Deaths in Baghdad school blast

At least eight people have been killed, mostly students, in a bombing at a school in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Among the dead were six children between the ages of 6 and 12, an Iraqi police official said.

Monday's blast also wounded at least 41 others. The toll is expected to rise.

An interior ministry official confirmed the casualties.

The blast took place at Abaa Dhar School for boys, in Baghdad's Shia district of Sadr City, an area that has seen only infrequent attacks because it is encircled by US and Iraqi security forces and has its own neighbourhood security.

Many children were returning to school for the first time after the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

Twenty-five children were among the wounded, two hospital officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information.

The blast partially toppled a brick wall in front of the school, leaving a crater that quickly filled with muddy water, apparently from a broken water line.

The attack comes a day after the Iraqi parliament passed a new electoral law paving a way for the general elections in February.

Iraqi and US military officials have expressed concern about a possible spurt in attacks aimed at destabilising the government before next year's elections.

On Monday, gunmen stormed a checkpoint near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing five members of an anti-al-Qaeda group, police said.

The men were members of the Sunni Awakening Council, one of many Sunni groups that have begun taking on al-Qaeda in Iraq.

There are an estimated 2.5 million Shia living in Sadr City, a stronghold of Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, known for his anti-US stance.

Al Jazeera

Iraqi child abduction called a 'new form of terror'

Iraqi children are becoming prominent targets of terrorist attacks in the form of kidnappings, rape and murder, Iraqi officials say.

An official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry said there were several cases where organized gangs were carrying out these crimes, but added that many of the criminals had been arrested and brought to justice, according to the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Safia a-Suheil, an Iraqi MP, said, "Recently the practice of targeting children by killing, kidnapping and raping them has mushroomed."

These kidnappings constituted a "new terrorism tactic" since it was undermining the country as a whole, she said.

In many cases, children are abducted and the kidnappers demand a ransom in exchange for their safe return.

"It's been going on since the beginning of the war," an international aid worker in Iraq told The Media Line. "But it's been getting a lot more attention lately." Penalties for such cases include the death sentence.

"There's an obvious failure to tackle issues related to children in Iraq," Suheil said. "There are several practices which have spread in Iraqi society and that need to be addressed and tackled, including child labor, which has become one of the most dangerous forms of violence that children are facing.

"A high number of Iraqi children look for work on the streets and in markets because of difficult living conditions, which is partially a result of terrorism suffered by those looking after them," she said. "That shouldn't prevent a search for new and alternative means, including allocating part of the Iraqi state budget to provide for them and their families."

Suheil recommended that a special unit be set up in the Interior Ministry's division for combating terrorism, to tackle this problem by increasing security around schools and public parks, which have become popular spots for families since the security situation began to improve.

JPost

The plight of Jordan’s abandoned children

AMMAN : A newborn boy was found abandoned in a rubbish bin in southern Jordan last month while a two-month-old girl was found on a pavement in Amman with a plastic bag containing a carton of milk beside her.

Both children are believed to be “illegitimate”, according to news reports, abandoned by mothers who had them out of wedlock.

The incidents have brought into focus a sensitive issue in Jordan, where unmarried women with illegitimate children feel inclined to abandon their offspring rather than face social stigma or even violence from family members looking to salvage the family’s “honour”.

Some analysts put the blame on the prevailing conservative culture that ostracises those who have broken with tradition, while others point to the decline of religious and family values that leads to promiscuity and more women having children out of wedlock. Still others say it is a combination of the two.

“The phenomenon is tied up to the culture of shame,” said Sari Nasir, a professor of sociology at the University of Jordan and the president of the Community Centre Association.

“When unmarried girls are unable to have an abortion and they give birth and do not know what to do with their babies, they wrap them up and get rid of them because they are afraid for their lives.”

Prof Nasir said young people are lacking direction as society undergoes changes that often undercut traditional values.

“The numbers [of illegitimate children] are likely to grow as our society is undergoing drastic changes and old traditions are dying. Sometimes we feel that we don’t really have a new value system,” she said

Adultery is punishable by law and carries a one to three-year prison sentence.

Abortions are illegal, and if conducted in secrecy may endanger the woman’s life. While some doctors illegally perform them in clinics, most cannot afford the cost.

With few options, many women who give birth to illegitimate children feel their only choice is to abandon them.

Usually the babies are dumped on the doorsteps of mosques or in bins.

Read more here,,,,

Source: The National

Europeans too selfish to have children, says Chief Rabbi

The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.

The Chief Rabbi, who entered the House of Lords last week, made his comments in a lecture on religion in the 21st century hosted by Theos, the public theology think-tank, on Wednesday night.

Lord Sacks said that faith had survived so far because it could provide answers to mankind’s eternal search for meaning in life - unlike the market, the state, science or philosophy, which underpin modern liberal democracies.

He claimed religion could continue to play an important role worldwide in the future, by engaging in debate with scientists, by campaigning on issues such as global poverty or the environment, and by discussing the nature of the common good with humanists.

