LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

Bible Quotation for today/Whom to Fear
Matthew 10/26-31: "So do not be afraid of people. Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered, and every secret will be made known. What I am telling you in the dark you must repeat in broad daylight, and what you have heard in private you must announce from the housetops. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of God, who can destroy both body and soul in hell. For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!

Kidnappers release 3 Syrians abducted during robbery attempt
October 29, 2011 /The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A day-long kidnapping of three Syrians from Beirut�s southern suburbs ended safely Friday night, when the victims said they had been taken in a robbery attempt, a security source told The Daily Star. The three were kidnapped overnight by armed men in unlicensed four-wheel drive cars, the brother of two of the men told The Daily Star. Idriss al-Sahn said neighbors had told him upon his return home in the southern suburb of Bir Hasan, around 7 p.m. Thursday that his two brothers � Yassin and Mustafa � along with their friend, Issa Saleh, were kidnapped just hours before by armed members who belong to a local party. Mustafa said Yassin, 24, is a construction worker, and Mustafa, 26, an employee at a printing press. Idriss said he was told that three black, four-wheel drive cars and a van were used by the kidnappers, who fled to an unknown destination. Idriss, a construction worker himself, said he immediately informed both the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese Army about the kidnapping. Idriss said that when he approached Hezbollah to inquire about the kidnapping, the party members denied any knowledge. �We�re from Hasakeh in Syria. There are no protests there,� Idriss said, adding that he and his brothers are supportive of the Syrian regime. Idriss said their eldest brother, Adnan, headed Friday to the Syrian Embassy in Beirut to inform them of the kidnapping. Friday evening, according to the security source, the three men turned up at a police station in the suburb of Ouzai and said that the motive for their kidnapping was robbery. The source said the three men declined to answer questions about the details of how they were taken hostage, or where they were held. Five Syrian dissidents have been kidnapped in Lebanon since May. In February, three brothers from the Jasem family were kidnapped.

UNIFIL on edge over bomb warnings
October 29, 2011/By Nicholas Blanford /The Daily Star
BEIRUT With another bomb attack against UNIFIL feared to be just a matter of time, the peacekeeping force is being kept on edge by a near daily torrent of threat warnings about further impending attacks.
The warnings soared following the roadside bomb attacks against Italian and French UNIFIL soldiers in Sidon in May and July, which left 11 peacekeepers and two civilians wounded.
Although UNIFIL takes force protection seriously, the number of intelligence warnings received by officials in Naqoura nearly every day and the generally non-specific nature of the threats risks creating a �cry wolf� syndrome, according to UNIFIL sources.
�The warnings almost always are so vague that there�s nothing we can do anyway. And when nothing happens time and time again, there�s the possibility that people will stop taking each one seriously,� a UNIFIL officer said.
For example, two weeks ago, UNIFIL got information that a car bomb had been built in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon. The vehicle was thought to be a blue Toyota and the target was either UNIFIL or the Lebanese Army south of the Litani river.
�How many blue Toyotas are there in south Lebanon?� the officer asked. �Suddenly, we had reports coming in of blue Toyotas spotted everywhere.�
Earlier this month, UNIFIL received 16 separate warnings in a single day.
This is the second period since UNIFIL�s massive expansion following the July 2006 war in which the peacekeeping force has been targeted by militants. Between June 2007 and January 2008, several bomb attacks were carried out or attempted against UNIFIL, most of them amateurish affairs involving sticks of dynamite and faulty detonators. The one stand-out operation was the bombing of a Spanish battalion armored convoy in June 2007 in which six peacekeepers were killed, the largest loss of life suffered by UNIFIL in a single incident since 1978. That bomb was a shaped-charge device hidden inside a Renault Rapide van consisting of more than 60 kilograms of military grade explosive packed with aluminum powder to augment the blast effect. The last of the 2007-08 attacks was a roadside bomb ambush just north of Sidon, against a passing UNIFIL jeep carrying Irish soldiers. That attack bore similarities in technique and location to the two recent bombings against the Italian and French vehicles.
During that six-month period, UNIFIL also was inundated with a confusing array of daily threat warnings. But after the attacks tailed off in 2008, the number of warnings dropped to almost nothing. The renewed increase in warnings has created a degree of skepticism among some UNIFIL officers who suspect the intelligence warnings are related less to actual threats and more to various agencies covering themselves in case another attack occurs.
