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Israel fears Iran may ship Hezbollah arms via Beirut port

Saudis hold “women in the workplace” forum — with no women present

And meanwhile, at the forum a scholar calls into question the commonly articulated view that Islam improved the lot of women in the seventh century. Of course, the blame is rather characteristically placed on the Greco-Roman tradition, but the subtext here is that women essentially had it better in pre-Islamic Nabatea than they did, and do, under Islam. "Scholar lifts veil on sharia," from Reuters (thanks to all who sent this in):

When clerics, ministers and businessmen gathered at a forum in Riyadh in April to discuss women in the workplace, there were no women in sight.

Typically for Saudi Arabia, the women who took part were seated in a separate room so the men could only hear them.

Such things are part and parcel of the complex system of social control maintained by clerics of Saudi Arabia's austere version of Sunni Islamic law, often termed Wahhabism. It is a system called into question by scholar Hatoon al-Fassi.

In her study, Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia, the outspoken rights advocate argues women in the pre-Islamic period enjoyed considerable rights in the Nabataean state, an urban Arabian kingdom centred in modern Jordan, south Syria and north-west Saudi Arabia during the Roman empire.

Most controversially, Fassi says women in Nabataea - whose capital was the famous rose-red city of Petra in south Jordan, and which was at its height during the lifetime of Jesus Christ - enjoyed more freedom than in Saudi Arabia today because clerics have misunderstood the origins of Islamic law. She also suggests some Saudi restrictions on women may have their origins in Greco-Roman traditions.

"One of the objectives of this book is to question the assumption of subordination of women in pre-Islamic Arabia," Fassi writes. "Most of the practices related to women's status are based on some local traditional practices that are not necessarily Islamic. Nor are they essentially Arabian."

She argues that women in Nabataea were free to conduct legal contracts in their own name with no male guardian, unlike in Greek and Roman law, and in Saudi Arabia where the guardian is central to the clerics' idea of a moral public sphere....

Scotland: Police bid to tackle Islamophobia

Hmmm. How are they going to tackle Islamophobia? Will they go right to its root cause -- will they get Muslims to stop blowing stuff up in the name of Islam and announcing that they will soon dominate the land and rule by Sharia? Fantastic!

"Police bid to tackle Islamophobia," by Imtiaz Tyab for BBC News, May 9 (thanks to DB):

Scotland's first Muslim Police Association is being created in an attempt to encourage more Muslims to join and stay in the force.

Strathclyde Police hopes the group will also help tackle Islamophobia and improve understanding of Islam.

Pc Amar Shakoor, who was Scotland's first Muslim officer, said negativity had recently been directed towards the Muslim community.

He said the association hoped to put Islam in a more positive light.

"We want to highlight some of the positive things Islam can provide to the communities and not just the police services," he said.

Great, but really, that bit about stopping blowing stuff up will go a long way.

So this is History

By Robeir al-Faris

A textbook used by the first-year students at Cairo University’s faculty of arts is the History of the Arab Islamic State , authored by none other than Mohamed Barakat al-Biali who heads the Islamic History Department at the same faculty.
In 308 large-size pages, the book tackles Islamic history from the Mohammedan [prophetic] mission until the fall of the Umayyad State, with the life of the Prophet Mohamed taking up 123 pages. Given that the book is a history textbook taught in a civil-not a religious-university, one would assume it would stick to historical facts. But this is far from the case; the book brims with material that lies strictly within the domain of faith. Christian students must acknowledge in the examinations that the Torah and the Bible currently in use are misquotations of previous versions that included prophesies of the coming of Mohamed and that have consequently been disfigured by ‘Zionists’, and that the only true religion before God is Islam.
(more…)

Bahiya Detained

By Nader Shukry

In the wee hours of dawn last Monday, the police knocked on the door of Bahiya Nagy al-Sissy in the small east-Delta town of Mit Ghamr, woke the family up, and arrested her. Bahiya is a 34-year old Coptic peasant woman, and she was caught in order to serve a three year prison sentence she was handed, together with her 36-year-old sister Shadya, in absentia in 2000 by a criminal court. Bahiya’s and Shadya’s crime: forgery, even though there were no forged documents to indict them in the first place. The two sisters were born Christian, had lived and had married as Christians, and had Christian children. The court, however, considered that they should have been Muslim according to their father’s brief conversion to Islam more than thirty years ago. Shadya and Bahiya had then been children and were ignorant of their father’s conversion, especially that he later reverted to his original Christianity. The story was kept secret by the father, but surfaced in 1996 when Ramadan Hassan Hussein, a forger, was arrested and, among his confessions, related how he had helped Sissy acquire Christian identity papers which were practically almost impossible to obtain once he had reverted to Christianity.

