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“Indian Muslims say they do not want the gunmen killed by the security forces during the attacks in Mumbai to be buried in Muslim graveyards.

Community leaders believe the militants cannot be called Muslims because they went against the teachings of Islam and killed innocent civilians.

One leader said the militants had “defamed” the religion.

Nine militants died when they stormed targets in India’s financial capital, killing at least 172 people.

In what is perhaps their first openly defiant act against “Islamic terrorism”, Muslims in India have decided they will not allow the militants to be buried in Muslim graveyards anywhere in the country.

They said that they could not believe that the assailants, who they said had “killed innocent civilians unprovoked”, were true followers of Islam.

Ibrahim Tai, the president of the Indian Muslim Council, which looks after the social and religious affairs of the Muslim community in India, said that they had “defamed” his religion.

“They are not Muslims as they have not followed our religion which teaches us to live in peace.

“If the government does not respect our demands we will take up extreme steps. We do not want the bodies of people who have committed an act of terrorism to be buried in our cemeteries.

“These terrorists are a black spot on our religion, we will very sternly protest the burial of these terrorists in our cemetery,” he said.

Other Muslim groups have written to their local assembly representatives to say that if the authorities force the militants to be buried in a Muslim graveyard, they too will come out on the streets in protest.

The council move found some support in Mumbai.

One Muslim housewife, Ruksana Sayeed, said: “We Muslims do not even kill an ant, our religion does not teach all this, we are against all these terrorists and I completely agree with the Muslim Council’s argument.”

However, Naseem Ahmed, a Muslim worker in the city, said the council was wrong.

“They are Muslims and they can be buried even if they have done something wrong. Our religion does not say that those who have done evil can’t be buried in a cemetery,” he said.

The gunmen held dozens of people hostage in two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre for over 60 hours before they were killed by commandos.

India is believed to have the world’s largest Muslim population after Indonesia.”

“Saudis and foreigners crowded into a gallery at the French Embassy, checking out the paintings and sculptures of seven Saudi women artists, the latest opening in a growing art scene in the conservative kingdom.

One artist took advantage of the venue to hang an abstract painting of a woman, with one breast clearly depicted — a hint of nudity still taboo outside the diplomatic confines of the embassy, where Saudi Arabia’s religious police cannot enter.

The Wednesday night showing in a small hall was packed with expatriates and, more significantly Saudis, whose presence was a reflection of the surge of interest in the arts in the kingdom in the past few years. Local arts shows have been on the rise, more Saudi artists are participating in overseas exhibits, and more universities and schools are offering arts degrees.

The first non-governmental arts society was established a year ago, with four women on its 10-member board. Saudis have become more accepting of abstract art, which, only a few years ago, was the subject of ridicule. And in many Arab cities, Saudi collectors are snapping up works by local artists, some of whom get special orders from their rich clients.

In a sign of the government’s attempts to support the arts, the Foreign Ministry and the tourism board held a kingdom-wide competition last year for the best works of art. Those chosen will be displayed in the kingdom’s embassies.

The change is dramatic from a few years ago.

In 2001, when one of the artists in Wednesday’s show, Manal al-Harbi, enrolled for her masters in sculpture, she was the only student in the only university that gave a degree in that major. The specialty was frowned upon by many because of a prevalent view that the depiction of human form violates Islamic law and that sculptures look like idols.

“They would bring me teachers from Egypt,” recalled al-Harbi, whose sculptures depict Arabic calligraphy, not humans.

Despite the progress, there still are limitations in this conservative country, where men and women are strictly segregated. Artists say they keep works that depict nudity away from public shows and if they display them at all, it’s only at embassies.

At the French Embassy, abstract paintings in bold yellows, reds and greens adorned the walls. Sculptures made of rocks from various areas in the kingdom rested on one stand.

On one table stood the work of artist Eman Jibreen, expressing the dichotomy between a Saudi woman’s public appearance and her inner self. A series of tall boxes were painted on the exterior with images of Saudi women swathed in the mandatory black cloak. Inside each box were pictures of Albert Einstein, a child, a kitchen — an expression of each woman’s individuality that is masked by the cloaks.

A nearby caption read:

“We may look the same to you

“A scarf and a featureless black blob. …

“But it is just a cover over our heads. Our faces maybe.

“But it has never been a cover for our brains.”

Jibreen’s uncle, Abdul-Rahman Jibreen, said he was overjoyed to see his niece’s work displayed in public.

But he said he wished Jibreen, who did not attend the function because of another commitment, lived in “an environment that appreciates art more than here.”

“In a place like Italy, France or England, she would’ve done miracles because she would’ve been exposed to more museums, art and other artists,” he said.”

An Indian based in Saudi Arabia might have financed the attacks in Mumbai, India, NDTV reported Nov. 27. Some of the militants involved could have been British citizens of Pakistani origin, according to NDTV.

