is now serving a life sentence for his role in plotting the 1993 WTC bombings.

In the promotional video for the Subway Project, Wahhaj is the first to speak.

"Every day in this city, some 4.9 million people ride the subways - that is a lot of people," he says. "Imagine them seeing the word Islam. Imagine them seeing the word Muhammad." ...

From The Buckinghamshire Free Press.
TWO more defendants in the transatlantic flight terror trial have pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause a nuisance by making martyrdom videos.
Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, of Walthamstow, east London and Waheed Zaman, 23, also of Walthamstow, entered the guilty pleas this morning at Woolwich Crown Court.
They are among eight men, including two from High Wycombe, accused of plotting to blow of transatlantic flights in mid-air using liquid explosives, smuggled on board in drinks bottles.
A jury must still decide if the eight defendants in the trial are guilty of conspiring to murder.

Support by Britain for Israel is only "unequivocal" if it includes an understanding of the necessity for Israel to destroy or severely damage Iran's nuclear project -- if, that is, the American government, stuck to Tarbaby Iraq and the little tarbaby  (but getting bigger by the minute, my how those little ones do grow up so fast!) of Afghanistan, refuses to assume its own solemn responsibilities, and Israel, not for the first time, does the West's most difficult jobs for it. And for doing that job, Israel should steel itself, and expect not thanks or at least not immediate thanks, but only indignation, condemnation, outrage, fury.

And one would feel better if Gordon Brown, if his predecessor, if his successor -- watch out for William Hague, the shadow minister for foreign affairs deeply unsympathetic to Israel --  would all stop talking about and offering aid to the Gazan Arabs and the "West Bank" Arabs who are the shock troops of the Arab and Muslim Jihad against Israel, and cut out all the crap about the "Palestinian people." Just stop using the phrase. After a while, many others will get the idea, take the hint stop using the phrase, and reverse the propaganda victories of the Arabs, and see the Jihad against Israel as a Jihad, and not be fooled by the "national liberation struggle" of the "tiny people" -- those "Palestinians" -- about whom we have heard so very much, and so incessantly, with such diabolical deliberateness, for so very long. Time to call a halt to the whole "Palestinian people" business.

Now, repeat after me: there are Kurds and Arabs in Iraq. There are Arabs and Berbers in Algeria and Morocco. There are Arabs who live in the Khuzistan province of Iran, but no one talks endlessly about the "Khuzistanian people," do they? And there are the Gazan Arabs. There are the "West Bank" Arabs. There are the  Arabs who live within the 1949 Armistice Lines. Describe them, accurately, as such.

There, that wasn't so hard to do, was it?

Here is another entertaining Pat Condell video (hat tip: Gates Of Vienna):


 

NER readers are familiar with the work of Brian Mosely who was interviewed by Jerry Gordon here.

Shelbyville Times Gazette (hat tip: Refugee Resettlement Watch):

NASHVILLE -- Times-Gazette staff writer Brian Mosely received the state's top award for investigative reporting by The Associated Press Saturday night, highlighting a total of 18 awards won by the paper in the state's two major press competitions held this weekend.

Mosely was honored with the Malcolm Law Memorial Award for Investigative Reporting for his five-part series published in December of last year chronicling the influx of Somali refugees to Bedford County.

The Law award for investigative reporting was established by the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors in 1973 to honor Malcolm Law, associate editor of The Jackson Sun, who died in December 1972. The award is recognized as one of the most prestigious awards given for journalistic accomplishment in Tennessee.

The judge wrote "... a solid and thorough example of community journalism ... (Mosely) looked at the issue of Somali immigration from several angles."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2LVOiIPfck