(more…)

U.S. soldiers learning Arabic at Wahhabist Islamic Saudi Academy

Just when you thought the world couldn't possibly get crazier, yes, it's the Islamic Saudi Academy about which the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed "significant concerns" that the school was promoting, according to Cinnamon Stillwell, "a brand of religious intolerance that could prove a danger to the United States."

Cinnamon has the details.

Heavy Fighting Breaks Out in Northern Lebanon

‘My daughter deserved to die for falling in love’

"If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her."

An update on this honor-killing story. By Afif Sarhan and Caroline Davies in The Observer, May 11 (thanks to Cindy):

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said....

The learned Western analysts will continue to maintain, of course, that this is a cultural practice that has nothing to do with Islam. So how is it that Abdel-Qader got this idea?

Wars, and Rumors of War

I got a press release at 3:40 (Pacific time) on Friday from Peru, about Chile declaring war on Peru. (I'm not certain yet whether or not that press release was a hoax. Hopefully FerFAL, our correspondent in Argentina will chime in with confirmation, and some "neutral third party" commentary.) Meanwhile, fierce fighting has broken out in Lebanon. And to top it off, crude oil spiked to an all-time high of $126 per barrel, in part because of tensions between Venezuela and Columbia.

In the midst of all this war news, the ongoing global grain shortage crisis is likely to cause additional civil wars, and possibly cross-border wars. It is all too clear that we are living in very dangerous times. Let's call them fragile times. In such circumstances it is prudent to be well prepared. Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you haven't done so already, get your beans, bullets, and Band-Aids squared away, muy pronto. This advice is meant for all of SurvivalBlog's readers--all over the globe. (We have readers in 130+ countries.) Modern commerce is now so globalized that shortages and conflict anywhere affect us all. Pray hard.

Letter Re: Advice on Stocking Up on Batteries

Sir;

I was wondering: How many batteries should I store for all my radios, flashlights, smoke detectors, and so forth? I'm also planning to get night vision goggles, soon. I assume rechargeables, right? If so, what kind [of rechargeables], and who has the best prices? - T.E. in Memphis.

JWR Replies: I recommend buying mainly nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. Stock up plenty of them, including some extras for barter and charity. Unlike the older Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) technology, NiMHs do not have a "memory" effect. (The diminished capacity because of the memory effect has always been one of the greatest drawbacks to NiCds batteries.) One discount supplier with a very good selection that I can enthusiastically recommend is All-Battery.com. They also have great prices on "throw away" batteries, such a lithium CR-123s.

Four Letters Re: Advanced Medical Training and Facilities for Retreat Groups

James
In response to BES in Washington's comment on Paramedics and EMTs I must say that I agree when it comes to workaday medics. A great benefit to having the years of training as a paramedic is that it earns you some credibility.

My advice to paramedics and long time EMTs is to speak to your training officers and EMS directors and find out if your supervising physician or another doctor would be willing to mentor you in surgery[, though observation]. I had the opportunity starting with my paramedic internship to make relationships with quality doctors who wanted to mentor me in advanced surgical skills which were often outside my scope of practice. It is important to somehow become a student under the hospital so their insurance or that of your school will cover you or
this is a pointless exercise.

Getting advanced mentoring means establishing a bond of trust. You need to convince the surgeons and doctors that you are reliable as well as being the type of person that they want to have in their O.R. for hours. It doesn't hurt to mention a desire to go to medical school in the future, I believe it was my interest and reliability that opened many doors to advanced training that might have otherwise would have remained closed.

The other thing that helped me was taking a part time job in the E.R. on my off days, it was easy to have my beeper go off and run to the O.R. when there was a surgical emergency. I got to see trauma calls come in and because of my special training relationship with many of the doctors and departments I was able to follow many cases from the door to the ICU. I made many career decisions based on the opportunity to advance my skills.

