The Israeli military ("IDF") announced today that AT&T, the American telecommunications giant, will host its website.

The decision follows an attack by computer hackers which knocked down the IDF website. A statement issued by the Israeli military October 26 said "In order to secure the availability and accessibility of the [IDF] site at all times, the professional web masters in charge of the IDF site turned to several other companies, from which AT&T was chosen as an additional provider together with Netvision [an Israeli company]." (Statement on http://www.idf.il) This was also reported in The Jerusalem Post).

(1) "Barak has turned every stone to achieve peace."

Truth is, he has turned every stone to build settlements. Since his first day in office, he has accelerated the pace of setting up new settlements (in the guise of "enlarging" existing ones), confiscating lands, demolishing Palestinian homes and building "by-pass roads" (whose main purpose is to add Palestinian lands to the 'settlement blocs" which he wants to annex to Israel.) In all these activities, Barak has done more than Netanyahu. In the political field, too, Barak has upstaged Netanyahu: Bibi returned at least the greater part of the town Hebron to the Palestinians. Barak has not returned one single inch of occupied territory.

GAZA CITY, May 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The Israeli occupation army flattened more than a hundred Palestinian houses in a two-day demolition spree in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, driving over 1,000 Palestinians homeless.

"On entering the camp this morning, we found 88 buildings demolished which had housed 206 families. It affects 1,064 people," said U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Paul McCann.

"This is incredibly intense. It is probably one of the worst days of the Intifada for Rafah which has already been hit very hard," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

By Robert Fisk

'Fear of being slandered as "anti-Semites" means we are abetting terrible deeds in the Middle East'

What if we had supported the apartheid regime of South Africa against the majority black population? What if we had lauded the South African white leadership as "hard-line warriors" rather than racists?

What if we had explained the shooting of 56 black protesters at Sharpeville as an understandable "security crackdown" by the South African police. And described black children shot by the police as an act of "child sacrifice" by their parents? What if we had called upon the "terrorist" ANC leadership to "control their own people".

Once in a while you meet someone you know you will never forget. There is something about being in their presence that draws you into their world. For the moments spent in their company, you begin to see the world through their eyes.

Their passion for what they believe is manifest in the aura that surrounds them and their sincerity conveyed in words that linger in your thoughts for days on end.

Shaykh Muhammad al-Ya'qoubi is one of those rare people. For a man who is uncomfortable with praise, I struggle to convey what it meant to have received the gift of sacred knowledge from such a worthy possessor. Only those who are blessed by his company will know what, out of respect for his humility, has to remain unsaid.

CHILDHOOD

Imam Ahmed Raza's Birth

Imam Ahmed Raza Khan (radi Allahu anhu) was born on a Monday, the 10th of Shawaal 1272 A.H. (14th June 1856), at the time of Zohar Salaah in a place called Jasoli, which is in the city of Bareilly Shareef, India.

A few days before the birth of Imam Ahmed Raza Khan (radi Allahu anhu), his father, Allamah Mawlana Naqi Ali Khan (radi Allahu anhu), had a wonderful dream. He immediately disclosed this dream to his father, Allamah Mawlana Raza Ali Khan (radi Allahu anhu), who interpreted this dream by saying: "This is a sign that you are going to be the father of a child, a boy, who will grow up to be pious and knowledgable. His name will gain prominence from East to West."

Embattled on all fronts, the US badly needs a victory somewhere, anywhere

The military campaign is taking too long, popular support is slipping, the propaganda is failing and Americans are scared, writes Gay Alcorn in Washington.

Almost a month after the United States began bombing Afghanistan, these are the headlines on the front page of The Washington Post: Experts Warn Bioterrorism Could Expand, US Intensifies Bombing. US, Britain, Step Up War for Public Opinion. Learning as We Go (about Anthrax), Rivalries Poison Political Efforts, and Economy Shrinks for First Time Since 1993.

By Robert Fisk

'Why do we always have this ambiguous, dangerous relationship with our allies?'

It wasn't meant to be like this. The nice, friendly Northern Alliance, our very own foot-soldiers in Afghanistan, is in Kabul. It promised didn't it? not to enter the Afghan capital. It was supposed to capture, at most, Mazar-i-Sharif and perhaps Herat, to demonstrate the weakness of the Taliban, to show the West that its war aims the destruction of the Taliban and thus of Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida movement were inevitable.

By Peter Symonds

The target of the latest US military aggression in Afghanistan is the Taliban. However, one searches in vain in the extensive media coverage of the war on terrorism for any coherent explanation of the origins of this Islamic extremist organisation, its social and ideological base, and its rise to power.

The omission is no accident. Any serious examination of the Taliban reveals the culpability of Washington in fostering the current theocratic regime in Kabul.

By John Pilger

If people were not being killed and beginning to starve, the American attack on Afghanistan might seem farcical. But there is a logic to what they are doing.

Read between the lines and it is clear that they are not bombing large numbers of the Taliban's front-line troops. Why? Because they want to preserve what the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, calls the "moderate" Taliban, who will join a "loose federation" of "nation builders" once the war is over.

The moderate Taliban will unite with "elements of the resistance" in the Northern Alliance, the bomb-planters, rapists and heroin dealers, who were trained by the SAS and paid by Washington.