It’s no surprise that French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign to ban the burka is now being used by Al Qaeda to justify revenge and death threats. 

Radical Islamist Web sites posted a statement from Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb that vows revenge on France and Sarkozy for suggesting Islamic face coverings were not welcome in the country.

“France, the mother of all hypocrites. (A) Few years ago, France launched a large scale war against our veiled (Muslim) daughters, and here we see France today mobilizing its efforts and all of its institutions, organizing its ranks to fight a new blatant war against our sisters wearing the burka.”

Predictably, the message went on to say: “We will take our revenge from France for the honors of our daughters and sisters and from its (French) interests by every means and wherever we can reach them and whenever we have the opportunity to, until France calls off its injustice and arrogance and ends its aggression against our faith.”

Chilling and, hopefully, hollow words. This closely mirrors reactions to the Dutch cartoon controversy and other death threats or fatwas issued by Al Qaeda and its associates when they perceive an attack on Islam.

Does this kind of threat do a disservice to those Muslim women who view their right to wear a face covering as a matter of freedom?

We want to hear from you.

Many Muslim women in Europe say they don’t buy it. Make no mistake, no matter how Muslim women feel about the burka most of them would say politicians have no business banning or defending it.

As one woman wrote to us after we asked her opinion, “It seems that in a hundred years, little has changed in Mr Sarkozy’s mind about imposing his version of liberal values. In the shadow of the sumptuous Versailles Palace, his comments seem little other than cheap shots at winning political points, without really addressing the heart of the issue. How can a politician determine what a woman should wear?”

Many women point out that the burka or niqab is seen by some as a sacred expression of religious freedom and by others as a hideous example of female oppression. But as with free speech, some may not like what you’re wearing but they will defend your right to wear it.

While the French culture and character is central to this story, its separation between church and state and the secularism of the republic, some say this cannot possibly justify telling women what they can and can’t wear in public.

This is a raging debate throughout Europe and one that makes many quite uncomfortable. Even Muslim groups in France were muted in their response.

In the Netherlands and France there are bans on wearing any outwardly religious symbols including face veils.  For justification, many point out that in Turkey, a Muslim country, secularism is taken seriously and head coverings are forbidden in government offices and schools.

But banning face coverings anywhere in public would go a step too far according to many including U.S. President Barack Obama.

In an historic speech to the Muslim world from Cairo in June, Obama said he did not believe the state should dictate how people – and Muslim women in particular – should dress.

And it’s true that a ban in places like Britain or the United States would never be proposed or accepted. Many are sceptical that Sarkozy’s proposals will amount to anything but in the meantime it is serving to further widen the cultural divide between Europe and its Muslim communities.

Let us know what you think, we want to hear from you.

After dozens of internal investigations, public statements and now two high-profile inquiries the conclusion hasn’t changed much: The July 7th terror attack in London could not have been prevented. 

For years now this has been a difficult theory to accept for victims and victims’ families. 

“It’s a matter of public safety and we can’t in all conscience walk away” says Rachel North who was injured on an underground train near Kings Cross station. 

Since late 2005,  North and dozens of other victims and their families have lobbied for a full judicial inquiry because they say they believe security authorities have not owned up to their mistakes.

“That’s not to blame people that’s to say I think now in 2009 if we don’t apply the thinking that we should have learned after 7/7, we’ll have another one” says North.

But according to the authors of the latest inquiry, the uncomfortable truth not just for victims and families but for the wider public, is that there is no guarantee another attack won’t happen, no matter what is done to improve the security architecture.

It is sobering to hear the government and others stress that the threat of attack is still severe.

Still, pulling apart the anatomy of this attack and the ensuing investigation is a useful exercise for any country. One of the key mistakes was British intelligence seemingly believing ‘it can’t happen here’.

Chris Driver Williams, a military explosives expert who was called in within minutes of the attack, says he was one of the first to suggest it was inspired by Al Qaeda and says when he voiced that during an emergency cabinet meeting, the notion was literally laughed off.

“I came out with a very early assessment that it was an Al Qaeda attack and was met with actually from one very senior intelligence figure at the time who couldn’t understand how I could come up with that assessment” says Driver-Williams.

Authorities not just in Britain, but around the world, have learned from that experience and are taking home grown terror very seriously. In particular, the security structure, how intelligence is gathered and analyzed, has been changed in Britain to ensure a more comprehensive approach to potential threats.

Driver-Williams believes that’s important because far from the ‘spectacular’ attack of 9/11, we are more likely to see future attacks model 7/7 and more recently, the Mumbai attacks in late 2008.