In the end, once you are inside the system as a professional start asking for extra training, remember that the title Doctor means teacher and if approached with the proper attitude most good doctors are very happy to help you learn. - David in Israel

Jim:
Just a quick note regarding medical training. While the combat medic courses look okay, they are limited. EMT courses require a lot of advanced equipment.
A much better option would be a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course. It is an 80 hour course over about 10 days that teaches extended care and injury management. It is the gold standard in the outdoor industry. The "wilderness" designation means that definitive medical care is more than an hour away--and then trains you to deal long evacuations or extended care.

There are a number of places offering WFR courses throughout the United States. You can contact the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS for a list of courses, as well as others. What we like about the WMI courses is that they focus on real world scenarios, as well as judgment. They are not about memorizing lists, but about learning how to make good decisions under stress. The courses and on-going recertification are more than worth it, as they keep you sharp and up to date on what the latest issues and concerns are in wilderness medicine.

Perhaps the best thing about WMI and related companies is that their instructors are in the field teaching and doing wilderness medicine all the time--they know what works and what doesn't work.- Mark R.

Dear Jim,
Thank you for sending us your autographed copy of the best of the blog and the patriots. In response to the posting "Letter Re: Advanced Medical Training and Facilities for Retreat Groups"
I commend the writer for addressing these important issues. Here are a few thoughts to add: Over the years, the field of medicine has become very complex, including training, equipment, and delivery. Lets look at each of these individually.

First, training. It used to be that every physician went through medical school, then completed a general practitioner residency and then specialized in a particular field if they were so inclined. About 10 years ago, that all changed. Now, even before medical school is completed, the students decide which area of medicine they would like to pursue and go directly into that residency program without becoming a general practitioner first. What this means is that physician's knowledge is highly specialized. Physicians are good at what they do, but lack the knowledge/experience to perform tasks outside their area of expertise. For example, if you were to suffer a bone injury which required an operation, the person you would need to see would be an orthopedic surgeon. However, they would most likely not feel comfortable putting you to sleep. For that, you would need an anesthetist. And, if you also had and abdominal wound (e.g. gunshot), the orthopedic surgeon would most likely not feel
comfortable operating. For that, you would need a general or a trauma surgeon. And if you happened to have burns associated with your injury, you are best off with a plastic surgeon. Now throw a diabetic patient into the picture (for which you need an internist), and you get the picture.

I am a physician, having recently graduated after 14 years of university, including a biochemistry degree, a medical degree, and five years of residency specializing in oncology. If you have cancer, I will
know what to do, but if you put me in an operating room, we're all in trouble!
The point is that if you have "one physician" in your survival group, don't expect them to be able to do everything. Medicine is very multi-disciplinary:

General surgeons are best at abdominal wounds and trauma
Plastic surgeons are best at handling burns
Orthopedic surgeons are best at dealing with bone fractures
Internists deal with medical problems like diabetes and heart disease
Anesthetists provide anesthetic to put you to sleep for the operation
Oncologists deal with cancer
Pulmonologists deal with ventilators and such, et cetera.

All of these are highly specialized physicians, but physicians knowledge of cross specialties is limited!

Second, equipment. In third world countries, physicians have wonderful diagnostic skills based on physical examination of the patient. Most American physicians don't have these skills. We rely very
heavily on tests including X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, MRI scans, PET scans, angiography, blood work, laboratory tests with pathologic interpretation, etc, just to name a few. All of these require expensive equipment, laboratories, power to run them, and a radiologist or pathologist (specialized physician) to interpret them. Asking a physician to diagnose your ailments without being able to perform any of these tests is like asking your mechanic to tell you what is wrong with your car without allowing him to lift the hood. It is very difficult! Thus, even if you have a physician with appropriate knowledge in your survival group, if they don't have access to their equipment, they will be very limited in what they can do.

Third, delivery. Let's assume that a member of your group becomes ill and that 1) you have a physician in your group with appropriate knowledge and 2) the physician has access to equipment which allows them to diagnose your ailment. Then, the physician would know how to treat you. However, there is a big jump from knowing what you need to actually being able to deliver it.
For example, suppose a member of your group developed a bacterial pneumonia. Lets say your physician was able to perform a chest xray to confirm this. Now the physician knows how to treat you. You need an antibiotic. Now the problem becomes access to appropriate medications/treatment.

