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Sunday 28 November 2010

UK-based Taliban spend months fighting Nato forces in Afghanistan


Taliban fighters in Dhani Ghorri
British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time inAfghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.
A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he lived most of the time in east London, but came to Afghanistan for three months of the year for combat.
"I work as a minicab driver," said the man, who has the rank of a mid-level Taliban commander. "I make good money there [in the UK], you know. But these people are my friends and my family and it's my duty to come to fight the jihad with them."
"There are many people like me in London," he added. "We collect money for the jihad all year and come and fight if we can."
His older brother, a senior cleric or mawlawi who also fought in Dhani-Ghorri, lives in London as well.
Intelligence officials have long suspected that British Muslims travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan each year to train with extremist groups.
Last year it was reported that RAF spy planes operating in Helmand in southern Afghanistan had detected strong Yorkshire and Birmingham accents on fighters using radios and telephones. They apparently spoke the main Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, but lapsed into English when they were lost for the right words. The threat was deemed sufficiently serious that spy planes have patrolled British skies in the hope of picking up the same voice signatures of the fighters after their return to the UK.
The dead body of an insurgent who had an Aston Villa tattoo has also been discovered in southern Afghanistan.
British military officials say there have been no recent reports of British Taliban in Helmand in southern Afghanistan and that the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters are Pakistanis. Not since John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was captured in late 2001, has the US admitted to having successfully captured an insurgent from a western country.
In the main US-run prison near Bagram airfield, there are just 50 "third country nationals" being held, a spokeswoman said.
"Most of these are Pakistani, with small numbers from other countries in the region," she said.
According to a senior officer at the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's equivalent of MI5, foreign fighters tend to be Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis or from central Asia's former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Gaza a prison camp, yes? Wrong. Take a look!!!!