The investigations and inquiries post 7/7, as imperfect as they may seem to victims, have been valuable in dissecting the possible foundations for a home grown terror attack. And as that threat evolves, the British experience may prove more and more relevant in other countries.

What do the photos of alleged abuse of detainees actually show and who took them?

There are apparently more than two thousand photos that allegedly show prisoner and detainee abuse. These photos come from two different sources: Personal snapshots taken by military personnel whose conduct contravened military laws and secondly, photos that were taken as part of military criminal investigations that sought to document allegations of abuse, including autopsy photos of prisoners who died in custody. The photos deal exclusively with alleged incidents in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama reverses course on release of photos

Who is the ACLU and why do they want the photos released?

The ACLU stands for the American Civil Liberties Union and they have lobbied for years both in court and in political circles to have these photos released. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2003 for all photographs pertaining to U.S. military detentions to be released. That request was denied and in 2004 the ACLU filed a lawsuit. In September 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ordered the photographs released. The Bush administration challenged the ruling, but the court denied that petition in March.

The Obama administration then told a federal judge that it would release a “substantial number” of photos in response to the court ruling in the American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act lawsuit but then reversed itself.  The ACLU has always maintained that only through full transparency and disclosure can the United States come to terms with the alleged atrocities and ensure that they are not repeated.

Why did U.S. President Barack Obama decide initially to publish the photos and why did he subsequently change his mind?

President Obama originally indicated last month that instead of continuing to legally fight the ACLU, it would abide by the most current legal ruling that the photos could be released. Now, he has reversed himself and indicated that the U.S. government would continue to fight the ACLU in court to keep the photos out of the public domain.  According to White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, “The President, as you all know, met with his legal team last week because he did not feel comfortable with the release of the photos.”  That discomfort apparently arose after military commanders warned it was not in the national security interest to release the photos. President Obama explained his action by saying “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

What has been the political reaction to the decision to block the photos?

The Obama administration is now fielding both criticism and praise for its reversal. Some Republicans applauded the move saying they were gratified Obama was listening to military commanders as the Bush administration had. “I agree with the President that the release of these photos would serve no purpose other than to put our troops in greater danger,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. But human rights advocates now accuse Obama of contributing to a cover-up of alleged abuses committed under the Bush Administration.

Is there any evidence that the photos affect the safety of U.S. troops and “inflame anti-American opinion?”

In the past, the Abu-Ghraib photos that documented detainee abuse at the hands of American soldiers have been used on jihadist websites to backup claims that American troops mistreat Muslims. These photos can serve as radicalizing elements and extremist preachers have in the past used these incidents of alleged and proven abuse to motivate attacks against American soldiers and targets. There has been much talk in recent years about ‘blowback’, the concept that there will be retribution all over the world against Americans for their actions if both Afghanistan and Iraq. But the ACLU argues that as repugnant as the photos are, the only redeeming act that would infer a measure of justice would be to release them.

London, England—Slick and accessible, one of the latest offerings from Somalia’s Al Qaeda backed Al-Shabab looks more like a reality TV show than a recruitment tool for terrorists.

And then there’s the English—American English.

“Away from your family, away from our friends, away from ice, candy bars, all those things is because we’re waiting to meet the enemy.” says a man reported to be Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. Al Qaeda propaganda refers to him as ‘the American” and it is one of the first times he has ever shown his face. He is now apparently in Somalia training and counselling Somalis from North America and Europe.

And then there’s the jihad call to arms with a hip-hop vibe.

“Mortar by mortar, shell by shell, only going to stop when I send them to hell” raps the unidentified voice-over of the video.

“We’re seeing perhaps their most sophisticated attempt so far to really reach an audience of potential recruits in America and that’s one of the things that made that video very significant” says Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a Washington-based research group that tracks Al Qaeda’s development and messages.

“They’re casting it in a way that’s going to speak to the youth of today,” says Venzke who adds, “Most of the time what we’re seeing in their videos directly parallels what the groups are doing operationally, what they are targeting, where they’re recruiting.”

Sheik Ahmed Matan says he knows that firsthand. The respected member of Britain’s Somali community says he knows of hundreds of young Somali men who have returned to Somalia for terrorist training.

“A lot of young people from here, from America, from Canada, from everywhere from Europe they went there, ” he says adding these men are capable of being sent back home to conduct terrorist operations, even suicide bombings.

“It can be, they can train anytime and send them here, anytime,” says Sheik Matan.

Somalis from North American and Europe are beginning to come to terms with the problem of recruitment. The U.S. and British governments say Somalia is an emerging terror hot spot, which can pose a threat beyond its borders.