“When faced with a volley of gunshots, while sipping coffee at the Oberoi Hotel on Wednesday night, Ali Arpaciouglu, a Turkish citizen on a business trip to Mumbai, chose to escape through the hotel kitchen and down a flight of stairs that opened onto the road outside.

This was probably one of the best decisions he took. On the other hand, his business partner, Meltem Muezzinoglu, and her husband, Seyfi, both Turks, when faced with the same situation, decided to dash out of the restaurant and head upstairs instead. When terrorists laid siege to the hotel, the Muezzinoglus were held hostage.

“I was in the Indian restaurant at the Oberoi on Wednesday night, when we heard a couple of gunshots. This was followed by another round of shots,” said Arpaciouglu. Diners ducked under their seats in panic. “One of the hotel staff, a lady whose hand had been wounded in the firing, led a group of us to safety. Though she was bleeding, she took charge of the situation, and led us out of the restaurant, to safety.”

The Muezzinoglus, however, found themselves in a hostage situation, along with a group of foreigners. That night, they shared a room with three foreigners - all women. Two machine-gun-wielding terrorists stood guard over them the whole night.

All the hostages were asked to reveal their religion. When the Muezzinoglus said they were Muslims, their captors told them that they would not be harmed. The other three Caucasian women were removed from the room next day, and the terrorists informed the Muezzinoglus that they had been shot.

Arpaciouglu kept in touch with his friends all through the hostage crisis, up until the time they were released the next day. While the hostages allowed the couple to make one phone call to Arpaciouglu at 3am, for the rest of the day, they relied on text messages. The couples’ final messages read: `Soldiers are here now. Soldiers found us’.

Arpaciouglu said, “I hope I’ll never have to relive this experience.”

“An Islamic civil rights group in America has condemned the “senseless and inexcusable” terror attacks in Mumbai, while asking the Indian government to protect its citizens from possible retaliatory violence.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group for Muslims, said the “cowardly attacks” were “senseless and inexcusable acts of violence against innocent civilians”.

“American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens of all faith in repudiating acts of terror wherever they take place and whomever they target,” CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said.

The Washington-based group, in a statement also asked the Indian government to protect its citizens from any retaliatory attacks that might take place following the incident.

Meanwhile, the Kashmiri American Council (KAC) expressed its “utter disgust” at the terrorist attacks.

Condemning the “bestiality in the strongest terms,” the KAC pledged to contribute, in whatever possible, to the rehabilitation effort of the affected families.

Executive Director of KAC, Ghulam Nabi Fai, asked the authorities to pursue, investigate, apprehend, and punish those who are guilty of committing these “reprehensible crimes against humanity.”

“They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.

But the members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.

The band’s first single, “Pinocchio,” has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group’s MySpace page. Now, the pioneering foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs — inside private compounds, of course — and recording an album.

“In Saudi, yes, it’s a challenge,” said the group’s lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) “Maybe we’re crazy. But we wanted to do something different.”

In a country where women are not allowed to drive and rarely appear in public without their faces covered, the band is very different. The prospect of female rockers clutching guitars and belting out angry lyrics about a failed relationship — the theme of “Pinocchio” — would once have been unimaginable here.

But this country’s harsh code of public morals has slowly thawed, especially in Jidda, by far the kingdom’s most cosmopolitan city. A decade ago the cane-wielding religious police terrorized women who were not dressed according to their standards. Young men with long hair were sometimes bundled off to police stations to have their heads shaved, or worse.

Today, there is a growing rock scene with dozens of bands, some of them even selling tickets to their performances. Hip-hop is also popular. The religious police — strictly speaking, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — have largely retreated from the streets of Jidda and are somewhat less aggressive even in the kingdom’s desert heartland.

The change has been especially noticeable since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Saudis confronted the effects of extremism both outside and inside the kingdom. More than 60 percent of Saudi Arabia’s population is under 25, and many of the young are pressing for greater freedoms.

“The upcoming generation is different from the one before,” said Dina, the Accolade’s 21-year-old guitarist and founder. “Everything is changing. Maybe in 10 years it’s going to be O.K. to have a band with live performances.”

Dina said she first dreamed of starting a band three years ago. In September, she and her sister Dareen, 19, who plays bass, teamed up with Lamia and Amjad, the keyboardist.

They were already iconoclasts: Dina and Dareen wear their hair teased into thick manes and have pierced eyebrows. During an interview at a Starbucks here, they wore black abayas — the flowing gown that is standard attire for women — but the gowns were open, showing their jeans and T-shirts, and their hair and faces were uncovered. Women are more apt to go uncovered in Jidda than in most other parts of the country, though it is still uncommon.

“People always stare at us,” Dareen said, giggling. She and her sister are also avid ice skaters, another unusual habit in Saudi Arabia’s desert.

The band gets together to practice every weekend at the sisters’ house, where their younger brother sometimes fills in on drums. In early November, Dina, who studies art at King Abdulaziz University, began writing a song based on one of her favorite paintings, “The Accolade,” by the English pre-Raphaelite painter Edmund Blair Leighton. The painting depicts a long-haired noblewoman knighting a young warrior with a sword.