What if your retreat does not have any antibiotics on hand? or insulin? or nitroglycerin? or Fentanyl/Versed (anesthetic)? or IV fluids? or blood? or chemotherapy? etc. Many of these are difficult to access and/or store.

In summary, the current healthcare system is highly complex in its training, equipment, and delivery. Many of these issues need to be thought out beforehand when planning your medical room at your retreat. - KLK

Dear JWR & SurvivalBlog Readers (especially DS in Wisconsin ):
I would like to respond to DS concerning his questions. I agree wholeheartedly that nobody should try on-the-job training for medical care without a good mentor. That is what nursing and medical training is for as JWR strongly suggests. I also agree that the human body is complex and can be inadvertently damaged with attempted care. However, the human body does have an amazing ability to repair damage if allowed. This is why I strongly suggested learning techniques to control and stop bleeding, replace lost intravascular fluids and limit infection. In trauma, there is the concept known as the “Golden Hour”. During the first hour after a near-fatal injury, the body can compensate for bleeding by shutting down perfusion of not immediately critical tissues such as kidneys, skin, muscles and extremities, thus permitting limited perfusion of heart, lungs and brain. This is a state known as shock. If the patient can be stabilized in the first hour, the likelihood of survival is dramatically increased. This is accomplished by controlling bleeding and replacing lost fluids. Nearly everyone can be trained to control bleeding, since holding pressure on a dressing is not difficult. Starting an IV is slightly more complicated but is not beyond the ability of most people. Even the most gruesome of wounds, such as a chainsaw injury, will eventually heal if allowed to (although the cosmetics may be less than desirable). If you can get over the “Golden Hour”, you are blessed with what I refer to as “The Tincture of Time”.

My second suggestion was to do everything you are capable of doing, even with the knowledge that survival is unlikely. This is where the concept of errors of commission verses errors of omission comes into play. In my mind, it is better to attempt something life-saving than omit the possibility because the outcome may not be successful. As the quote goes: “Tis better to have tried and failed, than never to have tried at all.” Our mindset has to change from “First do no Harm” to one of “Do the Benefits Outweigh the Risks?”. I don’t think anyone is suggesting reading a guide while doing this, simply suggesting doing something you are capable of doing. The key is not to destroy your psyche with remorse and self criticism if the results are not optimal.

As far as our personal preparations, my wife and I are both experienced medical people and long ago decided that that would be our biggest contribution in TEOTWAWKI. As such, we have an elaborate and extensive setup, not unlike what you describe, however our garage is reserved for other uses currently. We are an extreme case and should not be viewed as a guide. Unfortunately, I feel that JWR seriously overestimates the medical preparation of the general population. Instead of 98%, I would suggest 99.99% of the population is ill-prepared. The biggest asset in a trauma situation would be a couple of cases of heavy duty (I think they are called “heavy days”) feminine pads and some rolls of tape. IV supplies and the skills to administer it would make you invaluable. The “field surgical kit” would simply provide appropriately sized sharp scissors and tweezers/clamps for cleaning out the wound after you have administered the “Tincture of Time”. It is not something to carry while also hauling around an enormous ego. - NC Bluedog

Letter Re: EcoBeam Construction for Ballistic Protection

Hi Mr. Rawles,
I read your reply reharding "EcoBeam Construction for Ballistic Protection".

Three years ago, a friend of mine and I shot a concrete wall until we made a nice size hole in it. This was just to see how much small arms fire it could take. [We used handguns.] Here is a web page I made about it with photos.

Readers will get a idea what you meant about sand and and gravel being better at stopping small arms fire than even reinforced concrete.

