Quote:Forgotten Islamist terror plot targeted Toronto

Published On Tue Aug 31 2010



John Goddard

Staff Reporter



Almost everybody has forgotten the first homegrown Islamic terrorist plot on Toronto.



In 1991, five black Muslim followers of the Pakistani movement Jamaat Al Fuqra stood accused of conspiring to simultaneously blow up two Toronto buildings in an attempt to kill 4,500 people.



At the time, the case appeared isolated. Only now can it be seen as part of a series of alleged and proven cases of homegrown Islamic terror in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa.



Two years before the first World Trade Center bombing and a decade before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Toronto was to become the original ground zero of Islamic terrorism in North America.





Glenn Neville Ford



The plot was to simultaneously blow up the India Centre cinema (capacity 500) on Gerrard St. E., and the Vishnu Hindu temple (capacity 4,000) in Richmond Hill during the Hindu Festival of Lights when the buildings were expected to be full.



“A cold-blooded conspiracy,” the trial judge called the attempt. “Your actions are despicable and represent a challenge to the very fabric of our society.”



The story begins with Glenn Neville Ford, a Trinidadian native and Muslim convert.



In the mid-1970s he immigrated to Toronto and by 1982 had founded a branch of the Jamaat Al Fuqra sect, led by Pakistani cleric Sheik Mubarik Ali Gilani.



Gilani was the man Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was to meet when he was kidnapped and killed in 2002. Pearl was trying to confirm an alleged connection between Al Fuqra and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.



“The mission of this Jamaat al-Fuqra (Army of the Poor) is to lead Muslims to their final victory over Communists, Zionists, Hindus (and) deviators,” Gilani wrote in a book seized by Toronto police, Mohammedan Revelations.



Ford twice travelled to Lahore, Pakistan, to study at Gilani’s International Quranic Open University, described by the FBI as a terror front. In 1991, Ford also followed Gilani’s call to establish a rural collective to insulate followers from Western culture.



With another Trinidad-born Torontonian, Max Lon Fongenie, Ford bought land near Algonquin Park at Combermere to start a settlement called Hasanville. Three dozen such compounds exist in North America.



Regular Hasanville visitors that summer included Tyrone Cole, Robert Wesley and Caba Jose Harris, all converts to Islam and all from Texas. There, police alleged, they hatched a plan.



On Oct. 3, 1991, in two cars, Ford and the Texans attempted to enter the United States at Niagara Falls.



U.S. border guards spotted a letter with the phrase “dying as a soldier of Allah.” They found floor plans of the cinema and temple.



They also found aerial photos, videotaped interiors, entry plans, bomb-making instructions and diagrams showing how to wrap explosives around natural gas lines to inflict maximum human carnage.



One document led police to a Brooklyn address and a cache of two rifles, seven handguns and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. The four travellers, police said, were heading to Brooklyn to pick up the weapons.



Eight men were accused. One was quickly dismissed. Fongenie escaped to Pakistan. A Brooklyn man pleaded guilty to weapons offences. Ford, the three Texans and another Toronto man, Khidr Ali, were sent to trial.



That trial was set to begin in April 1993, then postponed.



Barely a month had passed since the first World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured 1,042. An Al Fuqra connection to the New York attack was suspected — and later confirmed — leading to fears that the University Ave. courthouse might also be bombed.



Since 1982, Al Fuqra had been found responsible for 17 other criminal acts in the United States, including murders and fire bombings, an FBI agent would later testify.



The trial was switched to St. Catharines. Rooftop snipers, police barricades, metal detectors and search dogs secured the area. The five accused rode to court chained together at wrist and ankle in a seven-car police convoy.



“This is a very serious case,” said Toronto police Det. David Malcolm.



But the outcome proved anti-climactic. All five beat the main charge of conspiring to commit murder.



The three Texans — “members of a terrorist movement,” the judge called them — were convicted of conspiring to commit mischief endangering life. Each was sentenced to 12 years. In April 2006 they were freed and deported.



Both Torontonians were acquitted. Ford and Ali left to live in Hasanville and the entire episode slipped from public consciousness.



A 2006 report from Ottawa’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre deemed Al Fuqra not to be a terrorist threat in Canada. The U.S. government listed Al Fuqra as a terrorist organization in 1995 and delisted it in 2000 for lack of activity.



http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/855027--forgotten-islamist-terror-plot-targeted-toronto

Quote:Priest, two others killed in Arni temple

TNN, Sep 4, 2010, 05.14am IST



NAGPUR: The killing of an 80-year-old priest of ancient Mahadeo temple along with two activists of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad sparked tension at Arni in Yavatmal district on Friday.



