Islam

Monday

James Forsyth

Afghanistan: The worries mount as the West prepares to drawdown

Dexter Filkins is one of the great war correspondents of the post 9/11 world. So it is particularly sobering to read his assessment of the Afghan situation as the West prepares to drawdown. Filkins reports that: "According to American officers, the level of violence in Afghanistan this year is fifteen per cent higher than it was at this time last year. The insurgents, far from being degraded, appear to be as resilient as ever. And their sanctuaries in Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership resides mostly unmolested, remain more or less intact." Compounding this problem is that the levels of corruption in the Afghan government are continuing to alienate the population.

Friday

James Forsyth

Could Warsi’s next job be High Commissioner to Pakistan?

Sayeeda Warsi’s upbraiding of Pakistan for not living up to Jinnah’s ideals is another sign of how the government believes Baroness Warsi to be uniquely able to speak to Britain’s most difficult ‘ally’. David Cameron and his circle were thoroughly impressed by how Warsi managed to cool tempers in Islamabad following the Prime Minister’s criticism of Pakistan, in of all places India, for facing both ways in the war on terror and have been using her since to speak to the country’s leadership.

Monday

Daniel Korski

Erdogan’s immediate dilemma

It seems that everyone won the election that was held in Turkey this weekend. Prime Minister Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) officially won, taking some 50 per cent of the vote, which is enough to secure him a third term in office, but not sufficient to enable his party to make changes to the constitution. As the BBC's Gavin Hewitt notes, ‘Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey stands out. He is genuinely popular. He is socially conservative, but he has tapped into the aspirational mood of Turkey’s middle class.’ But although the opposition party, Republican People's Party (CHP), lost the election they actually polled about a quarter of the votes, the best result it has had for three decades.

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

The mystery of modern Turkey

What does Turkey actually think? That's an issue that has been occupying many Europeans, as the vital NATO ally heads to the polls. On the one hand Turkey has in the last 10 years become more like the West: globalised, economically liberal and democratic. Turkey’s economy is now the world’s 16thlargest, the sixth largest in Europe. But, at the same time, questions arise about its recent policies: will it consolidate its democratic achievements, or is it threatened by a populist tyranny or even authoritarian rule? Certainly, many fear that Prime Minister Recyp Erdogan's behaviour is moving Turkey away from the West, both in terms of internal policy and external alignmen.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Attention shifts to Yemen

Since last week’s attack on Yemen’s President Saleh and his subsequent flight, Sana’a has been on the cusp of anarchy. Perhaps as many 400 people were killed in riots last week and the killing continues. Western diplomatic services fear for the safety of their citizens in Yemen. The MoD has been preparing contingencies. Forces and materiel deployed in the Libya are moving east. Two fleet auxiliary ships, equipped with helicopters and landing craft, and 80 Royal Marines have been stationed off the Yemeni coast. Should the 800 or so British nationals in Yemen need to be evacuated, the marines will secure a bridgehead. A further detachment, currently on exercises in Albania, is poised to join the task force.

James Forsyth

The need for a strong man to strong-arm the new counter-terror policy

If the counter-terrorism strategy the government is announcing today is to succeed, it will have to overcome bureaucratic opposition and institutional inertia. As Dean Godson writes in The Times today (£), senior civil servants in the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism are highly reluctant to accept the government’s new, more muscular approach to this issue and will go back to the old, failed way of doing things if given the chance. If the Prime Minister’s writ is going to run across government on this issue, he is going to need someone working from the centre with Cameron’s explicit backing whose sole role is to supervise the implementation of the policy — the Home Secretary has too much on her plate to expect her to do this task alone.

Monday

James Forsyth

Counter-terrorism means stopping dealings with extremists

The coalition’s counter-terrorism strategy will be published tomorrow. This rather delayed review has been the subject of some semi-public wrangling, Cameron and Clegg have given speeches setting out very different visions for it. But one thing to remember is that the test of the review's robustness isn’t just whether it stops government money going to extremists groups. It also has to lead to government, at all levels, stopping dealings with these groups, denying them the oxygen of recognition. Today’s Telegraph notes that 20 groups will lose their funding because the views they espouse are antithetical to British values. This is to be welcomed.