Sheik Matan says he often challenges ‘recruiters’ at mosques and elsewhere in Britain demanding they stop brainwashing younger Somalis about Islam. He says the government should play a greater role in monitoring what is said and done at these mosques but doing so has proved highly controversial in Britain and throughout Europe.

But there is evidence that Al Qaeda is successfully preying on some of those with Western backgrounds. One of them was a business student from London who suddenly left for Somalia and only surfaced about 18 months ago on this martyrdom video just before blowing himself up in Southern Somalia killing at least twenty people.

In an off-the-record briefing with CNN, U.S. Defence officials told CNN months ago that one of their worst nightmares would be Al Qaeda operating freely in Somalia. Now that nightmare continues, with Somalis in North America and Europe admitting Al Qaeda’s reach is spreading to their communities.

LONDON, England – It could be labelled a triumph for the British judicial system: Preventing three innocent men from going to prison for a crime they didn’t commit.

That’s certainly the way the jury saw it.

The only suspects ever charged in connection with London’s 7/7 attacks have been found not guilty of conspiring with the bombers in 2005.

Waheed Ali, 25, Sadeer Saleem, 28, and Mohammed Shakil, 32, admitted being close friends of the bombers but through two trials they have denied ever knowing about the plot or helping them carry it out. The men were originally tried in 2008, but the first jury deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict.

For the victims’ families, both trials have disclosed painful reminders of how and why the four suicide bombers were so intent on killing as many as possible on that day.  The three defendants always maintained they did not believe in suicide bombings.

But as Ali put in courtroom testimony: “If I agreed with [the bombings], I would have been there on 7/7 with the brothers, with a rucksack on my back…I would have killed hundreds,” Ali told the jury before adding, “They didn’t stop them, they wouldn’t have stopped me. Not your MI5, not your MI6, not nobody.”

Ali and Shakil were found guilty during this second trial of plotting to attend a terrorism training camp in Pakistan at the time of their 2007 arrest. They will be sentenced on Wednesday.

Still, Ali repeatedly accused the prosecution of being on a “witch-hunt” and of pursuing charges against him purely for political reasons.

While Scotland Yard’s commanders would deny those accusations they will now face more scrutiny not just about this investigation, but their entire posture towards counter-terrorism investigations.

For years Scotland Yard has been trying to prove that the London bombers did not act alone. They gathered thousands of pieces of evidence that in the words of prosecutors, “fit together like a jigsaw to produce a compelling picture of guilt.”

But they have failed to prove that in court.

Add to this failure, the release of 12 suspects last week after a high-profile investigation into a so-called ‘Easter-Plot.’ Police here have yet to press a single charge in connection with an incident that the British government continues to describe as a “serious terrorist plot.”

That investigation was brought forward after Britain’s top counter-terrorism cop, Bob Quick, nearly blew the case by being photographed holding clearly legible briefing notes on the operation. Quick was forced to resign.

And then there is the airline plot now currently being re-tried in Britain. Seven men stand accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners using liquid bombs. But again, the prosecution failed to win convictions last year after the jury deadlocked and authorities were forced to prosecute the case from scratch.

All of this has served to undermine the credibility of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy.

The government has spent billions on fighting and prosecuting terror but Britain remains a significant global frontline. With all the adversity and scepticism it is now receiving in prosecutions and investigations, security authorities are open to new scrutiny about whether they are up to the job or even irresponsibly exaggerating the terror threat.

LONDON, England – A few months ago I wrote a short item suggesting that radical Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary might usefully be compared with Johnny Rotten. Thinly argued — if widely slammed — as that post was, it’s a comparison that retains value.

A protest against British soldiers in Luton, England.

The real argument, though, as I attempted to clarify in the comments to the original article, is not over the use of the acronym “UK,” but rather over the media, and the symbiotic relationship Choudary enjoys with certain sections of it.

CNN itself has not stood entirely above the fray on this, and there’s an argument, of course, that this post itself is just adding to the exposure. But I don’t see a way round that given the point I wish to make here.

Like Rotten and the Sex Pistols, Choudary knows the media loves nothing more than the opportunity to express outrage. The trick is then to exploit that outrage and fold it back into the greater narrative: the core message aimed at the real audience.

Punk, in its early days, traded on its outlaw status, which gained greater and greater currency the ruder and more shocking the Pistols became. The media lapped it up because they could portray it as a simple story of moral decline and social decay. It sold newspapers, which in turn helped sell records. Which then sold more newspapers, which sold even more records. Everyone was happy.

Choudary and his group, known once as Al-Muhajiroun until it was banned, play a similar game. Last year I attended two of its meetings within the space of a couple of weeks. It’s not hard to get in to these events and reporters who suggest otherwise are being disingenuous.