A Palestinian farmer holds a box of freshly harvested strawberries for export on a farm in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. (Reuters)
By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI | REUTERS
GAZA: Surrounded by the fragrance of millions of packed strawberries, Gaza farm workers rose at dawn on Sunday to witness the start of exports to Europe that they hope will herald a wider expansion of trade.
"Strawberries. Fraises. Erdbeeren." said the labels in English, French and German on stacks of boxes of tenderly packed berries in punnets of 250 grams. The Gaza farmers hope to send 1,000 tons to Europe through a partly eased Israeli blockade in the coming week.
"On Sunday, we are exporting two truckloads of strawberries as a trial and then the number will rise to 10 trucks a day until they are all shipped out," said Raed Fattouh, Palestinian coordinator of supply from Israel to Gaza.
Ahmed Al-Shafai, one of the biggest farm entrepreneurs in the small enclave framed by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean, said the Palestinian produce would first arrive in the Netherlands and then go on to Belgium and France.
"We are ready. Our products meet the standards of Global Gap," he said. The Global Gap Project aims to improve farmers' ability to grow produce according to international standards.
Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip since 2007 to cripple the Islamist movement Hamas, which seized control of the territory three years ago from the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.
This is not the first time Israel has permitted exports of Palestinian strawberries and flowers from Gaza. But it coincides with the enlargement of a logistics hub at the Kerem Shalom crossing point in the south, for what Gaza business hopes will be a revival of wider trade next year.
To begin with, Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the European Union agreed to deploy PA staff at Kerem Shalom. Hamas is left out of the equation but tacitly permits it.
An Israeli official said Kerem Shalom's capacity will double to 300 trucks a day by the end of this year and to 400 in 2011. "We will have the capacity," he said. But security arrangements were paramount for Israel and it was too soon to speak of a change in policy. "Only after we resolve this can we start talking about (a wide range of) exports," he said.
Exports have been seen by Israel as highly suspect since March 2004, when two Palestinian teenagers infiltrated the Israeli port of Ashdod by hiding in a shipping container. They blew themselves up, killing 10 people.
Israeli forces smashed Gaza in a three-week assault in early 2009 to force Hamas to stop firing rockets into its southern towns. It has restricted imports to stop arms reaching Hamas and to weaken its hold on Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants.
But after an international outcry in June, when Israeli naval commandos killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists aboard a flotilla trying to breach the blockade, Israel eased rules on what Gaza could import.
Today "the shops are full of consumer goods that were not available half a year ago," says the European Union representative to Palestine, Christian Berger. "But this is not enough to change lives significantly." The 27-nation European Union spends millions to support the private sector in Gaza via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority. But ultimately, the EU says, Gaza must export in order to achieve greater economic independence.
Berger said peppers and tomatoes may join this year's planned exports of berries and flowers. But to restore trade in manufactured goods, Palestinian businesses will need the right mix of imports, including new machinery.
"They will also need to restore their contacts and make known they can deliver with predictability," says Berger.
Before the Israeli blockade, about 60 percent of what Gazans produced was exported, he said. Some 40,000 Palestinians crossed into Israel daily to go to their jobs there.
Reviving exports could partly redress the economic reverses, creating new employment for up to 40,000 in the enclave, provided long-delayed reconstruction can commence.
More than half the population currently relies on UN food aid. Gaza also gets a regular supply of foreign-financed heavy fuel oil via a pipeline from Israel for its power generator, plus shipments of cooking gas and gasoline.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Before Hamas launched its violent takeover from Fatah in 2007, the enclave had a new international airport that now lies in ruins and plans for its own seaport.
"There is no disease raging and no starvation in the streets," Berger said. But in terms of indicators such as medical care, employment, water, education, and poverty "there is a constant deterioration in the humanitarian situation."
Last year, Gaza flower and berry growers suffered big losses when Israel delayed export permission by two months.
Hopes are high that this time the shipments will move on time. Emad Abu Samra, a 40-year-old father of 11, was hired along with one of his sons to pack the strawberries at a special export-season rate of 50 shekels (10 euros) a day. "We've been promised that the strawberries will be exported," he said. "We are hoping this will be a better year, God willing," he said.
Rafiq Abu Samra, among 25 farmers accepted as exporters under the scheme, has much riding on the shipments. He leased land to grow the crop, to be exported by Israel's Agrexco under the name "Coral" that marks a Palestinian product.
"The price of strawberries is currently good. There are no strawberries arriving in Europe at this time but ours," he said.
If all goes well, Gaza also hopes to send 30 million flowers to the Netherlands in December at 8 euro cents per bloom. They will be shipped from Israel's Ben Gurion international airport to Amsterdam for sale at auction.
Gaza also hopes this may be the start of greater exploits.
The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics (PBS) says the enclave's exports in 2005 were worth $41 million. The figure plummeted to $30,000 in 2006 and $20,000 in 2007 and there was no significant export trade in 2008.
"There were 6,000 workers in the furniture business before the blockade. That has dropped by half," said Ashraf Murtaja, head of the wood industry association. Furniture exports used to bring in about $30 million dollars a year, he said.
Gaza factories ran out of raw materials, then electricity and finally a market, Murtaja said. Workshops relied on wood smuggled expensively from Egypt through tunnels.
"Now that Israel allows the import of wood, the market is heading back toward stability. It is always better when things are done the legal way," Murtaja said.

Hague: Our Israel policy will not change


By Robyn Rosen, November 26, 2010
William Hague has denied he will withdraw support from Israel to gain Arab trade ties..
William Hague has denied he will withdraw support from Israel to gain Arab trade ties.
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has denied claims that British foreign policy will change to reflect Arab concerns over the Middle East.
The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that Whitehall officials had said that Mr Hague decided to “take on board” Arab foreign policy goals in an effort to secure better diplomatic and trade ties.
It speculated that the decision would mean further withdrawal of traditional British support for Israel.
But Mr Hague, who visited Israel earlier this month, denied there had been any change.
He said: “There has been no change in the government’s policy. We are working to develop relations with the Gulf states across the board but this is not at the expense of Israel or anyone else.
“It is not a zero sum game. Our foreign policy will always be made in the UK’s national interest.”