The main sources of information regarding potential impending attacks are Lebanese military intelligence, the United Nations in New York and the intelligence agencies of various troop-contributing countries. Another complication is the lack of intelligence sharing between the battalions and the absence of a central clearing house for threat information, according to UNIFIL sources. That has led on occasion to the same piece of intelligence data being recycled, filtered and distorted as it passes through various UNIFIL channels.
Nevertheless, even if confirmation and hard details for each warning are lacking, no one denies that the 11,000-strong peacekeeping force is a relatively vulnerable and highly desirable target for militants. UNIFIL insiders believe that it is only a matter of time before another attack is carried out, even as investigations continue into the May and July attacks.
On the latter, French investigators believe the operation was carried out on the ground by a relatively large group of individuals. The bomb attack occurred on a sharp bend near the southern entrance to Sidon where the French UNIFIL convoy had to slow down. The French believe one vehicle parked nearby carried the team that detonated the bomb using a command wire. The vehicle was out of sight of the bomb so the order to hit the button must have been made by an observer with a clear view of the target site and in communication with the button pusher.
Indeed, investigators believe the bomb was detonated fractionally too late � the delay, perhaps, between the order being given to detonate the bomb and the pressing of the button. If the timing had been better coordinated, the effect of the bomb attack could have been worse, UNIFIL sources said. The French investigators also have information that the south-bound French convoy was tailed by a Mercedes from north of Sidon until reaching the coastal road that runs beside the city�s infamous waste dump. There is unconfirmed information that the Mercedes stopped in the middle of the road and a passenger climbed out to flag down traffic to prevent anyone following the French convoy. The convoy was struck a few hundred meters further south. The focus of the ongoing investigations � as well as the more general interest of intelligence agencies of troop contributing nations � remains on Sunni jihadist militants believed to be living inside Ain al-Hilweh. Among the names that continually crop up in intelligence reports referring to Ain al-Hilweh are Osama Shehabi, said to be the new leader of Fatah al-Islam following the death last year of Abdel-Rahman Awad, and Abdel-Ghani Jawhar, an explosives expert whom security services blame for the 2008 bombings against the Army in Tripoli which left 15 soldiers dead.

Kataeb party member Elie Marouni : Hezbollah should face international court over kidnappings
October 29, 2011 01:11 PM The Daily Star
Elie Marouni think Hezbollah should face an international court for its alleged involvement in kidnappings in Lebanon.
BEIRUT: Kataeb party member Elie Marouni called on Hezbollah to face an international court, accusing the party of involement in kidnappings in Lebanon.
Hezbollah should �go to an international court and face the law,� he said. �There are people who are kidnapped and who disappear. Some of them come back, but they do not dare say where they were kept while in hostage,� said the deputy from Zahle. On Friday, three Syrians were kidnapped from the southern suburbs of Beirut, and another was also abducted in a separate incident in the same area, security sources told The Daily Star. All four were released the same evening. The men declined to answer any questions about the details of how they were taken hostage. A brother of two of the kidnapped men, Idriss al-Sahn, said that when he approached Hezbollah to inquire about the kidnapping, party members denied any knowledge. Marouni stressed that anyone found to be involved in such crimes should be convicted.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest - Oct. 29, 2011 October 29, 2011
The Daily Star
As-Safir
Aoun taking the Mikati government to the limits
The teacher�s strike at Lebanese University ended Friday, with the subject of reform returning to square one.
The issue of administrative appointments was agreed upon in the Cabinet, which seems within reach, even in light of the lack of understanding between President Michel Sleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun on some posts that belong to the Christians at the top of the presidency of the Supreme Judicial Council.
Meanwhile, Cabinet and Parliament discussed the issue of minimum wages with the aim of finding a solution that satisfied employees while not hurting the national economy.
Also Friday, President Michel Sleiman issued decrees to withdraw the nationalities of people that had acquired them fraudulently. A well-informed source told As-Safir that about 180 people, mainly Palestinians who are still enrolled in the UNRWA program, will have their citizenships revoked
In an interview with Al-Manar TV station, Aoun described his relationship with Hezbollah as good, but acknowledged they sometimes have different points of view.
An-Nahar
Some Syrians and Palestinians to have their nationalities withdrawn by decree
Aoun: Mikati protects his community against corruption, and society must be protected by the custodian of the resistance
President Michel Sleiman Friday issued decrees to promote military officers who rank below colonel, and he also signed a decree to revoke the citizenship of those who had acquired it fraudulently, mainly Palestinians and some Syrians.