“I liked the painting because it shows a woman who is satisfied with a man,” Dina said.

She had thought of writing a song based on “Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci but decided that doing so would be taking controversy too far. In Saudi Arabia, churches are not allowed, and Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed.

Dina held out her cellphone to show a video of the band practicing at home. It looked like a garage-band jam session anywhere in the world, with the sisters hunching over their instruments, their brother blasting away at the drums and Lamia clutching a microphone.

“We’re looking for a drummer,” Lamia said. “Five guys have offered, but we really want the band to be all female.”

Although they know they are doing something unusual, in person the band members seem more playful than provocative. Unlike some of the wealthier Saudi youth who have lived abroad and tasted Western life, they are middle class and have never left their country.

“What we’re doing — it’s not something wrong, it’s art, and we’re doing it in a good way,” Dina said. “We respect our traditions.”

All the members are quick to add that they disapprove of smoking, drinking and drugs.

“You destroy yourself with that,” Lamia said.

Yet rock and roll itself is suspect in Saudi Arabia in part because of its association with decadent lifestyles. Most of the bands here play heavy metal, which has only added to the stigma because of the way some Western heavy metal bands use images linked to satanism or witchcraft. In Saudi Arabia, people are sometimes imprisoned and even executed on charges of practicing witchcraft.

The first rock bands appeared here about 20 years ago, according to Hassan Hatrash, 34, a journalist and bass player who was one of the pioneers, and their numbers gradually grew. Then in 1995, the police raided a performance in the basement of a restaurant in Jidda, hauling about 300 young men off to jail, including Mr. Hatrash. They were released a few days later without being charged. There is no actual law against playing rock music or performing publicly.

“After that, the scene kind of died,” he said.

Mr. Hatrash, who has graying shoulder-length hair, recalled how the religious police used to harass young men who advertised their interest in rock and roll. He once had his head was shaved by the police.

In recent years, with the religious police on the defensive, bands have begun to play concerts, and a few have recorded albums. Occasionally young men bring their guitars and play outside the cafes on Tahlia Street in Jidda, where young people tend to congregate in the evenings.

Although the music is mostly familiar to heavy metal fans anywhere — thrashing guitars and howling vocals — some of the lyrics reflect the special challenges of life and love in this puritanical country.

“And I Don’t Know Why,” a song by Mr. Hatrash’s band, Most of Us, has these lyrics:

Why is it always so hard to get to you

When it’s something we both want to do

Every time we have to create an alibi

So that we can meet and love or at least try…

As the Saudi rock scene grew, Dina gathered the courage to start her own band. It plans to move slowly, she said, with “jams for ladies only” at first. The band members’ parents support them, though they have asked them to keep things low-key. Eventually, Dina said, they hope to play real concerts, perhaps in Dubai.

“It’s important for them to see what we’re capable of,” she said.”

“After searching for a year for a fitness routine compatible with her Islamic faith, Fatima Ismael, a 32-year-old British mother of three discovered Rakha, a new yoga-like workout that incorporates Islamic chants rather than Hindu mantras.

The new Islam-inspired total body fitness routine, designed by a British convert, may be the yoga alternative Muslims are searching for following a fatwa, or religious ruling, by a Malaysian sheikh denouncing yoga as un-Islamic …

“I feel much better on the whole, spiritually and physically. My body’s stamina improved and I am certainly more patient with my children,” Ismael said laughing.

Rakha was created by Anthea Kissoon, a British convert to Islam and fitness expert, who spent the past 12 years educating Muslims about the importance of health and fitness and will launch a Rakha training center early next year.

“Rakha fuses the benefits of breathing and stretching techniques of yoga and the slow movement of tai chi, while incorporating elements of Islamic prayer to achieve a holistic Islamic experience,” Kissoon told AlArabiya.net.

Rakha movements are based on the positions of the five daily Islamic prayers, which requires movement of all parts of the body in an easy to follow, relaxing way.

“People don’t realize how meditative the Muslim daily prayer can be, and how the bodily movements the Prophet taught make for a natural exercise that revitalizes the body,” she explained.

Maintaining a healthy and fit body is a requirement in Islam, which teaches a Muslim that his or her body is a gift from Allah, according to Sheikh Fawzi Zifzaf of al-Azhar University.

“Following that is being accountable for one’s body in terms of remaining healthy. This is why there is bodily benefit in Islamic prayer, which incorporates body movement,” he told AlArabiya.net.

Kissoon’s new fitness regime may be a saving grace to yoga lovers as it comes at a critical juncture following issued Saturday a fatwa by the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia forbidding yoga.

Abdul Shukor Husin, chair of the council forbid Muslims from doing yoga because the recitation of mantras, “erode the Muslim faith in the religion” since they encourage a union with God considered blasphemous in Islam, he said.