Jewish? Gay? Join us, white extremists say

A white extremist organisation is forging links with Jewish, Sikh and gay communities to fuel prejudice and fear and hatred of the Muslim community, it was claimed today.
Hands up if you think the EDL is a far right group
The English Defence League (EDL), which was formed last year in protest at Islamic extremist activity, has also reached out across the Atlantic to build close ties with the American right-wing group, the Tea Party.
Hundreds of EDL members are planning demonstrations in Nuneaton and Preston today to protest at the building of mosques and what they claim is the growing influence in the UK of Sharia law.
But a new report, written by Professor Nigel Copsey of Teesside University, warns that the growth of EDL membership will spread Islamophobia in communities sharing a perceived "historical angst" against Muslims.
New branches of the League, such as the Jewish Division, could exploit the existing religious hostilities caused by territorial disputes in the Middle East, says Professor Copsey whose report was commissioned by the organisation Faith Matters.
It claims that these inter-faith tensions were brought into sharp focus last month when the senior US Jewish leader and Tea Party activist Rabbi Nachum Shifren denounced Islam at a EDL rally outside the Israeli Embassy in London. Israeli flags have also been spotted at several EDL demonstrations across the UK.
As well as aggravating religious tensions, the EDL has established a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Division to "defend" gay people from Sharia law. There are also specialist divisions for women, soldiers and disabled people. The report warns these communities to be vigilant against "selective racism" and the EDL's attempts at manipulation.
Contributors to the EDL Facebook site confirm that the group wants to work with other minority organisation including those which promote women's rights. One members writes: "After all, leftists have portrayed themselves for decades as the only ones really interested in promoting a progressive and inclusive agenda: homosexual rights, women's equality, minority rights, reproductive rights, immigration, world peace, among others."
One member added: "Remember there is a difference between being anti-Muslim and anti-Islam. We are against the ideology not the people. Let's not forget that many Muslim women and children are victims of their own religion."
But Professor Copsey warned: "True to the spirit of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the EDL is targeting other ethnic communities. These communities need to guard against approaches by the EDL."
Founder and director of Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal, said: "The EDL's main aim is to increase tensions, raise hate and divide communities. Their attempts to portray themselves as a legitimate and open movement cannot disguise their violent, anti-Muslim agenda. This hate can easily mutate against another community."
The EDL membership claim that they are not a racist group. In guidance issuedto its members attending today's rallies the EDL leadership warns: "Violence and racism will not be tolerated. If you are found to be doing this, you will be ejected from the demonstration."
On Monday, EDL founder Stephen Lennon denied assaulting a police officer during clashes with Islamic protesters in west London. He was granted bail and a trial date was set of 12 January. About 30 supporters gathered outside the court, some with EDL placards.
The Faith Matters report is entitled The English Defence League: Challenging Our Country and Our Values of Social Inclusion, Fairness and Equality.

The British Jewish leadersheep

FRIDAY, 26TH NOVEMBER 2010
by Melanie Phillips
Another distressing thing about George Osborne ‘s speech to the Board of Deputies, which I previously commented upon here, was that virtually no-one at the dinner thought there was anything amiss with it; by all accounts it was greeted with acclaim, and the rot at its core simply passed them by. In similar vein, althoughopinion is divided among British Jews about the recent eye-opening attack on Israel by Mick Davis, chairman of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, who claimed that it was making his life difficult as a British Jew for not advancing the ‘peace process’(a disgusting and stupid argument rightly shredded by Isi LeiblerLord Kalms and Emanuele Ottolenghi) those who consider themselves to be politically liberal or left-wing—in other words, most of the national leadership of the British Jewish community – appear to support him. (I have made an attempt to explain this phenomenon in my article for this week’s Jewish Chronicle; for some reason not yet on line but available on my own website here.)
Worse still, I hear that one or two Jewish community leadership figures have even been going round bad-mouthing certain non-Jews who defend Israel in public. Behind the scenes these leadership figures are viciously attacking people such as Douglas Murray or Robin Shepherd as ‘extremist’, ‘Islamophobic’, ‘right-wing’ and so forth, and urging other community figures not to support them.
This is utterly astonishing. Heaven knows these courageous, decent and principled people are rare enough in these terrible times; if only there were more of them. They are putting themselves on the line to support Israel and fight for the defence of the west in the teeth of mass hysteria, thus courting the threat of professional and social ostracism. Jews owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. Yet incredibly, these British Jewish community leaders, driven by a combination of ideological spite, empire-building and egomania, are blackening their names and thus trying to squeeze them into silence.
I have said before that the ingrained servility of British Jewish leaders, who believe in working behind the scenes in trying to influence the great and the good rather than putting their heads above the parapet and making their case in public, explains why they have so conspicuously failed to stand up in public against the madness over Israel that has engulfed Britain and the west. But the reality is far, far worse than that. By endorsing the positions of those who are demonising and delegitimising Israel through echoing their distortions, decontextualisations and grotesquely inverted morality, it has now become clear that Britain’s most senior Jewish community leadersheep are simply, and tragically, on the wrong side.
Such people are wont to claim sanctimoniously that the conduct of Israel now presents a crisis for the Jewish people. Wrong. That there is a major crisis is not in doubt. But they are it.