VHP has called for Yavatmal district bandh on Saturday and supported the protesting townsmen`s decision to perform the last rites of the deceased only after the culprits are arrested. A group of men hanging around a nearby dargah who were into illegal sand business is suspected to be behind the attack in which three persons were killed and one was seriously injured.



Priest Ramoji Mirase, Bajrang Dal activist Rajesh Ingole (28) and VHP worker Motiram Shinde (55) were found dead in a pool of blood on the temple premises by devotees who went there around 8am.



Another Bajrang Dal activist Anil Umre (35) was seriously injured and rushed to government medical college and hospital for treatment here. VHP Vidarbha chief Hemant Jambhekar said that the miscreants had on earlier occasions threatened the priest with dire consequences. On Thursday evening they arrived in four tractors to ferry sand from the banks of Arunavati river where the temple is located. Hindu activists and the priest objected to it and summoned the police. The temple attack is seen as retaliation to it by the sand mafia.



The VHP has called for Yavatmal district bandh on Saturday to protest against police inaction leading to the murder, sources said. Local Shiv Sena leader and ex-MLA Balasaheb Munginwar joined the protests and demanded a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to each of the victims and a CID probe into the attack. BJP, Sena and MNS have supported the Saturday bandh.



Jambhekar said police complaints were made following threats received by the old priest, but no action was taken. On Thursday, the police arrived on the scene and caught over 20 men from a minority community ferrying sand but let them go away.



The VHP has dismissed the police version that miscreants had attacked the temple to steal a cash box, saying they were trying to cover up inaction.



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Priest-two-others-killed-in-Arni-temple/articleshow/6489602.cms#ixzz0ya3p80i5

Quote:http://ireport.cnn.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=489535&hpt=T1



They are asking for comments. As seen there, you don't really have to videotape yourself etc., just contribute factual input and let the web do the rest. I would not give my real name, given the nature of the opposition. The best one I saw so far, just provided a link to one of the opposition's websites and asked why the "Religion of Peace" isn't doing something about itself. Now that link will be viewed by thousands.



Likewise, links to news stories, say from India or elsewhere about the realities of the R-o-P might be useful to post, not least because those will be seen by more people. Like



http://newszone4u.blogspot.com/2010/07/kerala-professors-hand-cut-off-for.html



and

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/muslim_extremists_chop_off_han.html



and the fear-induced reaction to that:



http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/india-after-islamic-supremacists-chop-off-his-hand-college-fires-prof-for-test-question-about-muhamm.html



or numerous other examples, say of Saudi Customs officials stomping on copies of the Gita or Bible that passengers carry for their personal reading.

Quote:Dhimmis paid the jizya, Muslims paid zakat. The article you linked says this is irrelevant because it is wrong to charge a specific tax based on someone's religion, and they should all be paying zakat. Why not argue then that it is wrong to make Muslims pay zakat just because they are Muslims, and say we should ask them to pay jizya instead like everyone else? This is just an argument over semantics. In any case if the dhimmis were being made to pay zakat instead you could then say that they are having Muslim religious requirements forced on them

Quote:Curfew in Punjab town after rumours of Quran burning in US



Chandigarh, Sep 13: Curfew was imposed in Punjab's Malerkotla town today following communal tension in which the property of a church was set on fire by a mob enraged after rumours that the Quran has been burnt in the US.



Police officials in Malerkotla, about 150 km from here, said curfew would continue till tension subsides in the town.



Violence erupted late Sunday after a rumour spread that the Quran has been burnt in Michigan, US. Soon, a mob gathered and proceeded to the town's only church, shouting slogans against the US government. The mob then set furniture of the church on fire before the police intervened.



Situation in the town remained tense throughout the night and Punjab Police rushed reinforcements.



Police officials said the rumour about the desecration of the holy book started following the recent controversy in the US after a pastor in Florida threatened to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. (IANS)



http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/state-news/punjab/curfew-in-punjab-town-after-rumours-of-quran-burning-in-us-63091.html

Quote:Anti-Apostasy Law by the State of Bhopal, 1920



Copy of ‘Jaridah’ dated 7th July 1920, of Resolution No. 17, dated 5th July 1920:



Her Highness the Ruler of Bhopal has been pleased to order that, in pursuance of section 300 of the Shahjehani Penal Code, Rule No. 1, 1912, that is in the Compiled Penal Code of Bhopal, section 393, after section 393 A, the following be added, which after the date of publication will be in force and enforced:



Section 393A: Any person renouncing his faith after once embracing Islam shall be liable to be sentenced to punishment of either description extending to three years’ imprisonment or to fine, or both.