While yoga enthusiasts and some Muslim leaders have contested the fatwa, for Kissoon it “highlighted the fissure between the spiritual state and the physical state of the Muslim yoga lover.”

Hamid Sakawi, another Rakha trainer who teaches alongside Kissoon, agreed.

“Advanced levels of yoga necessitate higher states of being and awareness. Those higher states are taught through mantras that condition the human mind and infuse it with a particular philosophy which does not always line up with Islam,” he said.

However, one Yoga trainer in Cairo, Walid Sabry, noted that aligning the spiritual and physical should not present dilemma for Muslim yoga devotees.

“Yoga is an exercise that aims to achieve total wellbeing. Its religious aspects can easily be avoided if the person wishes to refrain from them,” he told AlArabiya.net.

But others welcome the new exercise for both its physical and spiritual components.

“Establishing a new technique that suits Muslims is the best decision because it resolves the spiritual challenges yoga puts on Muslims who follow it seriously,” said Salma Cook, a Muslim woman who trained with Kissoon and now resides in Cairo.

“People follow yoga without having enough knowledge and so they get caught up in chants and meditations,” she told AlArabiya.net.

Developing an Islam-compliant fitness routine was not all fun and games, Kissoon said as she recalled the frustrations of promoting Rakha.

Campaigning for the yoga alternative took six years of hard work and persistence to make it a reality, said Kissoon, adding that she met with resistance from some members of the British Muslim community.

“Some in the Muslim the community said I was leading Muslims astray, others warned that they would shut down my school if I went ahead and opened one,” she recalled.

Yet the demand for an Islamic alternative to yoga was greater than the resistance and Kissoon said she found tremendous interest from young and old Muslim men and women eager to improve their lives through exercise and meditation.

Rakha is a professionally certified fitness therapy under the Complementary Medicine Association (CMA), the largest organization in the world offering alternative health and therapy.

“Such a step was important in order to begin training professionally,” said Kissoon who will begin offering Rakha courses at her new London-based center Natural Health, Nature’s Finest in addition to private training sessions and workshops.

Rakha courses at the center begin in January 2009 in the U.K. and are open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

“Making this happen is a miracle,” she said.”

“Members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family spent enough during a visit to the Mayo Clinic to give the area’s economy a shot in the arm, according to Rochester, Minnesota, officials.

Rochester officials say Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz arrived on November 15 for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic and was accompanied by at least five princes and hundreds of others.

The king left Wednesday, but some members of his group remain in Rochester.

Rochester Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Brad Jones says a conservative estimate of the royal family’s spending on the trip to Mayo Clinic is up to $1.5 million.

Officials say that should offset the area’s economic woes. Jones calls that a “great shot in the arm.” 

“Malaysia’s top Islamic body fresh from banning tomboys issued an edict Saturday that prohibits Muslims from practicing yoga, saying that elements of Hinduism in the ancient Indian exercise could corrupt them.

The National Fatwa Council’s chairman, Abdul Shukor Husin, said many Muslims fail to understand that yoga’s ultimate aim is to be one with a god of a different religion — an explanation disputed by many practitioners who say yoga need not have a religious element.

“We are of the view that yoga, which originates from Hinduism, combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to be one with god,” Abdul Shukor said.

News of the yoga ban prompted activist Marina Mahathir to wonder what the council will ban next: “What next? Gyms? Most gyms have men and women together. Will that not be allowed any more?”

The edict reflects the growing influence of conservative Islam in Malaysia, a multiethnic country of 27 million people where the majority Muslim Malays lost seats in March elections and where minority ethnic Chinese and mostly Hindu ethnic Indians have been clamoring for more rights.

Recently, the council said girls who act like boys violate Islam’s tenets. The government has also occasionally made similar conservative moves, banning the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims earlier this year, saying it would confuse Muslims.

Analysts say the fatwa could be the result of insecurity among Malay Muslims after their party — in power since 1957 — saw its parliamentary majority greatly reduced in elections because of gains by multiracialopposition parties.

Malay Muslims make up about two-thirds of the country’s 27 million people. About 25 percent of the population is ethnic Chinese and 8 percent is ethnic Indian, most of whom are Hindu.

“They are making a stand. They are saying ‘we will not give way,’” said Ooi Kee Beng, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Decisions by Malaysia’s Fatwa Council are not legally binding on the country’s Muslims, however, unless they also become enshrined in national or Shariah laws. But many Muslims abide by the edicts out of deference, but some, like Putri Rahim, plan not to follow the latest fatwa.

“I am mad! Maybe they have it in mind that Islam is under threat. To come out with a fatwa is an insult to intelligent Muslims. It’s an insult to my belief,” said Putri, a Muslim who has practiced yoga for 10 years.

In recent years, yoga — a collection of spiritual and physical practices, aimed at integrating mind, body and spirit — has been increasingly practiced in gyms and dedicated yoga centers around the world.

