News and Analysis (3/2/15)

Another case of government manufactured terrorism is added to the list:

• FBI Arrests 3 Brooklyn Men Suspected of Planning to Join ISIS (Huffington Post)
• Majlis AshShura (Islamic Leadership Council) of Metropolitan New York: Statement on Arrest in NYC of Three Suspects Charged with Support for Terrorism (Majilis ash-Shura)
• Why Does the FBI Have to Manufacture Its Own Plots if Terrorism and ISIS Are Such Grave Threats? (The Intercept)

“He smoked drugs, drank and was violent towards other boys. The fact he portrays himself as a strict Muslim is laughable and shameful. I never saw him pray or wear Islamic dress – he would not even mention religion at all…. [H]e is a total hypocrite” — a member the accused’s former gang …

•  Jihadi John ‘Smoked Drugs, Drank and Was NOT a Good Muslim’, Reveals Ex-school Friend (Express)

… “Emwazi’s transition from angry teen to militant was a series of missed opportunities. Then, years of conflict and frustration with the British security services pushed him to act on his radicalism and leave Britain to join IS”:

• How Can We Prevent the Next ‘Jihadi John’? (Christian Science Monitor)

“My tomatoes are Spanish, and so are the potatoes I sell. Please explain this to me! Do I need to sell pork to be a traditional Spanish business? Do I need to sell wine?” –  Nouari Benzawi, an Algerian immigrant who runs a kebab shop and halal grocery store:

• Spain’s Muslim Business Owners Feel Squeezed by New Zoning Proposals (NPR)

On the “same day another Egyptian court listed the [entire] Palestinian group Hamas [and not just it’s armed wing]  as a terrorist organisation”:

• Egypt Sentences Four Members of Banned Muslim Brotherhood to Death and 14 to Life in Prison Including Leader Mohamed Badie (Daily Mail)

“Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, could retain control of the country’s lawmaking process for the foreseeable future, after the supreme court ruled that a law governing upcoming elections was unconstitutional”:

• Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections Set to Be Delayed by New Legal Battle (Guardian)

“The weirdest question I got was if I’m showering with my hijab. And I’m just — no, I don’t shower with hijab, how should I do that? No one showers with their clothes on” — Danish Muslim Sarah al-Mousllie:

• A German Muslim Asks His Compatriots: ‘What Do You Want To Know?’ (NPR)

“The reality is people don’t abuse me just because I’m a woman or because my name is Mariam or because I’m Middle-Eastern. They abuse me because I have a scarf on my head and because I’m a Muslim”:

• I Will Not Be Silenced: Australian Muslim Fights Twitter ‘Troll Army’ (CNN)

“[T]he Saudi blogger who was sentenced to a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam, now faces being beheaded for renouncing the religion, his family have said” despite his already having been cleared of that charge …

• Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi Could Be Retried and Beheaded, Say His Family (Guardian)

… while a suspect arrested in 2013 “for threatening an imam who performed funeral prayers for an atheist blogger” and arrested Monday in the case of a Dhaka murder of an American blogger by “attackers wielding meat cleavers” had threatened to kill [the recent victim] in posts on Facebook”

• Bangladesh Arrests Suspect in Killing of American Blogger (AP / abc News)

The “campaign [is] aimed at driving them out of the mainly Sunni Muslim province of Salahuddin”:

• Iraq Army and Shi’ite Militias Launch Attacks North of Baghdad (Reuters)

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