This order is published for general information and observance.



By Orders of Her Highness Sikander Saulat, Iftikhar ul-Mulk, Nawab Dame Sultan Kaikhusrau Jahan Begum Sahiba, Nawab Begum of Dar ul-Iqbal-i-Bhopal, GCSI, GCIE, CI, GBE, KIH.



The above order was issued by the Begum Sahiba in immediate reaction to the success of Shuddhi movement of Arya Samaj.



In the same year when Begum Sahiba signed the above order, she was also appointed the Founding Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, in recognition of the financial and other contributions to its founding by her state, and she remained in the honorary post till her death in 1930. These days, she is paraded by seculars as a modernist Moslem woman of her time, and an icon of Progressivism. All her principal relatives migrated to Pakistan after partition, except for one grand-daughter who was married to the Nawab of Pataudi, and gave birth to Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi.



http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/anti-apostacy-law-by-the-state-of-bhopal-1920/

Quote:Trinidad and Tobago: Captain, the Ship Is Sinking

By Guy D. Garcia;Bernard Diederich/Port-of-Spain (Article appears on page 25 in some issues) Monday, Aug. 13, 1990



Trinidadians traditionally express their political feelings in satirical calypso songs. Prime Minister A.N.R. Robinson won a landslide four years ago to the tune of Captain, the Ship Is Sinking, a telling commentary on the island nation's economic decline. But the conservative Robinson almost lost the helm himself last week, when a group of fanatic black Muslims took him and 54 others hostage in an attempt to bring down the government.



After five days, at least 30 dead and 150 wounded, Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the abortive coup, emerged from the television-broadcast building in Port-of- Spain and laid down his rifle. "Allah is the greatest," he said, then stood in the pouring rain as 70 of his followers added their arms to the growing pile of weapons and were taken into custody by Trinidadian soldiers. The rebels are expected to face criminal charges of treason, murder and kidnapping, and could be hanged if found guilty.



Thus ended a bizarre chapter in the history of peaceful, democratic politics in the English-speaking Caribbean, where coups are virtually unknown -- only in Grenada has an elected leadership been successfully overthrown, by Maurice Bishop in 1979. "As far as the government is concerned, it's unconditional surrender," said spokesman Gregory Shaw. But the incident was a chilling illustration of how easily Trinidad's economic straits could be exploited by desperate men like Bakr.



The seeds of the crisis were planted eight years ago after a former policeman named Lennox Phillip went to Canada to study engineering and returned to Trinidad as Yasin Abu Bakr, an ardent Islamic radical. Bakr soon became the leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen, or Group of Muslims. The Islamic splinter group, with few ties to the mainstream Muslims who make up 6% of the Trinidad and Tobago population of 1.3 million, espoused a potent mixture of religious fundamentalism and left-wing politics. The self-styled "Imam" traveled to Libya and was a vocal supporter of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, but the main interest of his armed band of militants, he said, was to rid Trinidad of drugs, corruption and poverty. He lived with most of his 300 adherents on a commune on the edge of Port-of-Spain, where he commandeered government land to build a mosque, schools and shops. In recent weeks he was said to have become increasingly upset at official attempts to reclaim the land and at Robinson's failure to address the needs of the poor.



Bakr's anger turned to action on the evening of July 27, when he and more than 70 of his men stormed the Trinidad and Tobago TV studios, a mile from their mosque. At the same time, a powerful car bomb gutted the downtown police headquarters, and another group of gunmen seized the parliament building, taking Robinson and seven Cabinet ministers hostage. At 6:18 p.m., Bakr appeared on state-owned TV and announced that his "troops" had overthrown the government. Later he demanded that Robinson resign, new elections be held and an amnesty be granted to his rebel band.



As the shock of the news sank in, Trinidadians went on a weekend looting spree that left Port-of-Spain's main shopping street a shambles. But the popular uprising that Bakr had counted on never came, and he and his men soon found themselves surrounded by troops and without food. On the fifth day Bakr agreed to release Robinson, 63, who had been shot in the leg and suffers from diabetes and glaucoma. Next day Bakr and his men freed the remaining hostages and gave themselves up.