Most, if not all, will have received an SMS from Choudary inviting them to come. Even so, some prefer to come incognito. I’ve had a cameraman at one event telling me he worked for Hungarian television and a reporter at another purporting to write for the Irish Times newspaper. Both later turned out to be working for British tabloids.

At the first event, held to mark the anniversary of 9/11, the message from the platform was a familiar one. The 9/11 perpetrators were described as “disciplined role models” responsible for a “great day in history.” The people of Britain would “one day live under the sharia – so get used to it!” More than enough material for the assembled journalists, perhaps half a dozen in number, to get their story in the paper.

At the next event, a week or so later, this time highlighting “Muslim Youth — Spark of the Fire,” those very news stories arising from the first meeting were brandished from the platform like evidence planted on a dupe: “See how they twist our words! This is not a war on terror, this is a war on Muslims!”

Choudary’s expertise in all of this has come to the fore yet again with the excessive coverage given to the protest in Luton last week during the parade by British soldiers returned from Afghanistan. A small, though provocative, demonstration, which solicited an angry response from some of those who turned out to salute the infantrymen, garnered acres of coverage in the press and on TV. The Evening Standard, London’s main local newspaper, even devoted three pages to an interview with Choudary, including the front-page splash “I want to see flag of Allah flying over Downing Street.”

There will be plenty of winners from this. The papers, presumably, were happy with their stories. Choudary and his followers must be absolutely delighted: they can mine this one for weeks, if not months. And the far-right British National Party, the BNP, are exploiting it heavily as well: the story is all over the front-page of its Web site.

The main losers are the vast majority of people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — who are getting a highly-skewed picture of what constitutes Muslim opinion in the UK. Because no matter how sincerely Choudary and his acolytes may hold their views, their support within Muslim communities is paltry.

Indeed, it’s been suggested to me by people intimately involved in de-radicalization that Al-Muhajiroun is losing ground, its followers’ heightened public presence over the last six months or so actually born out of frustration over lost momentum.

If that is indeed the case then it’s surely time for the media to move on and stop over-inflating the importance of these particular proponents of division and separatism.

KABUL, Afghanistan — You couldn’t miss the irony. As we tried to contact Taliban commanders through an intermediary their mobile phone messages in Urdu made one thing clear: The insurgents were in Pakistan or very close to the Pakistani border.

For years now, many Western journalists have approached the Taliban for interviews and the Taliban has obliged.

The militants would sometimes cover their faces or not give their names, but face-to-face contact was possible, especially when it suited the Taliban and its message.

Not any more.

As the war in Afghanistan has escalated, the Taliban has become off limits for any journalist who wants to come out alive. As Nir Rosen from Rolling Stone magazine found out when doing his investigative piece “How We Lost the War We Won,” any old, tribal notions of Taliban insurgents keeping their word is out the window.

When a couple of insurgents promised to keep him safe, he became a pawn as the infighting between rival Taliban commanders wore on.

Rosen was lucky, his fate hung in the balance for little more than 24 hours. But it underscores the dangers of seeking the journalistic authenticity we all crave.

As journalists we talk to the Taliban to get a sense of the message they want to convey. It’s then up to us to scrutinize that message as best we can. We don’t feel that we’re mouthpieces for the group, no more than we feel that we’re mouthpieces for NATO every time we cover one of its press conferences. 

An interview can give us a new or sometimes a very cliched perspective of the Taliban. Either way, it still represents a valued piece of news that is instructive in terms of where the conflict is going and how the Taliban hopes to shape it.

So we made do with a phone call. There is no way to verify if the man we spoke to, Mohammed Ibrahim Hanafi, is in the ascendancy as a Taliban commander or on his way out. He did make a point of telling us that he would play a pivotal role in the Taliban expanding its reach in the north of Afghanistan.

Above all though, what we took from the interview is an overwhelming sense of confidence and control from the Taliban. Certainly Taliban commanders feel they have coalition troops on the run and perhaps more importantly, that they have the support of more and more Afghans.

Civilians may respect the Taliban or just fear it, but either way the result is the same: The Taliban now has renewed influence and reach in almost three quarters of the country.

KABUL, Afghanistan — I knew something was wrong the minute I took a look at the police sniffer-dogs tasked with protecting a key checkpoint just outside the walls of the presidential palace. They looked tired, they weren’t interested in the cars, they had to be coaxed into sniffing around and they had sores on their hind legs. Great, I thought, that’s all that’s coming between me and a catastrophic explosion in Kabul: Work weary dogs and their underpaid masters.