Is Norway turning it's back to Israel...

Norway's $500 billion oil fund, Europe's largest institutional investor, and Swedish pension funds managing more than $100 billion in assets have dropped the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems Ltd., which provides surveillance equipment for the separation barrier.
The funds say Elbit violated ethical norms because of its involvement in the barrier, ruled illegal in a nonbinding decision by the International Court of Justice. Israel says it built the barrier to keep out Palestinian militants, but it swerves through the West Bank to incorporate Jewish settlements on the "Israeli" side.
Norway's investment in Elbit was $6 million, negligible for a company valued at $2 billion. Elbit won't discuss the divestments. The Norwegian fund also sold its $1.2 million in shares in Africa Israel Investments, which has a real estate holding that builds in settlements.
The Brussels-based bank Dexia, targeted by Belgian activists for lending to settlements, said its Israeli subsidiary is phasing out the settlement business. Assa Abloy, a Swedish lock maker, said it would move its Israeli factory from a settlement industrial park to Israel proper within a year.
SodaStream, a maker of home carbonating systems, said some of the $109 million raised in a public offering in November is to be used to build a new factory outside the West Bank, though it won't say whether it would eventually close an existing settlement facility.
Some major Christian denominations also are wrestling with the divestment issue.
The World Council of Churches, which represents 560 million Christians, has called for responsible investment and a boycott of settlement products.
The Presbyterians are trying to persuade several multinationals to cut West Bank ties and leave open the possibility of future divestment. The United Methodists, who have called on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian-claimed territories, failed to pass a divestment bill at a 2008 convention, though activists said such efforts would continue.

The True Face Of Israeli Racism


Allow us to introduce you to young Kochav Segal Halevi. The 26-year-old Israeli is receiving death threats. In fact, he had to go into hiding. His offense? He purchased an apartment in the Arab town of Ibillin, not far from Haifa.

The Arabs there do not like the idea of their town being polluted by the presence of a Jew. I mean, one Jew and there goes the neighborhood. Arabs who sell property to Jews have similarly been threatened and attacked. And of course the moderates from the Palestinian Authority routinely torture and execute Arabs who sell to Jews.

I mention this because the leftist media in Israel and in the world are, as usual, up in arms over supposed Israeli Jewish racism against Arabs.

Yes, there are Jewish closed communities in Israel, some of them religiously observant, where one must be accepted by admissions committees, and they tend to refuse membership to Arabs "to preserve the character of the community." (In religious communities, non-religious Jews get barred as well. Other communities, including kibbutzim, have age and marital status restrictions.)
 
But the reality is that, by and large, Israeli Arabs can live in just about any Jewish area in the country, while Jews cannot move into any Arab town, village or neighborhood. Jews cannot move into the Arab areas because they will be murdered if they move there. Every Israeli understands these unwritten "rules of the game."

In fact, Jews often risk their lives just passing through Arab areas, as a group of four Jewish Hebrew University students discovered during a recent weekend when they were almost lynched after making a wrong turn into an Arab neighborhood next to the campus.

