Religious Leaders

Written by Samuel Okocha The leader of Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram has described the recent killings of Christians as justifiable revenge attacks. Abubakar Shekau, in a video posted on YouTube, said President Goodluck Jonathan had no power to stop the group’s insurgency. Reuters reports that the 15-minute video is the first of the sect leader to be posted online. The video also comes amidst...
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Written by AFP A weakened al-Qaeda is seeking to regroup and re-energize by linking up with established Islamist movements in Africa, a new report from Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said Wednesday. Deprived of its base in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden’s terror network appears to be seeking influence in Somalia, North Africa and beyond, raising the prospect of a new “arc of regional instability”,...
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The commander of the Palestinian militant group behind the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit was killed in an airstrike in Gaza on Friday. Zuhair al-Qaissi, the commander of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a Hamas-aligned militant group, was targeted in a midday strike as his car rolled through Gaza City. His son-in-law and another aide also died in the...
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Written by MUNA KHAN Osama Bin Laden’s son Hamza may have escaped after the raid according to a report published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. The Al Qaeda leader was killed in raid by US Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1. The White House initially said that his youngest son Hamza was killed but subsequently said it was his 22-year-old son Khalid that died...
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Written by  Richard Spencer, Anbar Province Travelling with a tribal leader last year by back roads over the desert border with Iraq, a young Syrian revolutionary was ushered into the presence of a man with flowing robes. He was asked to explain the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. “We want freedom and democracy, but they started killing us,” he told the man. “I am going to...
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Written by FFI Editor  (Arabic: جماعة اهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad)] This Militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, has declared “war” on Christians in Nigeria, saying that they are planning coordinated attacks to “eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country”.. It is a terrorist group....
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(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s president on Tuesday endorsed a “code of conduct” issued by an influential council of clerics that activists say represents a giant step backward for women’s rights in the country.   President Hamid Karzai’s Tuesday remarks backing the Ulema Council’s document, which allows husbands to beat wives under certain circumstances and encourages segregation of the sexes, is seen as part...
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Written by Blake Hounshell In February, when Libya erupted in spontaneous protests that quickly turned into an armed revolt, Muammar al-Qaddafi and his son Seif al-Islam had a ready response: This was an al Qaeda-backed uprising, a plot to install “Islamic emirates” paying homage to Osama bin Laden. The world scoffed (especially after the Qaddafis accused the revolutionaries of a lot more outlandish things, from...
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Written by Raymond Ibrahim Bio To what extent was Egypt’s Maspero massacre, wherein the military literally mowed down Christian Copts protesting the ongoing destruction of their churches, a product of anti-Christian sentiment? A video of Egypt’s grand mufti,  Sheikh Ali Gomaa (or Gom’a), which began circulating weeks before the massacre, helps elucidate.  While holding that Muslims may coexist with Christians (who, as dhimmis, have rights), Gomaa categorized...
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Written by Alex Spillius Gunmen from the Islamist al-Shabaab militia have routinely abducted teenage girls to work as servants on the frontline and forced them to marry fighters, according to a new report documenting the abuse of children in Somalia’s civil war.  The report by Human Rights Watch also found that as fighting has intensified over the past two years, al-Shabaab has increasingly targeted boys...
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