The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.

And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.

Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.

“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”

“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.

“Albert Camus once said, 'The only serious philosophical question is why should I not commit suicide?’.

“I think he was wrong. The only serious philosophical question is, why should I have a child? Our culture is not giving an easy answer to that question.”

He added: “Wherever you turn today - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.

“The major assault on religion today comes from the neo-Darwinians.’’

Discussing the popular secular idea that there are no absolute moral values, he said: “You cannot defend a civilisation on the basis of moral relativism.

“In a head-to-head contest between a moral relativist and a fundamentalist, who wins? The fundamentalist must win because he is sure he’s right, and you are not sure he’s wrong.”

He said that although the war on terror had been portrayed by Western politicians as a “battle of ideas”, there is little hope that Islamists who believe they owe allegiance to God would be swayed by talk of freedom or democracy.

“The place for religion is in civil society, where it achieves many things essential to liberal democratic freedom. It sanctifies marriage and the family and the obligations of parenthood, and it safeguards the non-relativist moral principles on which Western freedom is based.

“It may not be religion that is dying, it may be liberal democratic Europe that is in danger, demographically and in its ability to defend its own values.”

Lord Sacks, who has been Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth since 1991, described the modern phenomenon of “angry atheists” as the “intellectual equivalent of road rage”.

He said that more respectful dialogue is needed between religious groups and the secular world.

“All peace depends on compromise and that is why peace comes to seem to some religious groups to be a form of betrayal, and that is why peacemakers get assassinated.”

Source: Telegraph

Kids at risk in Iraq kidnap business

Richard Kerbaj, Baghdad

BY the third day of negotiating with his son's kidnappers, Rasul Amoore had sold his car, withdrawn his bank savings and borrowed money from his siblings and friends to raise funds for the six-year-old's release.

Even then he was able to gather only $US8000 ($9035) of the $US50,000 demanded by Ahmed's captors. The kidnappers eventually dropped their ransom to $US20,000 - still more than twice the amount Mr Amoore could possibly raise- after the confectionery shop owner in east Baghdad pleaded that their information about his supposed wealth was untrue.

Mr Amoore, angered and tormented by the kidnappers, then decided to gamble with his son's life. "Just kill him," said the father of four during a heated telephone negotiation with the lead captor. "Just kill him and I'll consider I've given his soul as a gift to God."

Four hours later the kidnappers released Ahmed unharmed, but only after they had received $US10,000 in payment.

Kidnapping has overtaken burglaries, robberies, car theft and other crimes to become the biggest criminal activity in many areas of Baghdad.

Insurgents and gangsters are increasingly abducting children to raise funds for terrorism or line their pockets.

These days, money has become the main motive for kidnapping, unlike during the civil war in Baghdad in 2006 and 2007 when people were captured and killed for sectarian reasons, according to Brigadier General Faisal Malik Mohsin, commander of the Iraqi Federal Police's al-Rasheed district in southwest Baghdad.

Women are playing a bigger role because they are less likely to arouse suspicion, he said. They are paid by gangs to abduct the children, but negotiations for the captive's return are handled by male gang leaders.

Read more here,,,,

Source: The Australian

Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

By Sara A. Carter | July 2

Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say.

A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 - huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year.

"[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars," a U.S. Defense Department official told reporters recently. He spoke on the condition that he not be named because of ongoing intelligence efforts to catch Mehsud, a prime target for a U.S. and Pakistani anti-Taliban campaign.

An apparent U.S. effort to kill Mehsud last week failed. On Sunday, the Pakistani government offered a reward of about $615,300 for information leading to the capture of Mehsud, dead or alive. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of $5 million for Mehsud, who is thought to be hiding in the tribal areas near the Afghan border.

Suicide bombings have become frequent in Pakistan in the past year, including high-profile attacks on hotels frequented by Westerners, as well as on Pakistani police and military installations. There has also been a spate of such attacks directed at U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The U.S. official said the price depends on how quickly the bomber is needed and how close the child is expected to get to the target.

"[Mehsud] produces these suicide bombers, which are sold or bartered, which can be used by [Afghan Taliban leader Mullah] Omar's Taliban or ... other groups," the U.S. official said.

In some cases, he said, the children are kidnapped and then sold to Mehsud.

Using child suicide bombers "is the grim reality of the Taliban Frankenstein that now threatens to overwhelm the Pakistani state," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who chaired a review of Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy for President Obama.

Efforts to reach a spokesman for Mehsud were not successful. Read more here...

Source: Washington Times
H/T: JihadWatch

Taliban
Latest recipients of The Face of Evil Award

Police identify 200 children as potential terrorists

Drastic new tactics to prevent school pupils as young as 13 falling into extremism

By Mark Hughes

Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are "vulnerable" to Islamic radicalisation.

The number was revealed to The Independent by Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and Britain's most senior officer in charge of terror prevention.