The decree to withdraw citizenship did not appear to face any repercussions, and was met with either welcome or silence. Meanwhile, the decree to promote military officers was met with confusion because of the bureaucracy involved.
MP Ahmed Fatfat said that the decree to upgrade the officers from the rank of colonel and above, "has yet to be signed and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told us they are in the process of finding an appropriate way [to implement] this ordinance."
The citizenships that are to be revoked come as a result of a law from 2003, and they include no more than 200 people, mainly Christians, a source told An-Nahar.
Al-Joumhouria
Hezbollah denies rift with Aoun
The opposition: Syria is operating in Lebanon without being monitored
With the kidnapping of four Syrians in Lebanon Friday � three brothers and their friend, all in their 20s � speculation mounted as to the cause and the perpetrators. Some say the operation was carried out by a group of smugglers. After being taken to an unknown location, the three were returned to a police station in Ouzai, while the fate of the fourth one remains unknown.
Meanwhile, demonstrations were held in Tripoli to support Syrian anti-government protesters, burning an effigy of Bashar Assad. At the same time, around 40 people died across Syria Friday in protests calling for a no-fly zone.
A source from the March 14 opposition in Parliament told Al-Joumhouria: �It is clear that the Syrian regime is acting with impunity in Lebanon.� The source added that Syria is the only country in the world that has two governments: one that is stalled in Damascus, and the other that it is fully committed to in Beirut.
Meanwhile, Aoun affirmed during an interview with Al-Manar that he was with the resistance, and he denied any rift between the two parties.
Al Akhbar
The Arab Spring will come after reforms in Syria
Friday�s politics focused on the decrees signed by President Michel Sleiman on the promotions of military officers as well as the revocation of Palestinian citizenship of those who became naturalized fraudulently.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Al-Manar, Aoun renewed his rejection for the financing of the international tribunal, arguing that it was not constitutional.
He also refused to acknowledge the developments that have taken place in a number of Arab countries, saying that they had been �a leap backward.�
He said he believed that the Arab Spring would only really happen after reforms came about in Syria. He added that Syria has been able to survive because the people are united in wanting reform and stability, describing opponents of the government as being incapable of change.

Syria onslaught kills 40 protesters
October 29, 2011 /By Hussein Abdallah The Daily Star
BEIRUT/AMMAN/VLNIUS: Protesters calling for a no-fly zone in Syria met with a fierce crackdown that left up to 40 people dead Friday, as opposition sources claimed warplanes were seen flying over Homs.Syrian state media denied the claims. �A no-fly zone is a legitimate demand for Homs,� read protesters� banners the Khalidiya neighborhood.
Al-Jazeera satellite channel quoted Syrian sources Friday saying warplanes were seen flying over Homs, but state owned SANA, quoting an �official source� refuted the news later in the day, saying that �citizens should compare between what they hear on Al-Jazeera and other biased channels and what they see with their own eyes to realize the extent of lying and fabrication they rely on in their coverage of Syria�s news.� Omar Idlibi, spokesman for the opposition Local Coordination Committees told The Daily Star Friday that Syrian official denials were �meaningless.� �I do not care what the government sources are saying but we know that warplanes flew over Homs starting 6 a.m. Friday. We are not talking about airstrikes. We are just saying that warplanes were seen over Homs,� he said.
�This is not the first time such flights have been seen. It was only Homs today but warplanes have been flying over other areas, such as Idlib, in the past weeks,� he added.
NATO jets played a central role in the overthrow of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but the Western alliance has shown no appetite to intervene in Syria to halt violence which the U.N. says has killed 3,000 people.
Syria�s opposition National Council has called for international protection. It has not explicitly requested military intervention, although street protesters have increasingly voiced that demand.
Assad has not used warplanes against protesters and a no-fly zone in itself would have little impact on the crackdown unless � as in the case of Libya � pilots attacked his ground forces and military bases.Fueling debate on the continued crackdown, Lithuania said Friday that it had barred Syrian planes from crossing its airspace on their way to Russia�s Kaliningrad territory amid concerns that they could transport military cargo.
A Lithuanian Defense Ministry spokesperson told AFP that it acted in line with European Union sanctions, which were imposed in May.