 
Arabs from (Arab) Nazareth routinely buy housing in (Jewish) Upper Nazareth, but Jews from Upper Nazareth never purchase property in (Arab) Nazareth, knowing they'd be killed if they did. During the pogroms by Galilee Arabs in the summer of 2000, Arabs invaded Upper Nazareth and attacked Jews there. The Jews of Upper Nazareth did not attack Arabs in Nazareth. So who are the racists there?

More generally, the new party line of the radical Left is that, yes, Arabs must be permitted to live anywhere they want among Israeli Jews, but no, Jews must be prevented from ever moving into areas the Left regards as "Arab" - i. e., places where Jews do not belong. Hebrew University's tenured leftists and their jihadi fellow travelers have been leading the marches in Jerusalem to prevent Jews from moving into neighborhoods inside Jerusalem regarded by the Left as areas where Jews are regarded as "intruders."
 
Many parts of the Galilee today have Arab majorities. The Jews in Carmiel and Safed, to name but two towns, feel they are under demographic siege. Much of the local opposition to Arabs moving into those towns is based on the fact that violence and hostilities have broken out whenever significant numbers of Arabs moved to neighborhoods there. After all, we are in the middle of a war and the local Arabs, by and large, openly identify with the country's enemies.

The anti-Israel Left sees "racism" in calls to restrict Arabs moving into the Jewish towns of the Galilee, but has never expressed an iota of criticism about the violent threats that prevent Jews from moving into Arab areas. Those folks have had nothing to say about the plight of young Halevi. That's not racism, you see.

The Left also is completely silent about the violent attacks by Arabs against right-wing Jewish protesters who hold marches in some Arab towns, like Umm al-Fahm, the seat of the Israeli Arab pro-jihad Islamofascist movement (a movement that openly identifies with the Hamas). After all, those Jewish marchers are violating the anti-Jewish sensitivities of the local Arabs.

Of course, when gay pride marches are held in Jewish religious neighborhoods of Jerusalem (but never, mind you, in Muslim neighborhoods there), no leftist thinks those marchers should be expected to respect local sensitivities.

It is true that threats against Jews, which effectively prevent Jews from living in Arab areas in the Galilee and Negev and elsewhere, are not formal and officially proclaimed. Nevertheless, everyone in the country understands the threats of violence that operate against Jews seeking to live in Arab areas.

Again, the leftist knee-jerk response to Jewish "invasions" of areas where "Jews do not belong" has been to demand that the Jews be evicted. Arabs routinely move into many Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa and there have been virtually no incidents of violence against them. Meanwhile the Left keeps insisting that any peace deal with the Palestinian Authority must involve the complete eviction of all Jews living in the West Bank. Arabs will be free to live in Israel after any such "peace deal," but Jews must be prohibited from living in what could become "Palestinian areas."

So who are the real racists? Where is the real apartheid?

Steven Plaut, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor at the University of Haifa. His book "The Scout" is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at steveneplaut@yahoo.com.

Nov 30 BIG Day: Buy Israeli Goods Day


 Nov 23 2010
On Tuesday, November 30, anti-Israel activists in New York City plan to demonstrate and call for boycotts of stores that sell Israeli products. Their target is Ricky's because it carries Ahava goods. Boycotters have been energetically lobbying other stores across the country to drop Israeli products, from local co-ops to Costco and Trader Joe's.





The pro-Israel, pro-peace community urges NYC residents to join a counter campaign. November 30 is BIG (Buy Israeli Goods) Day. StandWithUs and the America-Israel Chambers of Commerce calls on schools, college campuses, synagogues, community organizations, and individuals to designate Tuesday, November 30, as the day to actively Buy Israeli Goods. Go to local stores and request Israeli products, recommends StandWithUS. Whenever a boycott is called, StandWithus advises to respond by purchasing the very Israeli goods that are being targeted and let store managers know they should keep them well-stocked on the shelves.

The holiday season is fast approaching. When holiday shopping, choose presents from the vast array of Israeli-made items, from fine Israeli wines to Ahava beauty products, Israeli jewelry, shoes and clothing lines, and of course, food. Select Sabra or Tribe hummus, award-winning Israeli wines and Osem cookies to grace holiday party.