There are no figures for how many Muslims practice yoga in Malaysia, but many yoga classes have Muslims attending.

In the United States, where it has become so popular that many public schools began offering it in gym classes, yoga has also come under fire.

Some Christian fundamentalists and even secular parents have argued that yoga’s Hindu roots conflict withChristian teachings and that using it in school might violate the separation of church and state. Egypt’s highest theological body also banned yoga for Muslims in 2004.

Yoga drew the attention of the Fatwa Council last month when an Islamic scholar said that it was un-Islamic.

A top yoga practitioner in India, Mani Chaitanya, said the Malaysian clerics seem to have “misunderstood the whole thing.” Chanting during yoga is to calm the mind and “elevate our consciousness,” said Chaitanya, the director of the Sivananda Ashram in New Delhi.

“It is not worship. It’s not religious at all. Yoga is universal. All religions can practice yoga. You can practice yoga and still be a good Christian or a good Muslim,” he said.

Malaysian yoga teacher Suleiha Merican, 56, who has been practicing yoga for 40 years, also denied there is any Hindu spiritual element to it. “It’s a great health science that is scientifically proven and many countries have accepted it” as alternative therapy, said Merican, a Muslim.”

“Call him Mikaeel? Pop star Michael Jackson has reportedly converted to Islam.

Michael Jackson has reportedly converted to Islam and changed his name to Mikaeel after one of Allah’s angels.

Jackson, 50, who was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, was encouraged to convert by his friends Canadian songwriter David Wharnsby and producer Phillilp Bubal.

His brother Jermaine Friday, who is Muslim, has also spoken out about Jackson’s interest in the religion.

The king of pop pledged allegiance to the Koran in a Shahada ceremony (the Muslim declaration of belief) presided over by an Imam in the Los Angeles home of musician Steve Porcaro, the UK’s The Sun is reporting.

“[Wharnsby and Bubal] began talking to [Jackson] about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea,” a source told the Sun. Cat Stevens, who famously converted to Islam and now goes by Yousef Islam, was on hand to celebrate Jacko’s conversion.

Jackson is currently facing a $7 million lawsuit brought by Bahraini Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa who is demanding repayment of advances.”

“Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world’s biggest hijack, a local elder said.

Separately, police in the capital Mogadishu said they had ambushed and shot dead 17 Islamist militants, in the latest illustration of the chaos in the Horn of Africa country that has fueled a dramatic surge in piracy.

The Sirius Star — a Saudi vessel with a $100 million oil cargo and 25-man crew from the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Poland and Britain — is believed anchored offshore near Haradheere, about half-way up Somalia’s long coastline.

“Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships,” Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman, told Reuters. “Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship.”

Both the U.S. Navy and Dubai-based ship operator Vela International said they could not confirm a media report the hijackers were demanding a $25 million ransom. That would be the biggest demand to date by pirates who prey on boats in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia.

A pirate identifying himself as Jamii Adam told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that negotiations were taking place with the ship’s owners, saying the ransom demanded was not excessive but declining to give a figure.

He said it had cost the pirates $500,000 to seize the vessel. “We bore many costs to hijack it,” he said.

Iran’s biggest shipping firm said gunmen holding a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying wheat and 25 crew members had set demands for its release, but it did not reveal what they were.

In Mogadishu, police said they laid in wait and shot dead 17 fighters from the militant al Shabaab insurgent group during an attempted attack on a senior official.

Islamist leaders deny allegations they collude with pirates and insist they will stamp down on them if they win power, citing a crackdown when they ruled the south briefly in 2006.

Some analysts, however, say Islamist militants are benefiting from the spoils of piracy and arms shipments facilitated by the sea gangs. Analysts also accuse government figures of collaboration with pirates.

The elder in Haradheere port told Reuters the Islamists arrived wanting to find out immediately about the Sirius Star, which was captured on Saturday about 450 nautical miles off Kenya in the pirates’ furthest strike to date.

“The Islamists arrived searching for the pirates and the whereabouts of the Saudi ship,” said the elder, who declined to be named. “I saw four cars full of Islamists driving in the town from corner to corner. The Islamists say they will attack the pirates for hijacking a Muslim ship.”

In Mogadishu, al Shabaab gunmen drove to the home of the local Madina district chairman early in the morning, but found police officers lying in wait, witnesses said.

“We got information before they left their hideouts and we were able to surround them,” said a police spokesman. “Thirteen of the dead bodies lie in the street near the chairman’s house.”

Residents said the al Shabaab fighters wore black scarves round their heads with Arabic script reading “God is great.”

Somalis are traditionally moderate Muslims, and analysts say al Shabaab — which Washington has listed as a foreign terrorist organization with close links to al Qaeda — does not have deep popular support, despite having the upper hand militarily.

Somalia has been without effective central government since the 1991 toppling of a military dictator by warlords.

The capture of the Sirius Star has caused panic around the world, with the rampant piracy threatening to become a further drag on trade at a time of global economic downturn.