�In July-September a Syrian-registered private flight company asked several times for permission to cross the airspace of the Republic of Lithuania with IL-76 transport aircraft flying to and from the Kaliningrad district,� the spokesperson said. �In the light of EU sanctions imposed on Syria in May, and having information that military cargo could be transported in the aircraft, the relevant Lithuanian institutions banned the aircraft from flying in Lithuanian airspace,� the spokesperson explained.
Meanwhile, Syrian forces reportedly shot dead up to 40 civilians Friday when they fired on demonstrators demanding international protection from President Bashar Assad�s crackdown on seven months of unrest.
Most of the killings took place in the central cities of Hama, where Assad sent tanks and troops to crush dissent three months ago, and Homs, a center of increasingly armed opposition to his autocratic rule.An armed insurgency has emerged in recent weeks, mainly in rural regions and in Homs, a city of one million, 140 kilometers north of Damascus, where troops and pro-Assad militiamen have assaulted old neighborhoods that have often seen protests.
The Syrian government insists the army was fighting armed groups and not firing on civilians.
Deaths among soldiers are also becoming an increasing trend in Syria amid reported defections in the army. A report published by The New York Times Thursday said Turkey was hosting a group of defectors based in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, allowing them to �orchestrate attacks� across the border. The report said the group, led by defected colonel Riad Asaad, is operating under the name �The Free Syrian Army,� and has been claiming attacks on Syrian troops, the last of which was last Wednesday, when nine soldiers were reportedly killed. The report quoted Turkish Foreign Ministry sources as denying providing any form of military support to the defectors, insisting the relationship was a humanitarian one.
In Hama, activists and one resident said Assad loyalists fired at a demonstration demanding Assad�s ouster as soon as it broke out of Abdul-Rahman Ben Aouf Mosque in Al-Qusour district.�They attacked the protest immediately because the mosque is near the old Hamidiya neighborhood and they did not want the two protests to meet,� said one activist, who did not want to give his name for fear of persecution. �Since the military occupied the main square in Hama the protests have been organized in separate neighborhoods,� he said.
However, Syria�s SANA official news agency carried a different narrative regarding the events in al-Qusour, saying a number of security personnel were injured as armed men opened fire at them. In the Damascus district of Barza, security forces arrested at least 40 people after they demonstrated in the capital, which has so far escaped most of the unrest.
Syria has barred most foreign media, making it difficult to verify reports from activists and from authorities, who blame foreign-backed armed groups for the violence. They say gunmen have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.Internet footage also showed people marching against Assad in towns in Syria�s Kurdish eastern region, although Kurdish anger was also directed this week against the head of the opposition National Council over comments comparing Syria�s Kurds and Christians with immigrant communities in Europe.Head of the council, Burhan Ghalioun told a German television station Syria was �an Arab country.�

Lithuania barred Syrian planes amid military fears
October 28, 2011
Daily Star/VILNIUS: Lithuania said Friday that it had barred Syrian planes from crossing its airspace on their way to Russia's Kaliningrad territory amid concerns that they could transport military cargo.A Lithuanian Defence Ministry spokesperson told AFP that it acted in line with European Union sanctions, which were imposed in May due to a crackdown by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. "In July-September a Syrian-registered private flight company asked several times for permission to cross the airspace of the Republic of Lithuania with IL-76 transport aircraft flying to and from the Kaliningrad district," the spokesperson said. Kaliningrad is an enclave of Russian territory sandwiched between the Baltic Sea and EU members Lithuania and Poland, and is home to major military bases. "In the light of EU sanctions imposed on Syria in May, and having information that military cargo could be transported in the aircraft, the relevant Lithuanian institutions banned the aircraft from flying in Lithuanian airspace," the spokesperson explained. Since mid-March, Syria has been rocked by unprecedented freedom protests inspired by the Arab Spring, which has already claimed the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians, amid Syria's crackdown on dissent.

Hama: The Syrian Holocaust
By Hussein Shabokshi
Asharqalawsat
Contemporary Arabs have been raised to be taught the history of Palestine and the atrocities committed by Israel there. The Deir Yassin Massacre is a prime example of this. According to Palestinian sources, the final death toll of this massacre stood between 250 and 360, whilst Western sources � based on Israeli accounts of what happened � claim that the death toll was only 107. In addition to this, there is the other infamous massacre which took place in Palestinian camps in Lebanon [Sabra and Shatila camps] by Christian militias � with clear Israeli support � and which resulted in between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths. And of course, there is the Halabja massacre during which the Iraqi Baathist regime utilized illegal chemical weapons against its Kurdish citizens, resulting in 6,000 deaths.
