Hidden threat from al-Qaeda sleeper cells

Counter-terrorism police and Whitehall officials believe dozens of extremists could have arrived here by posing as students or legitimate visitors.

They are concerned both by the relatively lax checks that are made on the visitors before they arrive and by the ease with which they can outstay their visas without anyone noticing.

As many as 13,000 visa applicants may have entered the country from Pakistan in a seven month period since October last year without any checks on their supporting documentation.

The security services fear that because most do not mix with home grown terrorists, they are able to operate under the intelligence radar, acting as sleeper cells until ready to launch attacks in Britain.

Every year around 100,000 visitors arrive in Britain from Pakistan alone, which has been described by the Prime Minister as being part of a "crucible of terror" along with Afghanistan.

They are supposed to be checked by Home Office visa staff working in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

But according to an official watchdog, the Independent Monitor for Entry Clearance, many visa officers do not have "enough time to go through applications carefully".

The security services are also worried about arrivals from Somalia, Yemen and North Africa.

MI5 have got 2,000 domestic extremists under surveillance across the country but is becoming increasingly concerned about the threat from abroad.

Similar concerns are felt in the police and one senior counter-terrorism officer told the Daily Telegraph: "There is a lack of control and supervision at our borders in the broadest sense.

"The problem is not confined to Pakistan, terrorists could arrive from anywhere, and we simply have no idea how many extremists may be here."

Police have discovered that the leader of an alleged plot to blow up shopping centres in Manchester last Easter ran a visa advice service in Peshawar, Pakistan.

He is thought to have helped other alleged members of his terrorist cell to arrive from Pakistan under the cover of student visas.

At least one arrived to attend a course at a "bogus college" that had already had its accreditation withdrawn.

The discovery of the group based in Manchester and Liverpool earlier this year set off alarm bells among counter-terrorism officials who believed the threat was coming under control.

More at the Telegraph

The Australian who has become a prisoner of gender apartheid

An Australian is trapped with her children in Saudi Arabia while her husband languishes in jail, both victims of a campaign by her former husband. Rick Feneley and Tim Elliott report.

At first glance Jennifer Birrell is a free woman living a privileged life in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

"It's a weird prison," she concedes. "A big house with a pool and a nice new car, all behind massive concrete walls that no one can see inside of. That's the prison. So I live here with my maid and my kids and my driver."

But here the 33-year-old Muslim convert is trapped, unable to obtain an exit visa to return to Australia, and with no right to visit her husband, Mohammed Ahmed Nagi, in jail. Also 33, he has been held in the Malaz prison for more than 15 months. He has another 21 months to serve. He has endured 200 lashes, 50 at a time, and will be subjected to 100 more.

Why?

The couple's hellish predicament – detailed in Birrell's pleading letter to the Saudi king – rests on several flimsy pieces of paper, all wielded by her abusive former husband.

This is the Yemeni man she married in Australia in 1998 and who fathered three of her children, all Australian citizens.

They moved to Saudi Arabia in 2004, but she fled from him two years and three months ago, fearing for her life, after he allegedly threatened to kill her and bashed her three times with a candle stick, caving in her forehead.

Among his pieces of paper was an old mobile phone bill. He had her account redirected to him while they were separated, and he took the bill to police in July last year, five months after he granted her a divorce in court.

By now Birrell's colleague Mohammed Nagi had offered to become her guardian, or mahram.

In accordance with Muslim custom, he had asked her father's permission and they married in June last year, in accordance with Sharia law, at the Egyptian embassy in Riyadh.

Their marriage certificate was legalised in the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Saudi Ministry of Justice. After all, the law in the kingdom requires a woman have a male guardian.

Read more at SMH

H/T: David F.

No visas, boys? Welcome to Australia

Paige Taylor | September 03

THE Rudd government last night moved to overturn John Howard's controversial policy of processing all asylum-seekers off-shore, allowing a group of detained Afghan youths to leave Christmas Island and arrive on mainland Australia without visas.