Monday

David Blackburn

The spectre of jihad in Libya

While Britain agonised over deploying attack helicopters to Libya, the conflict seems to have escalated of its own accord. Noman Benotman, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, has described the current dispositions for the Times this morning (£). He has learned that many of Gaddafi’s military leaders are planning a coup to save their skins; Colonel Gaddafi is reluctant to arrest their nascent treachery for fear of triggering open rebellion. Other officers are following the example of civilian administrators like Moussa Koussa, feeling that now is the time to cut and run. News of Gaddafi’s withering power will please NATO, even if it is exaggerated. However, Benotman’s other revelations will unnerve the alliance.

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Egypt’s revolution – six months on

I'm back in Cairo to find out where the revolution of 25 January has got to. Nearly six months after Hosni Mubarak's downfall, the transition from authoritarianism is well under way. There is one immediate difference from my last visit: the absence of army check-points. Police officers in new white suits stand on street corners but the heavy military presence from before has gone. The Cairo police, who were absent after the revolution, have returned in new white uniforms. However, the military – or SCAF, as it styles itself – is very much still in charge, dictating how the democratic process will continue.

Monday

Daniel Korski

The ISI chief must be sacked

The US-Pakistani relationship has always been fraught, but it is particularly fractious right now. It is highly likely that the US will conduct more Abbottabad-type raids following the killing of Osama Bin Laden. According to sources in the US government, several locations were under surveillance alongside Bin Laden's compound. And that was before the CIA snatched the "motherlode" of information from the Bin Laden raid, which will give hundreds of new leads. People like Ayman al Zawahiri, Abu Yahya al Libi, and Saif al Adel will be sleeping a little less soundly these days. Regrettably, the Pakistani government has done little to prepare its population for the likelihood of new raids, preferring to blow off steam over the US violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

Friday

David Blackburn

Bin Laden strikes from beyond the grave

And so it starts. The news that suicide bombers have attacked the military base at Shabqadar, northern Pakistan, sounds a chilling note. The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attacks, committed in retaliation for the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Security experts and politicians warned that it would be so. It is, we are told, inevitable that similar atrocities will be attempted closer to home. There will also be concern that this may aggravate the already strained relations between the US and Pakistan, which would only strengthen the terrorists. Perhaps Bin Laden has become a more potent force since his death. The sight of a squalid man sitting in exile watching videos of his bygone glories was almost pitiful.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Osama bin Laden Was Not America’s Useful Enemy

The Guardian is a great newspaper but, lord, does it ever print some claptrap. Via Messrs Geras and Worstall comes this dreadful piece by Adam Curtis. The headline, for which Mr Curtis is not responsible, is a warning of the nonsense to come: For 10 years, Osama bin Laden filled a gap left by the Soviet Union. Who will be the baddie now? From the off we're supposed to appreciate, I think, that bad as bin Laden certainly was, he was never as bad as you were led to believe and, gosh, certainly not as bad as the people for whom he was a useful, even necessary, enemy. The world, you see, is complicated and if you think al-Qaeda are the bad guys you've been duped my friend. Seriously.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Stray Thoughts on the Execution of Osama bin Laden

Just as it's difficult for death penalty opponents to be too upset by the verdicts of the Nuremberg tribunal, so it is hard to be upset by the assassination (let us not be coy) of Osama bin Laden. Nevertheless, it seems increasingly probable that al-Qaeda's titular leader was executed "after" a firefight not, rather tellingly, "during" a firefight. Capturing him was never an option. It's easy to understand why this "clean" end was preferable to capturing bin Laden with all the awkward questions about interrogation and trials and due process and torture and everything else that would have followed. Too much trouble. For everyone. That too is part of George W Bush's legacy. (See the depressing debate over "enhanced interrogation techniques" for instance.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

