Senior American military figures have warned Britain that a hasty exit from Afghanistan could strain relations between the two countries.

The Daily Telegraph last week revealed that David Cameron has ordered British commanders to draw up plans to start pulling hundreds of British troops out of Afghanistan within weeks.

The Prime Minister is expected to discuss a co-ordinated Afghan withdrawal in London next week.
The prospect of an imminent British withdrawal is understood to have alarmed American generals, who are trying to resist political pressure for a major reduction in US troop numbers.

Well-placed sources said that US generals have delivered a blunt warning to their British counterparts about the impact of an early UK withdrawal.
full story

Salaamz, I came across a video that a road in Medina is known as valley of jinns. Its really intresting that the engine if off and in nuteral and its going at 110mph.
Is it really a valley of jinns or is there some other logic behind it?

The court of appeal has quashed the conviction of a former police chief who was found guilty by a jury of framing a man.

Former Scotland Yard commander Ali Dizaei was jailed for four years in February 2010 for abusing his office after a row in a London street with Waad al-Baghdadi, who was the main prosecution witness.

The court of appeal has ordered a retrial.

Read more @ The Guardian

Eye-for-an-eye punishment of Majid Movahedi put on hold despite calls by his disfigured victim, Ameneh Bahrami, for retribution

Ameneh Bahrami holds a photo showing herself before she was blinded with acid by Majid Movahedi. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

Iran has postponed blinding a man with acid following an international outcry over the retributive punishment imposed after he was found guilty of doing the same to a woman who refused to marry him.

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, Majid Movahedi was scheduled to be rendered unconscious in Tehran's judiciary hospital today while his victim, Ameneh Bahrami, dropped acid in both his eyes.

But Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that officials had postponed the sentence on Friday night and not indicated when the punishment might be carried out in future.

Bahrami, who had asked for an eye-for-an-eye retribution in a criminal court in Tehran, was not informed of the postponement.

Read more @ BBC News

By Mustafa Akyol

“Allah, Syria, Freedom - nothing else!” That is the slogan peaceful protestors are chanting on the streets of Syria these days, challenging the classical pro-regime slogan "God, Syria, Bashar - nothing else!" Yet the “security forces” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are brutally crushing this most justified yearning for liberty. It is reported that the thugs of the regime have killed at least 850 people in the past few weeks, whose only crime was to ask for the end of the Baath dictatorship that has ruled the country for more than four decades. Thousand have been reported to be arrested, and tortured, while troops supported by tanks are raiding towns and homes. The regime of Mr. Assad is simply killings its own people.

The Baath bloodshed

Here in Turkey, we are watching all this with great concern – and great contempt. It is true that some among us are fooled by the Baathist propaganda – that this is all the work of “terrorists” and evil outsiders who support them. It is also true that our government has been trying to go a bit easy on Syria, which has been the beacon of Ankara’s successful “zero problem with neighbors” policy. Yet still the Turkish government is raising the tone of its criticism against the Syrian regime day by day, while many here want even stronger condemnations of the regime’s crimes against its own people. We just cannot sit down and watch a massacre on our borders, on the very people that are our friends, relatives and brothers.

In fact, the Baath regime in Syria, like its bygone counterpart in Iraq, has always been brutal. The massacre of at least 10,000 people, mostly civilians, in Hama in 1982, was an act of evil we always mourned and never forgot. The culprits were Hafez al-Assad and Rifaat al-Assad, the father and the uncle of the younger Assad who is ruling Syria now. Since the latter came to power in 2000, with a more smiling face and more reasonable rhetoric, we believed that the dark days of Hama are gone and a new era is at hand in Syria. But those hopes are being shattered these days, as Bashar al-Assad is proving not much different from his bloody predecessors.

There is discussion here in Turkey on whether Mr. Assad is happily ordering the ongoing massacres, or whether he is manipulated by an evil establishment who knows nothing other than killing, torturing, or spreading fear. Personally, I don’t know the answer. But I don’t also care. The only person whom we can appeal to is the one whose posters hang on almost every official wall in Syria: Bashar al-Assad. If he is good-willed but weak, then he should show some guts, take matter at hands, and stop the onslaught against peaceful protestors. If he is strong and ruthless, then he should tremble before God, or, at least, see that his regime’s brutality is terribly wrong even for Machiavellian reasons.