Take care, - Wes

Odds ‘n Sods:

Eric mentioned that Rock Port, Missouri is the first US city to be 100% [net meter] wind-powered.

   o o o

Burma death toll worse than Tsunami. We may never have an exact count, but the previous estimate of 100,000 dead may have been a huge understatement. And to make maters worse:

UN halts aid to Myanmar after junta seizes supplies.

   o o o

I found an insightful article by Devvy Kidd linked over at the Bull (Not Bull) blog site: Do You Have a Plan?

   o o o

A reader in Iraq mentioned that US Marine Corps soldiers in fairly significant numbers are bending their field uniform regulations. They are wearing desert tan Nomex flight suits instead of their desert pattern utility uniforms. The reason? Worries about flash burns from IEDs. There have been some reports of their standard utility uniforms burning and causing some severe burns with complications. Since Nomex is highly flame resistant, it offers better protection from flash burns. The consensus seems to be: "I'd rather risk getting an Article 15 [non-judicial punishment for the uniform violation] than risk a long stay in the hospital."

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Remember the ancient saying: '[Si] vis pacem - para bellum' - if you want peace - be ready for the war. Within the whole history of our civilization, no one disproved it. So let the weapons be not the means of terror, but the way to defend peace, democracy and law. I wish you all health, success and fruitful work. With best wishes," - Mikhail Kalashnikov

What Islam Isn’t

Fiction meets reality in Egypt

Social networking sites expose Egyptian government’s inability to prevent its citizens from publicly demonstrating their dissatisfaction.
By Andrew Masloski - Washington, DC

Thirty four years ago, Egypt’s most celebrated author, Naguib Mahfouz, published his novella Karnak Café. Set in Egypt during the late 1960s, it tells the story of a group of young, idealistic students who become acutely aware of the gap between the ideals espoused by Nasser’s pan-Arab socialism and the realities of Egyptian daily life. The students are arrested and intimidated for calling attention to this gap, alternately accused of belonging to the Communist party or the Muslim Brotherhood.
(more…)

Islamic nations launch “Islamophobia Observatory”

Observe this, İhsanoğlu

If İhsanoğlu really wants to rectify Islam's image, he should start by rectifying things like this. But instead, he and the OIC continue to pretend that any concerns non-Muslims may have over an Islamic cleric proclaiming that "we will rule the world, as has been said by the Prophet Muhammad" are simply manifestations of "Islamophobia." That in itself reveals a great deal about the real agenda of İhsanoğlu and the OIC.

"OIC endeavoring to rectify Muslim image," from Today's Zaman, May 10 (thanks to Twostellas):

Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu has stated that a project called the Islamophobia Observatory has been launched in order to eliminate the worldwide waves of fear of Islam.

İhsanoğlu cited the commonsensical intellectual reaction of the Danish public following cartoons published in the country that were critical of Islam as one of the important successes of the project. "We presented a report on Islamophobia at the first summit we held with the CEOs and civil society organizations we are in touch with. It has sparked very positive reactions and spread across Europe in a short time. Publications have praised the initiative. We have seen both support of and opposition to the initiative, but [all in all] it has created very positive reactions," he said.

İhsanoğlu visited the Zaman Media Group on Thursday and briefed editors and columnists on OIC projects. Stating that the foremost target was to eradicate prejudice and fear of Islam, İhsanoğlu noted that there were groups in favor of the projects and also those disturbed by them. An OIC report on Islamophobia has seriously disconcerted Americans and Europeans, he said, adding: "The report has started to pay off. Let me give you an example: The cartoons published in Denmark and a short film, named 'Fitna' and released last month, if you look at the attitudes of the Danish prime minister, the media and civil society organizations, they are all very different from one another. So far, in these three-and-a-half years we have managed to get the UN General Assembly and Geneva make very important decisions. In the meantime the European group was left alone. We have gathered significant support from our own group in Asia, Africa and Latin America. A special rapporteur has been assigned [to track] the denigration and hatred campaigns against religions, and this person will write up reports on the issue."

He stressed that the OIC has not yet reached the place it set out for, but that it has covered a remarkable distance in comparison to previous years and that there were very positive changes between the scene in 2005 and today. "This is only the beginning. We still have a long way to go. But there is a foreign ministers' meeting in Kampala ahead of us. Things will be better then," he said.

Pointing out that there were some negative developments in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks with the influence of some lobbies, İhsanoğlu remarked that US officials were also endeavoring to eliminate these negativities.