Can you really blame the dogs or the cops though? Kabul is clogged with traffic and people and at the best of times there is no way to assure safety in this city. And it’s alarming for this correspondent to hear the same line from both the Taliban and one of the city’s top cops: Insurgents can hit the city anytime, anywhere.

That’s not to say the Kabul Police force isn’t trying. They are now talking about a double ring of security around the city and they’ve gotten better at enforcing it. Many cities around the world with many more resources, are having their own battle with terrorists and so in that context, the security forces here aren’t doing a bad job.

Securing this capital is a crucial test not only for the city’s police force, but for the whole country. They need to know they can stand on their own and sort out their own security without thousands of foreign troops turning their capital into a fortress.

Less than three years ago, foreigners could walk the streets of Kabul in relative safety and have the luxury and freedom to hail their own cabs and try out the local food. Some foreigners of course still do that, but the majority live in armed camps throughout the city, fearing both random attacks and targeted kidnappings.

I saw first hand the pictures from inside a recent attack on the Justice Ministry here. It was gruesome, stomach-churning stuff. The images of dead employees with bullets to the head and chest were bad enough, but the placid expressions of the dead Taliban fighters, some of whom had major body parts blow off, were chilling.

The Taliban claims it controls several of the main routes just outside the city and not many Afghans are willing to test that claim. Roadside bombs have tripled so far this year and then there are the “Taliban checkpoints” that are harrowing for Afghans, let alone foreigners.

The fact is, even if Kabul becomes more secure in the coming months it may remain virtually cut off from the rest of the country for some time. And then there’s still the issue of how to secure the city itself with a police force of grossly underpaid officers who claim they are on the take just to survive?

When I stopped at police headquarters at District #2, the commander there showed equal amounts of hubris and humility. Of course he said, he and his officers are heroes. But how else would you describe men who willingly walk the city knowing they could be target practice for the Taliban? And all for less than $200 a month.

I would like to hear what you think of the mission in Afghanistan. Let me know.

LONDON, England (CNN) — When Northern Ireland’s police chief, Hugh Orde, warned a week ago of a heightened threat from dissident Republicans he did not mince his words.

“We are very clear,” he said, “they are determined to kill police officers going about their normal duty of keeping people safe.”
It now appears those fears have been confirmed.

The fatal shooting of a police officer in the town of Craigavon, not far from the capital, Belfast, comes just 48 hours after gunmen shot dead two British servicemen at a barracks in the province.

The Republican splinter group, the Real IRA, claimed responsibility for that attack. And no one in Northern Ireland will be surprised if they claim responsibility for this latest one as well.

Membership of the Real IRA, a rump of Republican activists who refused to go along with the main Provisional IRA, and its political partner Sinn Fein, after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that set Northern Ireland on the road to peace, is put in the low hundreds. But as so often with violent extremists, they have a power to shape events out of all proportion to their size. Or so at least they will wish to believe.

These targets are not randomly chosen. By targeting the police, and particularly the British army, they are hitting Republican weak spots. Sinn Fein, fully signed up to the peace process and a key partner in the power-sharing government, makes no bones about the fact it wants to see all British troops out of Northern Ireland. Like it or not, Gerry Adams finds himself in a difficult position being forced to condemn an attack on the British army. Calling on Republicans to grass on those who carried it out is another, even more problematic, step to take.

What the Real IRA wants to see happen is an over-reaction from Unionists and a move by the British government to put soldiers back on the streets. Political Republicans are highly sensitive to these possibilities. Hence the sharp criticism from Sinn Fein before these attacks to news that the intelligence arm of British special forces had been called into the province to meet the rising dissident threat.

The response to the attack over the weekend suggested the consensus that governs Northern Ireland — that all sides keep dancing together in the name of devolved government and the peace process — was holding. If that changes then the dissidents will hope their shocking show of strength can win new support.

What’s worrying is where that support might come from. Paul Dixon of Kingston University points out the apparent anomaly that support for those political parties that have most readily embraced the peace process has tended to come not from the young — those, on the face of it, with the most to gain from peace — but from the older generations, those who’ve grown weary of decades of violence. The fear is that the readiness of many younger voters to support those parties who’ve taken a tougher line on the peace process might translate into a new generation ready to abandon peace altogether.

One Northern Ireland politician said after the latest killing that the province is “staring into the abyss.” It’s a frightening thought that the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland might really be so shallow.

But amid the pessimism, it’s worth recalling that previous attacks in the province have sometimes succeeded in actually embedding the peace process further, through a shared revulsion to the violence from across the communities. The challenge to Northern Ireland’s politicians, its police force, and the British government, is that they collectively hold their nerve and bring their people with them.