The government had to use a bit of diplomatic sleight of hand to resolve the standoff. Spokesman Shaw admitted that Robinson had agreed to Bakr's terms, but stressed that the Prime Minister had endorsed the demands under extreme duress, making them nonbinding. "Tricked, double-crossed, whatever you want to call it. It is foolish to quibble with ethics when you are dealing with situations of this kind," said Shaw. "Why not promise them the moon and the stars?"



While the audacious putsch introduced a new and disquieting dimension of Muslim extremism to the Caribbean, Jamaat al-Muslimeen remains a fringe group. Still, leaders attending last week's annual Caribbean Community meeting in Jamaica were haunted by the specter of Middle East-style Muslim uprisings.



Far more ominous, perhaps, were the economic implications of the widespread looting that broke out. The violence resulted in the worst damage seen since the Black Power riots in 1970, when half the army rebelled in support of hundreds of discontented young blacks who took to the streets of Port-of- Spain. Poor Trinidadians were signaling their growing impatience with a life of deepening poverty and an unemployment rate that has exceeded 20% since the collapse of the 1980s oil boom. Robinson has seen his standing eroded by such unpopular International Monetary Fund-dictated measures as a 10% pay cut and a new 15% value-added tax, and by his decision to spend $125,000 on a statue of a deceased civil servant. "It is a message and a lesson for the government," said one Port-of-Spain truck driver, adding "There are too many unemployed, and they don't understand all that complicated economic stuff that's strangling them." If that doesn't change soon, the people may soon be singing Bye, Bye, Mr. Prime Minister.



http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,970902-2,00.html#ixzz107oFINa7

Quote:Dear Mr. Kataria,



In attachment, my reply to the Hindu Kush denier. Feel free to spread or publish it, and likewise to the media editors in cc.



One defect is that i cannot cite the denier's publication data. I haven't found him through google. It would be helpful if you could give me an exact reference.



Thanks,



KE



The meaning of Hindu Kush



Hindu Kush is the name of a mountain range in Afghanistan, one that you have to cross or somehow bypass when going from Central Asia to India. It is commonly said that the name means “Hindu-slaughter”, since the straightforward dictionary meaning of kush is “killing, slaughter”. That is what I learned in my first year in Indology from the elderly professor Pierre Eggermont. Now, an Indian self-described secularist challenges this received wisdom, so let us find out the truth at the source.

A certain Rajesh Sinha has addressed Hindu forums with the following claims: “Right-wing Hindus invented baseless stories and fabricated history in order to sow seeds of hatred and enmity between the Hindus and the Muslims. One of their latest fabrication is the ‘Hindu-Killers – Hindu Kush’ myth. They hijacked the word and attributed a different meaning to feed their extreme nationalist ideology and incite the ignorant Hindus. Shrinandan Vyas published a dubious articled based on fabricated references arguing that the Muslims committed genocide against the Hindu population. Obviously this is far from the truth and Insha’Allah (God-Willing), I will dispel this myth since it is a great hindrance to many Hindus to discover the true history of Islam. (…) Shrinandan Vyas deliberately supplied fabricated references to credible sources to strengthen his argument that the ‘Hindu-Kush’ really stands for ‘Hindu-Killers’ (…): ‘All standard reference books agree that the name Hindu Kush of the mountain range in Eastern Afghanistan means 'Hindu Slaughter' or 'Hindu Killer'.’”

Since an Indology professor unconcerned with the Hindu-Muslim conflict told me the same in tempore non suspecto, it is plausible enough that standards reference books would do likewise: “Most of his references (fabricated) are from Encyclopaedia Britannica. He writes that the Encyclopaedia Britannica states: 'The name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, who said the name meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers who are traditional enemies of Indian plainsmen (i.e. Hindus).’ This statement is nowhere to be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica nor in Ibn Battutah's writings.”

Note that the statement obscures the specifically Islamic angle and attributes the expression to the “traditional” enmity of the “Afghan mountain dwellers” for the “Indian plainsmen”. This sparing of Islam would be typical of contemporary reference works. If a Hindutva hothead had invented the quotation, he would not have missed the opportunity to make it accuse Islam somehow, quod non. Not having a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica handy, we will nonetheless be able to show that the quotations is very probably authentic, simply because it is truthful and its reference to Ibn Battuta is easy to find and to verify. If a quality reference work like the EB speaks out on the topic Hindu Kush, we may expect it to cite the proper sources, and that is what it does in Shrinandan Vyas’s citation.