However the mother of all regional massacres, the worst bloodbath to have taken place in the Arab world is one that did not receive the appropriate media and moral coverage. I am talking about the terrible massacre carried out by the Hafez al-Assad regime in 1982 against the Syrian city of Hama, which resulted in the death of approximately 45,000 people, and the disappearance of 15,000 more. This was a terrible massacre by any standards, during which all kinds of heavy weaponry and arms were used against unarmed civilians. The Syrian regime used tanks, missiles, and even fighter jets in a terrible act of genocide, targeting and levelling entire apartment buildings. The Syrian regime killed the people of Hama in a random and indiscriminate manner. Mosques were demolished, shops destroyed, and homes burnt down, whilst the streets were filled with corpses. Black clouds filled the sky as a result of the intense bombardment, whilst the Orontes River ran red with blood. Hama was transformed into a desolate graveyard, where the only sounds to break the silence were the moans of the bereaved mothers, and the screams of those trapped under debris. This is just a glimpse of the Hama Massacre; the mother of all massacres. This represents by far the highest price that the Syrian people have had to pay for standing up to the oppressive al-Assad regime. The people of Syria are, in many ways, still paying this price, with interest!
Indeed neither al-Assad senior nor al-Assad junior ever apologized to the Syrian people for this terrible massacre. In addition to this, they continued to pursue a policy of imprisoning or exiling Hama residents. This is the nightmare that Hama continues to face! The great districts of Hama, named after its generous inhabitants, like the members of the al-Keilani and al-Baroudia families, among others, were destroyed as the city's inhabitants were subject to humiliation and abuse. Today, the al-Assad regime is seeking to humiliate the people of Hama � and all the Syrian people � once more, through killings, mass arrests, and brutal suppression.
The world committed a grave moral mistake when it failed to firmly, honestly, and forcefully acknowledge and deal with the Hama massacre, and condemn those responsible for this. However today it seems that the international community has become far less tolerant toward the idea of recurring massacres. The Hama massacre was the gravest criminal and moral mistake committed during the entire history of the ruling Baathist regime in Syria. The fact that the regime was not internationally sanctioned for this massacre encouraged it to continue with its ruthless policy of suppression. However nothing lasts forever; and the Syrian holocaust must come to an end! The responsibility of putting an end to this terrible crime lies with the international community as a whole, and whoever is reluctant to pursue this is nothing more than a criminal accomplice!

Coptic Christians Protect Monastery From Egyptian Army Assault
Assyrian International News Agency
(AINA) -- Hundreds of Coptic Christians mobilized on Tuesday in front of the Monastery of the Virgin and St. John the Beloved, located on the Desert Road from Cairo to Ismailia. Although the Monastery has the necessary permits, the army had sent a message to the monastery that they would come on the next day, October 25, to demolish its fence, which guards it from unauthorized visits and criminals.
The official website of the Monastery warned of threats of a " new massacre" by the Egyptian Armed Forces, and the removal of its fence, pointing out that the Monastery was built in 2002 and is under the supervision of the secretariat of H.H. Pope Shenouda.
When the Army vehicles with demolishing equipment arrived at the monastery, they were met by priests, monks, deacons and Copts all dressed up in white for mass, holding wooden crosses, praying and singing hymns.
Other Copts flocked to the Monastery, which lies 80 miles from Cairo, on hearing of the news.
Upon seeing this congregation of Copts in front of the Monasteery, Brigadier Shukry, who issued the demolition order, ordered his unit to withdraw. Church sources said that this might mean that he intends to implement the removal orders without prior warning to avoid the gathering of Copts.
Army engineers later came to the monastery, filmed the fence and the crowds, and said that the images will be sent to the commander of the army to decide what will be done.
Bishop Botros, Pope Shenouda's secretary and General supervisor of the Monastery of Our Lady and St. John, said that relative calm returned to the Monastery by the evening, pointing out that the Monastery holds the official papers and licenses from the authorities. He expressed fears of renewed threats and attack on the monastery again.
On April 4, 2011 the armed forces demolished the Monastery's fence, but when protests were raised, the authorities apologized the next day, claiming that they thought it was a "farm." Brigadier Tarek el Kady asked Bishop Botros to raise a cross and hang a sign for the monastery on the main road. Afterwards he said the authorities have registered the place as a monastery and permission for a fence was given, which had to be rebuilt. There was peace until this incident.