The very date, November 30th, should encourage local Israel supporters, says StandWithUs. It comes the day after the 53rd anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution when the effort, against all odds, to restore the Jewish State was endorsed and recognized by the international community. It also comes just as Hanukkah is approaching when Jews celebrate the Maccabees who also restored Jewish independence, and who were a few who triumphed over the many, says StandWithUS
Shop with friends, and take pictures or videos of yourself purchasing Israeli products, and send them to StandWithUs. Make fun entries for youtube, make them positive, fun, and humorous. Email photos or links to videos to big@standwithus.com.

Visit www.BuyIsraelGoods.org --- The website includes a locator so that you can find stores in your area that carry Israeli products. The BIG campaign is a partnership between StandWithUs and the America-Israel Chambers of Commerce and like-minded organizations.

Thursday 25 November 2010

Algeria targets books in battle with hardline Islam (too late as damage has been done already)


26/11/2010
Renaud Sarda
apparently the Algerian is cracking down on imports of books preaching the ultra-conservative Salafist branch of Islam, officials and industry insiders say, in a step aimed at reining in the ideology's growing influence....It's absolutely laughable and ridiculous as we all well know that it was the Algerian corrupt government who aided and supported and secretly funded the rise of the Salafist movement during the 80's at the same time they hailed the idea of Jihad and exported over 20,000 Algerian Islamic-extremists during the Afghan jihad, just as did most governments across the Arab world found a release valve for radical religious. 
The Algerian government moved fast during those years by freeing ideological prisoners on the condition that they would go to fight the atheist Soviets in Afghanistan. Many such prisoners agreed and were released by regimes that hoped they would go to Afghanistan, kill some infidels, and be killed in the process. Many of these fighters were killed, but many more were not as was the case in Algeria and returned to bedevil their respective government to this day. Still, for more than a decade, the Afghan jihad allowed the Algerian government to redirect domestic Islamist activism outward toward the hapless Red Army. Although the policy proved shortsighted, it reduced domestic instability for most of the 1980s/90's and led to a bloody civil war where 300,000 innocent civilians were slaughter by an Army control by 5 blood thirsty generals and Muslim extremists associated to FIS
Salafism is a school of Islam that has its roots in Saudi Arabia and emphasises religious purity. Its followers reject the trappings of modern life, including music, Western styles of dress and taking part in politics.
Customs officers and officials from the ministries of religious affairs and culture have been given instructions to enforce more tightly an existing list of banned literature, and have been policing industry events where books are on sale.
"This year, instructions to pay attention to Salafist literature were tough," Mohamed Mouloudi, a publisher and importer of religious books who opposes the Salafist school of Islam, told Reuters.
Hundreds of Salafists, with their trademark beards and white "khamis," or gowns, visited the annual Algiers International Book Fair earlier this month. They usually use the event to buy up religious literature in bulk to re-sell.
But customs officers present in large numbers at the fair prevented them from doing business as usual. Groups of uniformed officers patrolled vendors' stands checking the books on sale against their list of banned literature.
The officers also intercepted any buyers who had bought several large plastic bags of books. Ninety percent of the people stopped had beards and were wearing khamis gowns, according to a Reuters reporter there.
"Those who resell are visible because they carry heavy bags full of books. Our job is to seize the books and give them one copy of each," a customs officer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters at the book fair.
An official from the ministry of culture said that 50 foreign publishers of Salafist literature -- most of them from Egypt -- who usually attend the fair had not been invited.
"They used to invade us with thousands of books dedicated to this category of people and this is not what we want," the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.
Algeria's authorities also try to intercept blacklisted religious books at ports and airports. Religious Affairs Ministry officials said these checks had also been tightened over the past year.
INNOVATION FORBIDDEN
Despite the restrictions, Salafist book shops still exist in Algeria, particularly in poor neighbourhoods.
One typical title, by Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibn Nada El Otaibi, explains why all forms of music, including religious songs are considered "bid'a". This is an Arabic word for innovation, which is forbidden under Salafist rules.
Salafists -- often associated with the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi school of religious thought -- are a minority in energy exporter Algeria, where most of the 35 million population adhere to more mainstream forms of Islamic thought.
But Salafism has grown in influence over the past two decades, when the state was fighting an Islamist insurgency that killed an estimated 200,000 people.
Most of the Salafists were not involved in the violence, and the security services co-opted their religious leaders over the past 10 years to issue "fatwas", or religious instructions, telling the insurgents to lay down their arms.
Salafists came under closer government scrutiny after they raised their profile this year by protesting against a plan to make women remove headscarves for passport photos, and by snubbing the national anthem.
"The government will implement the law against any attempt to introduce into our country practices or religious speeches from abroad," Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said in a speech in October, in an apparent reference to Salafism.
His remarks, made in parliament, were the first time in years a high-level official had publicly expressed concern about Islamic ideas being imported into Algeria.