Commenting on the visit, the secretary-general said: "The US is sending us a message at this point. 'We want to be on good terms with the OIC,' they implicitly say." İhsanoğlu also said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spoken with him to say that President Bush wanted to assign a special envoy to oversee US relations with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). A very accomplished US citizen of Pakistani origin has already been chosen for this role. "This person achieved a great many things during Bush's term as governor of Texas. Before the summit, he spoke with me. This shows that the entire world and the EU are closely interested in our organization. We have advanced since I took office," he said....

Lebanon: Army overrules gov’t decisions against Hizballah

"As for the telecommunications network, the army will look into the issue in a manner that is not harmful to the public interest or the security of the resistance [against Israel]."

A clear statement of priorities. Never mind that Iranian client state-within-a-state. "Lebanese army revokes government decisions against Hezbollah," from France 24:

The Lebanese army said on Saturday it had frozen measures taken by the government against the Shiite Hezbollah movement, and called for all armed militants to withdraw from the streets.

"The army command calls on all parties to (help restore calm) by ending armed protests and withdrawing gunmen from the streets and opening the roads," the military said in a statement.

It said that the head of airport security, who had been reassigned from his job, would remain in his post pending an investigation and that the army would look into a communications network set up by the militant group.

"The head of airport security, Brigadier General Wafiq Shqeir, will remain in his post until appropriate procedural measures have been taken after a probe," the statement said.

"As for the telecommunications network, the army will look into the issue in a manner that is not harmful to the public interest or the security of the resistance" against Israel, it said.

The military said it had taken these decisions in the light of a government wish that it rule on these matters. The army statement came shortly after Prime Minister Fuad Siniora made a televised address to the nation.

Tuesday's government decision to reassign Shqeir and launch a judicial probe into the communications network sparked bloody clashes that saw Hezbollah seize control of west Beirut.

UK: High-profile reformed jihadist arrested on suspicion of jihad activity

Now this is very interesting, and its implications are manifold. Was Hassan Butt's entire conversion to anti-jihadism an exercise in Muhammad's dictum "war is deceit"?

"Anti-terror police arrest Muslim author and former al-Qaida recruiter as he boards flight to Pakistan," from the Daily Mail, May 10 (thanks to Twostellas):

A muslim author who admits being a former al-Qaida recruiter was today being questioned by anti-terror police.

Hassan Butt, who penned a book on his terrorist past - was detained at Manchester Airport yesterday afternoon.

Mr Butt, 31, is understood to have arrived at Terminal 2 and bought a ticket to Lahore, Pakistan, 45 minutes before the Pakistan International Airlines flight was due to leave.

He is being questioned by Greater Manchester's regional counter terrorism unit. Since his arrest, police have searched his home in north Manchester and two other properties nearby and two cars were last night taken away for forensic examination.

Muslim author Hassan Butt, who renounced his radical past, was today being questioned by anti-terror police

A police spokesman said: "A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of terrorist activity and officers were involved in searching three addresses."

Mr Butt has renounced a past in which he admitted raising tens of thousands of pounds for terror networks. He has also spoken of his determination to work against extremism....

“Hizbullah has turned from an opposition party into a militia attempting to impose its control. I think Hizbullah believes that the way to Tel Aviv passes through Beirut”

More on Iran's attempt to create a client state in Lebanon to go along with its Iraqi Shi'ite client state and its friends in Syria. "Lebanese minister: Hizbullah believes way to Tel Aviv passes through Beirut," by Roee Nahmias for Israel National News (thanks to Sr. Soph):

"Iran is responsible for what is happening in Lebanon. The subject now is the Iranian attack on Lebanon. They want us to surrender totally without any compensation," Lebanese Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat said Friday during an interview with the Al-Arabiya television network Friday amid reports that Hizbullah gunmen seized control of large parts of Beirut.

"Hizbullah has turned from an opposition party into a militia attempting to impose its control. I think Hizbullah believes that the way to Tel Aviv passes through Beirut," he said.

Fatfat said Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had "taken advantage of the government's decision to outlaw the (Shiite) group's communications network in order to declare war."

According to the minister, regardless of whether a "Gaza-like" revolt occurs in Lebanon, "the government will remain legitimate."

"We do not want a civil war, and we've decided to confront them politically, not militarily," Fatfat said. "We do not have gunmen like they do."...

Well, good luck. The world should be standing with you.