Kenya’s Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula summoned foreign ambassadors in Nairobi to appeal for their countries to make all efforts to end the menace. “Act now and not tomorrow,” he said.

President Abdullahi Yusuf said in Nairobi that Somalis had only themselves to blame for their difficult circumstances.

“No one attacked us and forced us into this condition. It is as a result of our actions that we destroyed our nationhood … The freedom and the unity of the Somali people is on the edge of falling, Yusuf told reporters.”

“A new and highly controversial phrase has entered the sometimes cliche-riddled Indian press: “Hindu terrorism”.

As with the term “Islamic terrorism” and “Christian fundamentalism”, this latest addition to the media lexicon is highly emotive.

It was in the aftermath of the 29 September bomb blast in the predominantly Muslim town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra that the term “Hindu terrorism” or “saffron terrorism” came to be used widely.

That was because the state police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested 10 Hindus following the blasts and has said that it wants to arrest several more.

One of those detained was a female priest, Sadhwi Pragya Singh Thakur, aged 38, who has been accused by the ATS of being involved in the Malegaon blast. Her detention shocked members of the faith.

So too did the arrest of a serving Indian army officer, Lt-Col Prasad Srikant Purohit, who the ATS says is the prime accused in the case.

Police are investigating whether some of those arrested are members of a little-known Hindu outfit called Abhinav Bharat (Young India).

At least three of those held have some links with a prestigious college in the city of Nasik, the Bhonsala Military Academy.

ATS investigators have questioned two of the academy’s former office bearers several times.

One of them was Col Raikar, who retired from the Indian army some months ago.

Both he and Col Purohit served in the same unit of the army and became friends.

The ATS claims the meeting in which the plan for the bomb blast was hatched was held in the Bhonsala school.

Another retired army officer, Maj Prabhakar Kulkarni, is also under arrest. He too was an office bearer at the school.

In addition, the ATS says that at least one of the 10 suspects received military training here.

Sadhwi Pragya Singh Thakur, Col Purohit, Maj Kulkarni and Col Raikar have denied any connection with terrorism, as has the Bhonsala Military Academy and its parent organisation, the Central Hindu Military Education Society (CHMES).

Founded in 1937, the sprawling Bhonsala campus is run by the CHMES, an organisation established in the 1930s by Dr BS Moonje, a former president of the militant Hindu Mahasabha (Hindu Assembly) organisation.

His vision was to militarise India to fight the British Raj.

As the name suggests, this is not an ordinary college.

Its aim, as its website claims, is to “encourage students to take up careers in the armed forces of the country”.

Military training involves teaching students how to fire guns.

The students are prepared for the National Defence Academy, the central government’s premier military college.

The branch of the academy in the city of Nasik has many impressive buildings.

One of them is used to impart military-style training to students, aged 10-16 years.

Its secretary, Divakar Kulkarni, laments the fact that his school is getting a bad press these days.

He says that besides military training, students are taught Hindu philosophy and scriptures.

Mr Kulkarni accepts it’s primarily a school for Hindus, but he adds that there are two or three Muslim and Christian children in every class of 45 students.

“Even Muslim students study the Bhagwat Gita and the Ramayana [Hindu scriptures],” he says proudly.

So how does he respond to the ATS allegation that the bomb plot was hatched at a meeting in the academy?

“Col Raikar let out a hall to Abhinav Bharat for a meeting for two hours, but we don’t know what transpired in the meeting,” Mr Kulkarni said.

The ATS believes Col Raikar was also present in the meeting. But according to Mr Kulkarni he went there just for a few minutes “to ask if they wanted tea and biscuits”.

The ATS says that it has also found the aims and objectives of Abhinav Bharat downloaded on the computers of the two men.

Mr Kulkarni insisted that there was a perfectly innocent explanation for this: “They downloaded the outfit’s aims and objectives without knowing much about its work,” he said.

Meanwhile, most Hindu organisations believe India’s Congress party-led government is playing politics by defaming Hindus.

They argue that the very term “Hindu terrorist” is not only a creation of the media but also a contradiction in terms - because the faith explicitly renounces violence.

“The government, with an eye on the general election next year, is trying to woo Muslims by maligning Hindus,” says Datta Gaikward, chief of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party in Nasik.

Hindu political parties are also staunchly defending Sadhwi Pragya Singh Thakur, the arrested female priest.

They have hired lawyers to represent her and at every legal hearing in Nasik supporters of right-wing parties gather outside the court and shout anti-government slogans.

All eyes will be now be on the court proceedings - whenever they start in earnest - to find out whether “Hindu terrorism” really has taken root or not.”

“There is a new wall in the downtown heart of the Holy City. It is, in fact, a new security fence. It is not tall, nor built to last. But the wall, and what it protects, may do more to undermine Israel’s moral claims to Jerusalem than the huge concrete structure that has marred the city’s Arab eastern half for years.