Algerian opponents of Salafism say it divides society, introduces values which are alien to Algeria and gives enormous power to a handful of clerics based in Saudi Arabia.
"Algerian Salafists are tools in Saudi Arabia's hands," said Sheikh Chemseddine Bouroubi, a well-known imam who follows a traditional Algerian school of Islam.
"Their goal is to spread Wahhabism in Algeria and elsewhere. We must stop them," he told Reuters in an interview at the Algiers book fair.
Ibrahim Bergougui, an Algerian Salafist with beard and white gown, was standing nearby and listening to Chemseddine speak.
"It is not fair to say that we are a danger for our country. Algerians must acknowledge that we have done a lot to put an end to the Islamic strife," he said.
"We have issued the fatwas that convinced the rebels to lay down arms. Chemseddine is a clown not an imam."

Al-Qaida’s business jihad

by Paul Rogers, and openDemocracy.net 
The failed assault on a Japanese oil supertanker is, alongside developments in Iraq and Yemen, a signal of the al-Qaida movement’s protean challenge.
A cascade of serious security developments is affecting the “greater west Asia” region:
* the aftermath of the border incident between Israel and Lebanon leaves tensions there high (see “Israel’s security trap, 5 August 2010)
* the phased withdrawal of United States combat-troops from Iraq is accompanied by reports of an al-Qaida resurgence there (see Salah Hemeid, "Return of Al-Qaeda", Al-Ahram Weekly, 5-11 August 2010)
* a United Nations report confirms that as a result both of Nato/Isaf and of insurgent action, more Afghan civilians are dying (see "Afghan civilian casualties rise 31 per cent in first six months of 2010", United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 10 August 2010)
* the indications that Israel is planning an armed confrontation with Iran are becoming more substantial (see “Israel vs Iran: fallout of a war”, 15 July 2010; and Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Point of No Return”, Atlantic Monthly, September 2010).
These events and dangers are extensively reported in the western and middle-eastern media. But another, relatively neglected incident in the region at the end of July 2010 may in the long run come to have as much or even greater significance.
A Japanese supertanker, the M. Star, was transiting the Strait of Hormuz at 12.30 am (local time) on 28 July. The M. Star had taken on 2.3 million barrels of oil at the Das Island terminal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and was bound for the Chiba refinery in Tokyo bay (see Alex Calvo, "'M' Stands for Mystery", PanOrient News, 10 August 2010). An explosion occurred that injured one crew-member and badlydented a section of the hull, though the tanker was able to reach Fujairah (in the UAE, beyond the Strait of Hormuz); a week of repairs were necessary before the ship could continue its voyage.
The M. Star is a relatively new vessel in a category known as “very large crude carrier” (VLCC); like most ships of this type, it is double-hulled. That, possibly combined with the inexperience of the paramilitaries carrying out the attack, means that the ship survived with no leakage of oil.
A shadowy network apparently linked to al-Qaida, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the M. Star attempt. The group is named after a Palestinian ideologist and militia leader killed in Afghanistan in November 1979 (possibly by fellow Islamists). The group has operated previously out of Sinai, which raises a question over its present capability and geographic reach.
It is conceivable that the Abdullah Azzam Brigades has forged links with cells in Yemen; but the attack on the M. Star occurred northeast of Yemen’s border with Oman, suggesting that (if its claim of responsibility is correct) it might now also be active in the United Arab Emirates or Oman. In either case, such a development would be an unpleasant surprise for Gulf security officials (see "Al-Qaida: the Yemen factor", 2 January 2010).
An Abqaiq echo
The assault on the M. Star has has been extensively reported in Japan, not least because Japan imports nearly 80% of its oil by means of tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. It has also received great attention in the specialist oil-industry press, reflecting the fact that almost 40% of all the world’s internationally traded oil istransported through the strait. This media concern is matched too by intense activity among energy-security professionals who for several years have sought tounderstand and limit paramilitary attacks in the wider region - the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, but also on the territory of the main western Gulf oil-producing states themselves.