CIA director blasts Pakistan’s intelligence service

"It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets." There have been few blunter, nor more high-profile, condemnations of Pakistan's intelligence operation than that made by Leon Panetta, the CIA chief, in interview with Time magazine today. And there are plenty of other noteworthy nuggets in the article as well: among them, Panetta's claim that the US has seized an "impressive amount" of raw intel from Bin Laden's compound. And how about this: "Intelligence reporting suggests that one of bin Laden’s wives who survived the attack has said the family had been living at the compound since 2005, a source tells TIME.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Osama Bin Laden is dead

The manhunt is over, as is the man. After almost a decade since 11 September 2001, a decade of the Afghan conflict, Osama Bin Laden is dead. The Al Qaeda leader was shot by US forces, not in a dusty cave complex in the mountains, but at a large house north of Islamabad. Announcing the news last night, Barack Obama called it, "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat Al Qaeda." It will surely be remembered as the most significant achievement of his Presidency, too. Let's remember, though, that Bin Laden was not Islamist terror, just as Islamist terror is not Bin Laden. The fundamentalists are a diffuse and diverse poison. Even Al Qaeda itself has many chiefs and many bases of operation, from Afghanistan to Yemen.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Another one goes

The scent of jasmine has just grown a little stronger in Arabia. The Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has agreed to stand down within 30 days, the Wall Street Journal reports. Saleh and his family will receive immunity in exchange for his momentous gesture. Saleh has been under growing pressure in recent months, as his government was attacked simultaneously by a pro-democracy movement and al-Qaeda sponsored terrorism. It is not clear if the groundswell of popular dissent that has forced his hand is inspired by jihad, but the speculation doesn’t seem unreasonable and western governments fear that they may lose a vital ally in the war on terror.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

The threat to Christianity

Is secularism now a greater threat to Christianity than Islam? This is the title of our next Spectator debate, to be held at 29 June, and it grows more topical by the week. In tomorrow's Mail on Sunday, we learn that a Christian electrician could be sacked after displaying a crucifix in his white van. His name is Colin Atkinson, and he works for Wakefield and District Housing Association who ordered him to remove the cross because it may offend non-Christians. They picked the wrong guy. Mr Atkinson is a former soldier and thinks this is a battle worth fighting for. He tells the newspaper, “The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical. I am determined to stand up for my rights.

Daniel Korski

Should the West negotiate with Gaddafi?

This week, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband gave a speech in the United States about Afghanistan, proposing the hand over of responsibility for building a political solution to the UN, headed by a Muslim mediator capable of negotiating with the Taliban as well as partners throughout the region. Last week, also saw former US negotiator Daniel Serwer make an interesting parallel to his time negotiating peace in Bosnia: ‘In my experience, there is nothing like staring a military commander in the face, asking him what his war objective is, and discussing alternative means to achieve it.  I asked the commander of the Bosnian Army that question in 1995, having been told by both the State Department and the U.S.

Friday

Alex Massie

Burning the Koran Again

Dan Hodges disagrees with me (and with Dan Hannan) and argues that, yes, we should definitely imprison people for burning books. Certainly if that book is the Koran. And perhaps other books too. Who knows where it will all end once you start? Those who defend Quran-burning on the basis of free speech miss the point. [...] This is an overt, conscious action, motivated by malign intent. It is not the product of open, free-spirited discourse, but an aggressive, premeditated provocation. Nor is it actually speech. It's not opening a dialogue or building an argument. Quite the opposite. It's a deliberate act of destruction; the destruction of a dialogue and argument constructed by others. If you don't like Islam, fine. Write a book about why. Don't burn one.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Even Goons Should Be Allowed to Burn Books

As a general rule if you're minded to burn books you're probably trotting along the road towards losing whatever argument you may be having. You also look a fool. That was true of the nutters who burned The Satanic Verses and it's true of Terry Jones and true of this chap too: A senior member of the BNP who burned a copy of the Qur'an in his garden has been arrested following an investigation by the Observer. Footage of the burning shows Sion Owens, 40, from south Wales and a candidate for the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections, soaking the Qur'an in kerosene and setting fire to it. A video clip of the act, leaked to the Observer and passed immediately to South Wales police, provoked fierce criticism from the government.