There is no sign on the wall. There is no explanation for the need of a uniformed guard posted at its entrance. There is no indication, therefore, that it protects construction on a quarter-billion dollar monument to insensitivity.

It is a testament, as well, to the principle that Israel’s only reliable natural resource is irony. The walled area is a construction site where a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights organization dedicated to instilling the lessons of the Holocaust and combating hatred, is building a Museum of Tolerance and Center for Human Dignity atop an ancient Muslim cemetery.

The complex is a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, whose founder Rabbi Marvin Hier envisions the museum as a “great landmark promoting the principles of mutual respect and social responsibility.”

No one disputes that Jerusalem is in dire need of tolerance and human dignity. Rabbi Hier was surely right to set that as his goal. But when the Wiesenthal Center originally chose the Mamilla cemetery site from a range of locations offered, it was wrong.

And late last month, when the Supreme Court gave a green light to the project, and Rabbi Hier responded that “Moderation and tolerance have prevailed,” he was dead wrong.

In 2006, less than two years after Rabbi Hier, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, architect Frank Gehry and much of the Israeli cabinet broke ground on the Museum of Tolerance site, construction was abruptly ? and correctly - halted.

Workers excavating the site had struck bones.

At that point, the Wiesenthal Center, mindful of its stated mission, should have immediately begun a search for an alternative site for the museum. Instead, it spent a fortune in legal fees fighting a protracted court battle in which, in a very real sense, everyone came out the loser.

After all, this is the same organization which labored for 15 long years, in the words of Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Abraham Cooper, helping “galvanize world opinion to force the removal of a Carmelite convent from the grounds of Auschwitz.”

Why had the Wiesenthal Center worked so hard and for so long to win the removal of a Catholic convent built there?

“Auschwitz is the largest Jewish cemetery - the single largest unmarked human graveyard - in history,” Cooper noted in 2005.

“It deserves universal respect.”

Rabbi Cooper was right. A burial ground of one faith must be respected by people of all religions, even if the graves are unmarked.

So it was for Jewish graves in Auschwitz. So it was, last year, in Vilnius, where Jews protested vociferously when officials granted permits for apartment construction atop an area believed to be part of Lithuania’s largest Jewish cemetery.

So it was with Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. Jews were justifiably outraged when they learned that during the former Jordanian rule, construction on and around the cemetery uprooted and destroyed large numbers of Jewish graves.

And so it is, certainly, for a site said to have been the city’s main Muslim cemetery until 1948.

There are Muslims who believe that the Mamilla cemetery includes the graves of men who fought for Saladin against the Crusaders. Archeologists believe the graves are more recent, no more than 400 years old. Either way, for the Wiesenthal Center, the following is the truth that should truly count:

In a city sacred to a majority of the world’s population, the bedrock test of the legitimacy of Israeli rule is the degree of respect the Jewish state accords the sacred sites of other faiths.

The chosen location of a Muslim cemetery in Jewish West Jerusalem casts doubt on Israel’s guardianship of holy sites. It calls into question not only Israel’s moral claims to ruling all of Jerusalem, it erodes its claims to any of it.

It does Israel no honor that Supreme Court approval of the project was based, in part, on the argument that no protests were heard when a the city built a parking lot on part of the cemetery in 1960 ? this at a time when much of Israel’s Arab population was under martial law, and in little position to voice opposition.

Moreover, it is not for Jews to decide what Muslims should and should not hold sacred.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has won its day in court. But in doing so, it defeated the very tolerance, human dignity, mutual trust, and brotherhood for which the center stands.

What is compassion, what is tolerance, if not the ability to reconsider one’s own actions in the light of the ways in which they may injure others?

One needn’t be a jurist, nor an expert in Middle East conflict resolution, to know that Muslims will have zero tolerance for the chosen site of this museum. One need only to be a lover of Jerusalem, and of Israel, to have zero tolerance for it as well.

It is not too late. Now is the time for Rabbi Hier and the Wiesenthal Center to embrace the true message of the project. Make the righteous and courageous decision to leave the Mamilla cemetery and build elsewhere.

It is not too late. Set an example of respect. Tear down this wall. Move the museum.”

“Ex-Somali Army Colonel Mohamed Nureh Abdulle lives in Harardhere - the town closest to where the hijacked Saudi oil tanker, Sirius Star is moored. He tells the BBC, via phone from his home, that the town’s residents are more concerned about the apparent dumping of toxic waste than piracy.

The Harardhere-born military man advises the town’s elders on security matters and is in his fifties.

Somalia has been wracked by conflict since 1991 - when its last national government was forced from power. The super-tanker is close to our coast. It is a very, very long ship. Some time ago we had our own problems of piracy in our town but that has not happened lately.

The people who have been hijacking these ships in our seas are not from our region. We do not know any of the guys on the super-tanker and they haven’t made any contact with us.

You know, our problem is not piracy. It is illegal dumping.

These problems have been going for sometime and the world knows about it. The Americans have been here in the region for a long time now - they know about the pollution.