The most prominent such incidents include these four:
* an explosion underneath the USS Cole in Aden harbour on 12 October 2000; seventeen American sailors were killed and thirty-nine injured
* the bombing of the Limburg, a French tanker, off the coast of Yemen on 6 October 2002; one crew-member died and twelve were injured, the hull was breached and a quarter of the ship’s cargo (90,000 barrels of oil) leaked into the Gulf of Aden.
* a paramilitary operation against a Saudi oil facility at Yanbu on 14 May 2004 - the first major attack aimed directly at a land-based oil-installation
* a truck-bomb assault on the massive oil-processing plant at Abqaiq, a few kilometres north of the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran on 24 February 2006.  
What happened at Abqaiq is especially indicative. The attack was reported at the time by the plant’s owners Aramco as a complete failure, on the grounds that the bombers failed to penetrate the security-fence; though a column in this series at the time suggested that the raid highlighted the potential for paramilitary economic warfare (see “Abqaiq’s warning”,  2 March 2006).
In fact, information from internal sources eight months later made it clear that one of the truck-bombs did get right into the plant before exploding (see “Abqaiq’s message to Washington”, 9 November 2006).  It became clear that there had been considerable, though not overwhelming, damage - though even this apparently isolated and minor incident pushed up the price of oil by more than $2 a barrel (see Khalid R al-Rodhan, "The Impact of the Abqaiq Attack on Saudi Energy Security",Susris, 28 February 2006).
The Abqaiq attack had two further and little-noted consequences. First, the authorities in Saudi Arabia hugely upgraded their internal-security forces devoted to the protection of the kingdom’s oil facilities. Second, of much greater import and even less reported, was that the Saudis and the United States agreed that the US fifth fleet would guard the oil-export terminal at Ras Tanura (the world’s largest). The fifth fleet’s headquarters are in Bahrain rather than in Saudi Arabia, but this direct connection comes closer to having US uniformed personnel in the "kingdom of the two holy places" than any development of recent years.
A triple revival
Now, after the attack on the M. Star, the activities of the United States navy in both the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz will almost certainly be expanded. But the full implications of the operation are far from being met by this likely military response (see "The asymmetry of economic war", 14 February 2008).
These can better be grasped by putting three developments that mark the current situation into a common frame:
* the re-emergence of al-Qaida affiliates in Iraq
* the increasing influence of the movement in Yemen (see Fred Halliday, "Yemen: travails of unity", 3 July 2009)
* the attack on the M. Star itself - which was most likely mounted from yet another state.
The emphasis of many counter-terror analysts on events in Afghanistan and Pakistan -  including the revival of the Taliban and its broadening Pushtun and/or nationalist appeal, and the impact of drone-attacks in killing or disabling al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan - has tended to reinforce the argument that the core al-Qaida movement is in decline.
The flaw in this perspective is that it ignores the larger lesson of the evolution of al-Qaida over a decade: that the movement is less a tightly organised and rigidly hierarchical group cohering around a clear and unified strategy, and much more a loose cluster of like-minded networks in many different countries, linked by a sharedworldview and by diverse financial, technical and human connections.
In this perspective, these three phenomena - in Iraq, Yemen, and now the Strait of Hormuz - suggest an increase in paramilitary activity that is both unexpected andunwelcome to western security forces. The supertanker incident may prove to be a warning-shot that only in retrospect will acquire the attention already devoted to the other two. 
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