About 15-20 Copts refused to go home and slept in front of the Monastery to guard it from army "attacks," as they put it. "We are not committing a crime, we only ask to be left to pray," said one of them.The armed forces have stormed several monasteries Since the January 25 "Revolution", demolished fences and fired on monks and visitors.
By Mary Abdelmassih

Top Muslim Adviser Blocks Obama Meeting With Christian Leader
Assyrian International News Agency
10-29-2011
http://www.aina.org/news/20111029020053.htm
An influential Muslim adviser to the White House who has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in canceling a meeting between President Obama and the leader of the persecuted Maronite church in Lebanon, according to the Beirut news agency el Nashra

The Arabic-language report cited an unnamed U.S. source who said Dahlia Mogahed, "the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department," sought to block a White House meeting with Patriarch Beshara Rahi, according to a translation by blogger El Cid at BigPeace.com.
The report said the move heeded a request by top leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who want the U.S. to back the Islamist Sunni movement opposing Iranian Shiite influence in the region. Maronites number about 1 million in Lebanon and more than 10 millions worldwide. About 1.5 million are in the U.S.
Along with her role on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Mogahed is a member of the advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security. She has testified before the Senate on engagement with the Muslim community. She is senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, where she led major surveys of Muslims worldwide that routinely concluded the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.
Mogahed was a leading voice in the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement that issued a 153-page advisory report calling for dialogue with Hamas and engagement with opposition parties in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
The U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, drew attention in February when he characterized the Muslim Brotherhood as "largely secular."
The Brotherhood, however, which was banned under Egypt's Mubarak regime, states in its charter that it is an "international Muslim Body, which seeks to establish Allah's law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam and the true religion." Furthermore, the prosecution of the Hamas-financing scheme in Texas two years ago presented evidence of the Brotherhood's aim to destroy Western civilization from within and establish an Islamic society under the rule of the Quran.
The terror-finance trial also presented evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood's lobbying in Washington is being carried out by front groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
CAIR and MPAC, the BigPeace.com blogger noted, are pushing to eliminate any intelligence analysis focused on jihadist violence, particularly against the Christian communities in the Middle East.
Coptic Solidarity International, which advocates for Coptic Christians in Egypt who have endured increased persecution from fundamentalist Muslims under the new regime, also have unsuccessfully tried to obtain meetings at the White House or with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Iraqi Christians have been ignored, as well, despite the many massacres against Assyrian Christians in the country over the past two years, according to BigPeace.com. Administration officials have declined invitations to speak at the annual Assyrian convention this year.
Defining Islam
In an interview with Islam Online in April 2009, Mogahed explained her role in the Obama administration is "to convey the facts about what Muslims think and feel."
"I see my role as offering the voices of the silenced majority of Muslims in America and around the world to the council so that our deliberations are informed by their ideas and wisdom," she said. "I believe that I was chosen because the administration cares about what Muslims think and wants to listen."
She once dismissed Osama bin Laden's connection to Islam, insisting he was not primarily motivated by religion but by "perceptions of imperialism and oppression and humiliation."
WND reported in April Mogahed was a partner in an Islamic project whose stated goal was to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times."
The project was founded and directed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Muslim leader behind the so-called Ground Zero in New York City. Mogahed and the Gallup survey provided key data for Rauf's "Shariah Index Project," which sought, according to its mission statement, to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times."
Mogahed in 2009 defended Islamic law on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist Muslim group, insisting the majority of women around the world associate Islam with "gender justice."
The group, Hizb ut Tahrir, has declared it wants to help foster the nonviolent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of a global Islamic state under Shariah.
Mogahed, appearing alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz, watched without objection as two members of the radical group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism."
As WND reported later that year, CAIR featured her as a headliner for its annual banquet. But on the eve of the event � after WND reported revelations about CAIR in the newly released WND Books' best-seller "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America" � a press release did not even mention her and she was quietly replaced by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
www.wnd.com

The Syrian web room
Ana Maria Luca and Nadine Elali,/October 29, 2011 /Now Lebanon
An unofficial road used for trafficking between the northern Lebanese border and Syria in Wadi Khaled, where the Syrian army was seen planting land mines. (AFP/ Joseph Eid)
The Qussair Revolutionary Council web operations room consists of one laptop, one television set with a satellite connection, two mattresses, and a teapot next to several cups scattered on the floor.