He said the "Channel project" had intervened in the cases of at least 200 children who were thought to be at risk of extremism, since it began 18 months ago. The number has leapt from 10 children identified by June 2008.

The programme, run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being "groomed" by radicalisers. Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four 7 July 2005 bombers grew up, said: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'. Read more ...

Source: The Independent
H/T: Jihad Watch

UK jihadist taught five-year-old son: "Kuffar - kill! Sheikh Osama bin Laden I love"

By Duncan Gardham

Parviz Khan not only spoke openly about his plotting in front of his young children, but actively groomed them to take part.

In one recorded conversation of May 2006 he was heard shouting at his five-year-old son when he made a mistake reading the Koran from heart.

He made him stand in front of him with his hands by his side and demanded: "Who do you love?"

The child answered: "I love Sheikh Osama bin Laden."

"And?" said Khan.

"Sheikh Abdel-Rahman" referring to the "Blind sheikh" in prison in the US.

"And?" asked Khan.

"Sheikh Abu Hamza" referring to the jailed imam at Finsbury Park Mosque in North London. Read more ...

Source: Telegraph
H/T: Jihad Watch

Al Qaeda Trains Young Boys as Terrorists, Tapes Show

By Jennifer Griffin

WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda propaganda tapes released by Multinational Forces-Iraq reveal a possible new trend in the group's terror strategy in Iraq.

The tapes, obtained by FOX News and later released to the media, are training videos showing black-masked Iraqi children between 6 and 14 being taught how to hold AK-47s, stop a car and carry out a kidnapping, break into a house and break into a courtyard and terrorize the individuals living there.

Footage aired for reporters showed an apparent training operation in which the boys are seen storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons. Read more ...

Source: Fox News / AP
H/T: Jihad Watch

Teaching Children to Die

By MEMRI

In two columns in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, titled "What's Happening in the Girls' Schools?" and "Who Will Sound the Warning Bell in the Girls Schools?" Halima Muzaffar criticizes the Saudi education system for using scare tactics and for instilling in young children the fear of death, as part of their religious education. She claims that this "culture of death" is the reason for the spread of terrorism in Saudi society. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage Magazine

Iran Educates Children to 'Seek Martyrdom' (Video)

Iran - Click here for more blooper videos
Source: Fox News Channel

Iran Educates Children to 'Seek Martyrdom'

By Erick Stakelbeck

CBNNews.com - During Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980s, Ayatollah Khomeini sent thousands of Iranian children directly into minefields.

He promised that they'd see heaven as their reward.

Today's Iranian leadership is quite unpopular with its growing younger generation -- the Mullahs are attempting to reclaim this group one textbook at at a time.

This is becoming a common scene in Iran. Pro-democracy Protests against the ruling regime. Just last weekend Tehran University students waved signs that said "live free or die."

In some ways, this is the new face of Iran-- 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30. Many of these Iranians are hungry for the kind of freedoms Americans enjoy. But the Iranian government has other ideas.

"Imagine 225,000, 250,000 even 100,000 kids who have been taught to hate America, hate the West, get ready for martyrdom," Shayan Arya said.

Shayan Arya's family left Iran when he was a teenager. He says the government's educational curriculum teaches children as young as first grade to prepare for war and seek martyrdom.

"You are responsible for learning it--you get tested on it, you have to study it, you have to write papers on it, you have to answer to your teachers, he said.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance recently gave CBN News an exclusive look at some Iranian textbooks. All non-Muslims are portrayed as evil -- especially the U.S. and Israel.

A seventh-grade textbook encourages students to "not cease.until the redeeming message of 'there is no god but Allah' is realized throughout the whole world."

These books also teach war between Iran and the west is inevitable. Iranians must either bring about a global Islamic victory or else.

"Victory is not guaranteed, according to the books. It's either victory or collective martyrdom," said Dr. Arnon Groiss.

Eighth grade texts hammer that message home. One section reads "either we shake one another's hand in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom."

"Gradually they build on it so that by 10th or 11th grade, children should be ready to be martyred," Arya said.

Dr. Arnon Groiss has studied Iran's educational system extensively. He views the Iranian curriculum as extreme even for the Middle East.

"If you're dealing with such people, such a regime, that tries to instill in young children or schoolchildrens' minds the idea of global war to the end, this is frightening," Groiss said. "And you will not find this in Syrian textbooks or Saudi Arabian textbooks or Egyptian textbooks."

The radical message of the Islamic Revolution has fallen on deaf ears for many young Iranians. But president Mahmoud Ahamdenijad isn't giving up without a fight.

He says Iran's educational curriculum has become too secular and must be cleansed.

"Now, in order to continue the Islamic Revolution, it is our duty to continue with all our power our revolt against the Arrogant Ones and the Oppressors (the U.S. and Israel), and not cease until the redeeming message of 'there is no God except Allah' is realized in the whole world." - 7^th grade text-book.

Source: CBN News
H/T: TFO