So, as a fellow Muslim, and a concerned citizen from friendly country, here is my call to Mr. Assad: Just stop killing your people. Order your troops not to fire a single bullet at peaceful protestors. Let your people say what they want to say, and ask for the democracy they deserve.

Tear down this wall

Ultimately, Mr. Assad, just tear down this wall of tyranny, and open up your regime. Human beings have something called dignity, and hence you can’t expect them to bow down to the dictates of tyrants. In the past, maybe they looked as if they did, but that was because there was no way for them to raise their voices. But now we live in a different world, a much open and transparent one, and the aspiration for freedom cannot be crushed as it was done in the past. If you insist doing so, then you will be on not just the wrong but also the losing side of history.

So, Mr. Assad, just go out and promise democracy for Syria, giving a clear roadmap for political participation, including free and fair elections. That will be much better than telling us childish stories about how the West or Israel are working against you behind-the-scenes. I, too, have my strong opinions about Israel’s 44-year-long occupation of Arab lands. But I am also sick of seeing Arab dictators using Zionism as a straw man to frighten their populations and as a conspiracy theory icon to justify their faults and crimes.

And finally, to those noble Syrians, who, despite all the state terror unleashed on them, keep on changing, “Allah, Syria, Freedom!” Please know that there are millions in the world, who honor your cause, respect your courage, and pray for your success. Here in Turkey, too, we worry about your lives, pray for your well being, and hope for the democracy you deserve. May Allah be with you, indeed.

Dispatches on Channel 4: Muslim Schooling

The documentary annoys me. The comments written have annoyed me more, you've watched an hour long documentary and you think you've got Islam and Muslims figured out? You don't know the half of it to be honest; a few people can’t represent a religion. I'd love to see a documentary on a churches, temples, gurdwaras or synagogues. I'm sure there are bad aspects of all these places but really doubt that they would make it on air. Don’t just judge on something you know so little about. The documentary although proving sight full is causing more grief then good.
Head teacher Mujahid Aziz said the school had been misrepresented, and the school had nothing to hide. The programme had completely misrepresented the school's teachings, Mr. Aziz said. Out of two years of teachings, the programme makers had taken a few incidents and shown them again and again, he said. "It's a clear misrepresentation of what we actually do," Mr. Aziz claimed. The media seems to be always on us.
I watched this programme and thought it was grossly biased reporting. It stood on the side of the EDL and David Cameron's witch hunt against all those Muslims from segregated communities and understood nothing about the reality of living in poor communities in the north of England. Since we can't all live in tolerant cities like Oxford, then we need to take some time to understand what it's like living amongst impoverished Brits. Impoverished by unemployment, drugs, underage sex, racism and nostalgia for a past before Pakistanis lived here. Would anyone from Oxford want to be mixing with 'them sort' of people? Probably not. Why should we force to befriend them, when they hate us and have always hated us? Why not stop blaming Muslims for everything and ask yourself the question - how many Muslims have I bothered to get to know? To tolerate? To understand? Secondly, it is not illegal to smack children. If you mark them, that's another issue. None of these children were marked. It is their parents who should have the last say, not me, you or Tazneer Ahmad or John Ware BBC Panorama.

Dispatches are clearly trying everything to turn people away from Islam. Why don't they show the child abuse that goes on in western schools? It was only a few years ago the head masters used to do the same thing, but however Islam is the fastest growing faith in the whole wide world. Whys that I wonder? Maybe because it’s the truth and people what to know the truth.

Dispatches on Channel 4 TV showed in a high praised state funded Muslim school that children as young as 11 are being taught to keep away from Hindu and non-believers, and turned against Jews and Christians. Why no protests about Jewish schools. They preach the same racial intolerance.
The entire old testament is basically the Jews saying we can kill anyone coz we are superior, and the sad thing is they actually did kill everyone they could(they said they did), and the Christians plain old ignore this fact. Jesus cared so much about non Jews he never left Palestine.