The three men in the operations room escaped the Syrian army�s bullets to cross the border into Lebanon in order to ensure there is media coverage of the Syrian uprising. They are all in their late 30s, and they don't know each other's names. They agreed to use nicknames, "Friday names," for their safety. "We know that the regime's agents are among the protesters, so we decided to keep ourselves safe, and we use fake names," the man who asked to be called Mohammad and who is in charge of the operations room told NOW Lebanon.
From the room Mohammad keeps in contact with his citizen correspondents through chat programs. They send him centralized footage, documents and the names of victims killed by the shabiha militia, the Syrian intelligence services or the Syrian army. Once he has verified the information, the three men post them on a website and send them to human rights groups and media outlets around the Middle East.
"Here is a statement we sent to Al Jazeera," Mohammad explains while his chat program beeps continuously, notifying him that he has new messages from a correspondent in Qussair, just over the border.
"We keep in touch like this, all the time. And we carefully verify the information,� Mohammad adds. �If, for example, we find out about a gas station being blown up by the regime's people in order to blame it on protesters, our man in the neighborhood contacts me and we decide if it's worth going there and filming it. We don't send out information unless we checked that it's completely true and we have proof or videos. If our man is not back in an hour or so, we know they killed him.�
"We are always in contact with the Revolutionary Council from Homs. There is a revolutionary council in every town where there have been protests,� Mohammad says as the two other men, Ahmad and Youssef, nod in approval while puffing their cigarettes. "The council comes up with the strategy to organize the protests, and they coordinate with us, the web people. In Qussair we have a person in every neighborhood. We only know their nicknames and we are constantly in touch through the internet and a safe phone line.�
"Qussair is completely besieged right now. They surrounded it with 40,000 troops around 10 days ago. They brought a brigade,� says Ahmad. "I just came from Syria this morning. They shot at me on the border. Nobody can get in, nobody can get out. They shoot at anything they see moving. I took the fields and went behind the mountains to be able to cross.�
Qussair is the biggest protester stronghold along to the Lebanese border, but it is not as strong as Homs, the three men say. "The regime really wants Homs to fall, because people there just don't give up, and they are not intimidated. If the army or the shabiha are guarding the streets during the day, they protest during the night. They go out and sing against the regime," Mohammad says. "There are strong people in Homs, they have tactics. They put a toy laser and a box on a stray cat and let the animal out on the street. The army thinks it's a bomb so they run away and take shelter. This gives the people time to organize and protest.�
According to the activists, Homs is the regime's target for the moment. "Qussair is very important. They managed to break Tal Kalakh because the town was surrounded by Alawite villages. But Qussair is not, and it strengthens Homs. They are trying to bring the town down in order to weaken Homs," Mohammad explains as he opens another message on his chat program.
Ahmad makes a phone call to verify the reports from international news agencies that the Syrian army is planting mines along the northern Lebanese border. "Yes, it's true. They are planting them in the fields in a village next to Qussair, Neim, toward the border so nobody can cross the border anymore," he says.
"Can they film it?" Mohammad asks.
"No, the soldiers are too many," Ahmad answers.
Mohammad plays the latest videos Ahmad brought from Qussair in the morning. One shows the massacre of 14 young men who had fled the town and taken shelter in a house in a nearby village, another shows a two-year-old boy who was shot in the head, and another shows a protester shot in the knee and brought to Lebanon for medical care.
The massacre video shows the shelled house where the 14 people had been killed, the blood on the floor, the protesters dragging the bodies of the young men from Assi River and the funeral. "This is gruesome," Mohammad says. "Ask him, he was a witness," he says, pointing at Youssef, who nods.
�I managed to run away when they started shelling us. We had fled Qussair when they brought the army. We were 27 men hiding in the house. But the shabiha and the intelligence followed our supply boy. We went back after they left and we filmed everything," he says.
"There are already seven people dead today. We already centralized the names. There is always coordination between us on the internet. We use certain chat programs that refused to give the Syrian regime access to survey the conversations. We have a human network at the local level, and there is also a network of towns, and the cities have their own network," Youssef explains.
"We don't run anything on the website and don't send anything to the media without having the proper information and double checking. We depend highly on these videos, so we have to make sure they are real. Our legitimacy is very important," Mohammad concludes.