Instead, no, the world is only talking about the pirates and the money involved.

Meanwhile, there has been something else going on and it has been going on for years. There are many dumpings made in our sea, so much rubbish.

It is dumped in our seas and it washes up on our coastline and spreads into our area.

A few nights ago, some tanks came out from the high sea and they cracked it seems and now they are leaking into the water and into the air.

The first people fell ill yesterday afternoon. People are reporting mysterious illnesses; they are talking about it as though it were chicken pox - but it is not exactly like that either. Their skin is bad. They are sneezing, coughing and vomiting.

This is the first time it has been like this; that people have such very, very bad sickness.

The people who have these symptoms are the ones who wake early, before it is light, and herd their livestock to the shore to graze. The animals are sick from drinking the water and the people who washed in the water are now suffering.

We are people who live in a very remote town and here, we are isolated; we only rely on God.

This town is close to the sea. It is a very old town which has a mixture of Somali clans. It is not big but it has a well-knit community.

Our community used to rely on fishing. But now no-one fishes. You see, a lot of foreign ships were coming and they were fishing heavily - their big nets would wipe out everything, even the fishermen’s equipment. They could not compete.

So the people here began farming and keeping greater numbers of livestock. Like in any other Somali town, all one can do is rely on oneself.

But now we have these medical hazards.

What can we do about it?”

“CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week that al-Qaida was still the largest threat to the United States. He added, “If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaida.”

But some analysts say that the focus should not go entirely on al-Qaida, stressing that the capabilities of the Shiite organization Hezbollah should not be underestimated.

Pre Sept. 11, 2001, Hezbollah was the organization believed to be responsible for the deaths of the largest number of Americans killed in terrorist attacks. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called Hezbollah “the A-team of terrorists, while al-Qaida may actually be the B-team.”

Today in a context of major tension with Iran regarding its nuclear program, Iraq and Lebanon, just to mention a few, intelligence analysts warn that the Hezbollah threat against the West should not be taken off the radar.

Hezbollah is believed to maintain a vast network of operatives across the world; from Europe to Africa to the Middle East, to Latin America and even North America.

In Africa, and in particular in the predominantly Sunni Maghreb, extremist Shiites are making inroads. The threat of potential Shiite terrorism is something Morocco knows something about, having dismantled earlier this year a large terrorist cell known as the Belliraj network. Members of this cell included a correspondent of the Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV. According to intelligence sources they were planning terror attacks in Morocco.

Hezbollah has long had a presence in Latin America. It is believed to maintain a large base of operations in the tri-border area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina converge.

Following the assassination by Israel of its leader Abbas Moussawi, Hezbollah launched in 1992 and 1994 two terror attacks in Buenos Aires against the Israeli embassy, killing 29 people and the Jewish community center, killing 85.

Intelligence sources say that Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have expanded into Venezuela and other countries. In October 2006 homemade bombs were left in front of the U.S. embassy in Caracas. Police subsequently arrested a student in possession of Hezbollah material in Spanish.

Europe presents other possible targets. Counterterrorism officials, especially in Europe, are sometimes privately more concerned by Hezbollah than al-Qaida. Intelligence officials say that infiltrating the movement is almost impossible, mostly because of the lack of a large Shiite population on the continent, and when compared to Intel on Sunni terrorist groups, European law enforcement officials say they are almost blind.

Hezbollah has an impressive network in Europe with, according to intelligence officials, operatives in Belgium, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.

Germany is thought to have about 900 Hezbollah members and authorities fear it could become a target. A recent report issued by Germany’s security services, says Hezbollah could launch damaging terrorist attacks in Germany, the UK and elsewhere in Europe. British authorities confirmed recently that Hezbollah sleeping cells disseminated throughout the UK are threatening to strike in case of attacks against Iran.

The Middle East remains the region where Hezbollah can inflict the most damage to the West. Being clearly in command in Lebanon, UNIFlL forces in southern Lebanon remains vulnerable to attacks.

Hezbollah’s arsenal is impressive and includes some 40,000 rockets that have been supplied by Iran, Syria and Eastern European countries. These weapons could also end up in the hands of the insurgents in Iraq.

Finally, Hezbollah could also be a threat to the U.S. homeland. In February 2004, then-CIA Director George Tenet stated that Hezbollah had cultivated an extensive network of operatives on American soil and an “ongoing capability to launch terrorist attacks within the United States.”

After its most successful operative, Imad Mughnieh, was assassinated in Damascus in February, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned state and local law enforcement agencies of a potential risk of Hezbollah’s revenge against targets in the United States.

Hezbollah’s activity in the United States has so far been limited to major fund raising through business ventures, criminal activity (such as cigarette smuggling) and donations from supporters. Some experts think that Hezbollah would never dare attack the United States on its soil because it would endanger its huge fundraising operations. This, say others, might be wishful thinking. A confrontation with Iran could well change that.”