In an unprecedented move that coincided with the arrival of yet another boat of asylum-seekers at the Indian Ocean territory last night, the 10 boys boarded a chartered Qantas jet carrying 56 newly recognised Afghan refugees from the island to Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

The move, confirmed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship last night, was welcomed by the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre as a "substantial departure from the previous policy of condemning everyone including children to detention on Christmas Island".

The flight departed Christmas Island, which was excised from Australia's migration zone in 2003 by the Howard government, just hours before a further 52 asylum-seekers and three crew landed on the island after being intercepted by HMAS Ararat near Ashmore Reef on Saturday.

There are now 665 people in immigration detention on Christmas Island; 571 of them are single men being kept at the Howard government's $400 million immigration detention centre on the island's northwest point; 62 are living in a converted construction workers' compound; and 32 are in houses on the island in what is termed "community detention".

Read more here,,,

Source: The Australian

Visa Denial Puts Heroic Iraqi Translator in the Crosshairs

Jasim, pictured here with Gen. David Petraeus, is an Iraqi translator
who served heroically with the U.S. Army but whose life is
at risk after being denied a U.S. entrance visa.

By Joel Mowbray

An Iraqi translator who has earned commendations for risking his life repeatedly to save the lives of many American soldiers in combat has been denied a visa to live in the United States because of nonviolent actions he took to overthrow Saddam Hussein - at the same time the U.S. government was calling for regime change in Iraq.

Jasim, whose name is being withheld for his safety, has received strong support from the U.S. military, and the Department of Homeland Security approved his application for a visa. But the State Department has denied Jasim a visa because he was arrested in 1996 for actions against the Saddam dictatorship.

Some of Jasim's supporters, however, believe the real reason he's been denied a visa is that he has become a "nuisance" to State Department personnel at the Baghdad Embassy. The State Department, citing privacy concerns, declined to discuss Jasim's case.

Because Iraqi translators are seen by jihadists and former Baathists as "traitors," Jasim's life is at greater risk the longer he stays in Iraq, according to multiple State Department and U.S. military officials. A number of translators and their families have already been tortured and/or murdered. Read more ...

Source: Fox News
H/T: A.P.Jasim the Translator
Latest recipient of The MASH Award

Tariq Ramadan Fighting for U.S. Visa, Under Fire in Netherlands

Tariq Ramadan's bid to gain a visa to come to the United States received a new hearing today before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. In 2004, Notre Dame University offered a job to the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, but the Bush administration refused to grant him entry.

A contribution from Ramadan to an alleged Hamas front was part of the administration's justification. A judge's 2007 order upholding that decision is the subject of today's argument.

Meanwhile, a group of U.S. academics and civil libertarians is lobbying the Obama administration to reverse course. They wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano protesting what they called "ideological exclusion" of Ramadan and others, saying it "compromises the vitality of academic and political debate in the United States at a time when that debate is exceptionally important."

But in the Netherlands, where Ramadan lives, Rotterdam city officials are reportedly investigating statements he has made that are considered anti-gay and anti-woman.

Gay Krant magazine has excerpts from recordings of Ramadan in which he calls homosexuality "a disturbance, a faulty functioning and an imbalance" and said women should not attract attention based on their looks. "On the street, thus says the law, women must keep their eyes fixed on the pavement."

Ramadan acts as an integration advisor to Rotterdam officials.

Source: IPT Blog

Muslim outrage as Yusuf al-Qaradawi refused UK visa

By Jenny Booth

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Muslim cleric who defends suicide attacks, has been refused a visa to enter to the UK after a campaign by David Cameron.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision and accused the government of caving in to "unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader".

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, said that Dr al-Qaradawi enjoyed respect as a scholar throughout the Muslim world. Read more ...

Source: The Times
H/T: Dhimmi WatchMuhammad Abdul Bari, Muslim Council of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Muslims Against Sharia applaud British government decision to deny visa to the terrorist thug. Yusuf al-Qaradawi does not belong in Britain; he belongs in Guantanamo.