At any rate, we are in a position to cut out the middle-men, both the EB and Mr. Vyas, and go straight to the original.

According to Rajesh Sinha, “Ibn Battutah (full name, Abu 'abd Allah Muhammad Ibn 'abd Allah Al-lawati At-tanji Ibn Battutah ) was a medieval Arab traveller and the author of one of the most famous travel books. He never alleged that the name Hindu Kush means ‘Hindu Killer’ or ‘Slaughter’ but rather, he affirmed that it means ‘Mountains of India’.”

In fact, “Mountain of India” translates a similar-sounding expression, Hindu Koh. Hindu is the Persian equivalent of Sindhu, and originally meant “India”, or “Indian”. Koh is the Persian word for “mountain”, as in the name of the famous diamond Koh-i-Nûr, “mountain of light”. It is entirely likely that the name Hindu Kush came about as a sarcastic twist on the older name Hindu Koh, viz. on the occasion of an actual mass-killing.

According to Sinha, the EB states: “The name Hindu Kush derives from the Arabic for ‘Mountains of India’.” That is unlikely. Would the learned EB make such a mistake? Kush does not mean “mountain”, and the word that does, Koh, is not Arabic but Persian, as is the word Hindu. Perhaps Sinha’s allegations of “fabrication” are a projection of his very own conduct?

Here is his nod to the true story behind the term: “I will still have to clarify the meaning of ‘Hindu Kush’ for the sake of argumentation. Britannica Encyclopaedia states: In the Pashto language of Afghanistan, it is called ‘Hindu Koh’ which means ‘Mount India’.” Pashto is an Iranian language close to Persian, and in both, Hindu Koh does indeed mean “Indian Mountain”; but not Hindu Kush.

Sinha continues: “Furthermore, the name Hindu Kush did not first appear in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah but appeared on a map published circa AD 1000. Britannica Encyclopaedia states: Its earliest known usage occurs on a map published about AD 1000.” But does this refer to the original name Hindu Koh, or to Hindu Kush? Sinha is not good at discerning between the two. At any rate, nobody claims that the term was invented by Ibn Battuta, only that he used it. There were already mass slave transports in 1000 AD, when Mahmud Ghaznavi raided India. And note that the population from which slaves were taken, was not defined as “Indian plainsmen” but as Indian non-Muslims.

So let us finally bypass all the querulous claims by our zealous secularist and see for ourselves what Ibn Battuta himself says. In the bilingual Arabic-French edition Voyages d’Ibn Battûta, texte arabe accompagné d’une introduction, by C. Defremenery and Dr. B.R. Sanguinetti (1854, reprint by Editions Anthropos, Paris), on p.84, we find the Moroccan traveller’s account: “Another motive for our journey was fear of the snow, for in the middle of this route there is a mountain called Hindû Kûsh, meaning ‘Hindu-killer’, because many of the male and female slaves transported from India die in these mountains because of the violent cold and the quantity of snow.”

So there you have it. Yes, Ibn Battuta testifies that Hindu Kush means “Hindu-killer”, and he records it as an already existing name. He also testifies that the name was occasioned by a Muslim mistreatment of Hindus, viz. their massive abduction as slaves to Central Asia. In his account, the name does not refer to one particular incident of slaughter, but to the frequent phenomenon of caravans of Hindu slaves crossing the mountains range and losing part of their cargo to the frost. So, Rajesh Sinha, well on his way to becoming an “eminent historian”, is wrong. I don’t know whether he is deluded or deliberately lying, both are ailments common among his tribe.

While we are at it, we may lay to rest another misconception concerning the name Hindu Kush. It is sometimes claimed that the term refers to the occasion when the Uzbek invader Timur transported a mass of Hindu slaves and a hundred thousand of them died in one unexpectedly cold night on this mountain. This is a case of confusion with another incident, where indeed a hundred thousand Hindus died (were killed) in one night by Timur’s hand. That was in 1399, when Timur, fearing an uprising of his Hindu prisoners to coincide with the battle he was planning for the next days, ordered his men to kill all their Hindu slaves immediately, totaling a hundred thousand killed that very night.

Ibn Battuta lived a few generations earlier, and he mentions “Hindu Kush” as an already well-established usage. In his understanding, the reference was not to one spectacular occasion of slaughter, nor of mass death by frost, but of a recurring phenomenon of slaves on transport dying there. The number of casualties would not amount to a hundred thousand in a single night, but over centuries of Hindu slave transports by Muslim conquerors, the death toll must have totaled a far greater number.