The program made me proud of mosque schools. Out of 2000 mosque & Muslims supplementary schools, you were able to spot only two schools and two teachers who were hitting physically students or teaching hate. You kept going for 4 years but had to reshow the same clips several time because you could not collect many to confirm your theory. We will try to improve. The percentage of churches and state schools who sexually abuse children and scar them for life are countless. Your program only creates hate and division within the community when you generalize from two incidents. What a wasted money & years of your team work. Such dangerous dispatches should be banned to protect our community. A report from the NSPCC claims that, “One in four people in the UK, aged between 18 and 24, claims to have experienced severe violence, sexual abuse or neglect as a child”. This illustrates that child abuse is still, regrettably, endemic in British society and is not unique to Muslim institutions. “Such abuse is to be condemned wherever and whenever it takes place and needs a multi-agency approach to tackle it, Muslim schools will continue to put the protection and well-being of our children at the top of the list of priorities, but we can’t do it alone and it is both unreasonable and unjust to focus on Muslim institutions in the way that Dispatches has done.”
A lot of the issues shown happen in a lot of state run schools across all religious and class affiliations but you just want to undermine and misrepresent Islam by parading a few Idiots who obviously haven't understood Islamic teachings properly but apply cultural practices. Islam is the only system that welcomes people of all colour, creed, class, status, race and background Peace.
This programme seemed to fuel the already existing anti-Muslim campaign that has been running over the last few years. It would be interesting to know who the programme was funded by as the views and the portrayal were extremely biased. In all parts of society there will always be extreme views but instead of tarnishing a whole community with the bracket of anti-integration or anti British, the extremists should be dealt with accordingly. It is a shame that the point of the programme was to expose the unacceptable growing hatred that is being preached within these select schools. Unfortunately instead of tackling this issue the programme only seemed to be hypocritical by in its own way preaching hatred against Muslims and tarnishing a whole community on the actions of an uneducated small minority. Could this be a show of anti –Islamic propaganda in modern day society?
There are sinister agendas at work in Western nations and I wonder if they are using Islam to foment trouble?
On the other hand BBC and Channel 4 TVs have never shown that Muslim children have been victim of Islamic-bashing for the last 60 years in British schooling. They have been victim of racism, bullying and discrimination. Schools, LEAs and DEF tried their best to hide this kind of abuse under the carpet. Indiscipline, bullying, incivility, binge drinking, drug addiction, gun and knife crimes, teenage pregnancies and abortion are part and parcel of British schooling. Majority of schools encourage young children to have sex and abortions. Muslim community sees the West as decadent and immoral. They will see West as morally bankrupt animals, needing to be trained.
These are the reasons why majority of Muslim parents would like to send their children to Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Only less than 5% attend Muslim schools and more than 95% keep on attending state and church schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.

British schooling is the home of institutional racism and British teachers are chicken racist. Non-Muslim teachers are not role models for the Muslim children during their developmental periods. British schooling has been in the process of producing racist young generations, who not only hate each other but also hate those who are different in colour and creed. Due to racism in British schooling, young Muslim children are unable to develop self-esteem and self-confidence. All of them suffer from identity crises. They do not know where they belong. In the name of integration, they find themselves cut off from their cultural roots and are unable to enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. Pakistani children suffer more than others. Majority of them leave schools with low grades. They are unable to enjoy the beauty of Urdu literature and poetry. There is a dire need that bilingual Muslim children should be educated in state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be opted out as Muslim Academies.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

I've got exams coming up VERY soon and I have been doing some revision but then I feel I should still help out around the house because well I just think my family should have my help.

Mum tells me to revise and if I have time then help out but I feel kinda bad (especially when I waste my time beforehand) and I just think doing stuff for my mum is much more important than a bunch of exams - in the long run. I mean I don't even do much in the first place, so I should carry on doing the little that I do do.

But then knowledge is important, and it would help me get further in life and it would certainly make my parents proud and happy if I did well...then again I could just die tomorrow...or right now! Then what use will all that exam prep, minus helping mum out and doing Islam related stuff, be?

{sigh}

:S

(P.S I *do* procrastinate a lot, I admit, but when I'm helping out or my new hobby of listening to lectures online, or something like that, I already do do it cuz I think it's something good, not to waste time - I mean I'd much rather waste time doing *nothing* n just relaxing! 😛 )