Pakistan at War; Talibans slowly marching towards Peshawar. June 28, 2008

1. Last week, 16 local Christians were briefly kidnapped from the heart of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

2. Pro-Baitullah Mehsud militants killed 22 rival tribesmen in Jandola, the day after kidnapping them, an official said on Wednesday.

   They belonged to the Niamatkhel clan of the Bhittani tribe and were captured in clashes with militants on Monday.

   Officials estimated that militants had kidnapped 30 people and eight were still missing.

   Barkatullah Marwat, District Coordination Officer of Tank, told Dawn that bodies of the victims had been retrieved from Kari Wam and Sor Ghar areas. All of them were buried later.

   A spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulvi Umar, claimed responsibility for the killings, saying the fate of the eight people still in their custody would be decided by members of the Shura.

   He warned government and security forces not to ‘meddle’ in the dispute. Otherwise the peace deal would suffer a “lasting damage”.

3. Operation against miscreants begins in Khyber Agency , Security forces have launched an operation against miscreants in Khyber Agency on Saturday.

   Sources said that mortar shells have been fired from Qila Shahkas of FC in tehsil Jamrood.

   Meanwhile, additional contingents of security forces have been dispatched to tehsil Bara from tehsil Jamrood.

   The security forces convoy comprised of six armored vehiclesand tanks.

   Situation in Khyber Agency has been tense since several days and political administration has imposed indefinite curfew in the area. Sixty people have been killed and more than 80 injured so far in the clashes.

3.Pakistani Taliban leader suspends peace talks

Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud told Reuters on Saturday he was suspending peace talks with the government, as security forces had begun launching an operation against the militant movement. “The talks will remain suspended until the government stops talking about operations and attacks against us,” he said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

4.A contingent of troops has blocked the road towards Afghanistan, imposed a curfew and ordered shops to shut.

5.officials said they thought most of the militants may have left the region ahead of the attack.

6.  Waris Khan Afridi, a tribal leader from the Khyber agency and a former member of the National Assembly, said: “There is no strategy to counter them. Very soon, the Taliban will go to Peshawar and say: ‘Hands up.’ “

7.Arbab Hidayatullah, a former senior police officer said  “The government is helpless. It has lost its wits. The police have lost so many men at the hands of the Taliban they are scared,”

The Blonde Bombshell has muslim roots. May 3, 2008

The newly elected Mayor of London is of Turkish descent. His great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, a Turkish journalist, was briefly interior minister in the government of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

His grandfather Osman Ali settled in the UK in the 1920s and changed his name to Wilfred Johnson.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “Try as I might I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth-profit matrix and stay conscious” – on his week-long career in management consultancy “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3″ – on the campaign trail in 2004 “If I was in charge I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like” – striking a blow for the right to eat pies at the 2006 Tory conference. He later described Oliver as a “national saint” “I think if I made a huge effort always to have a snappy, inspiring soundbite on my lips, I think the sheer mental strain of that would be such that I would explode” – on his unique political style “I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar” – after being questioned on Have I Got News for You about drug use “I will add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology” – after suggesting the country was known for “chief-killing and cannibalism” “I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle” – on press reports of his relationship with Ms Wyatt

Doherty turns to Islam in jail April 26, 2008

DRUGGIE jailbird PETE DOHERTY is reading the Koran to get him through his days in the slammer.

The BABYSHAMBLES singer has turned to the Islam holy book after being imprisoned at London’s Wormwood Scrubs.

Potty Pete requested a translation after being put in an isolated cell at the tough prison last week. And the rock junkie is now “lapping it up”.

A pal revealed yesterday: “He’s been reading the Koran since he went into segregation.

“He’s got a lot of Muslim friends and they’ve been on at him for ages to study it. Now he’s on his own he’s got time on his hands to study it.

“I’m surprised how much it has calmed him down as he was very on edge inside. He definitely seems more chilled. He’s lapping it up and really interested in it. I think it’s helping him in there.”

The former LIBERTINES frontman has been having a torrid time since beginning his 14-week sentence for breaching probation by taking drugs.

Drugs

The Sun revealed he’d been having heroin in prison before lags who gave him drugs on tick threatened to maim him and he was segregated for his own safety.

In the past Pete has also read up on weird cult Scientology after being introduced to it by his then girlfriend NADINE RUDDY.

If Pete ever does think about converting to Islam, he’s going to have to make some radical changes to his outrageous lifestyle.

Maybe he’s yet to get to the bits in the sacred book that rule out alcohol and mind-altering drugs.

Eating any meat which is not prepared the halal way is also banned.

Considering the only food I have ever seen Pete scoff is a Big Mac, I’m not sure what he would plan to eat.

And as Muslims are advised not to wear any tight-fitting clothes, all those skinny jeans would have to go straight down to the charity shop.

And putrid Pete will also have to sort out his disgusting dirty fingernails, as the book guides followers to stay clean and well groomed.

Ex-extremists call for ‘Western Islam’ April 22, 2008

The government is keen to find answers to extremism

Discussing hardline Islamist ideologies and violent extremism isn’t exactly the stuff of fashionable London parties.

But the British Museum is on Tuesday the surprising venue for theologians, thinkers and socialite Jemima Khan, all coming together to support the launch of a new think tank to counter Al Qaeda’s world-view.

And this seemingly bizarre gathering exposes the question at the heart of the whirlwind romance between the Quilliam Foundation and policymakers.

Is the launch of this campaigning organisation a step forward in the battle of ideas – or just another group with some kind of official pat on the head – but no credibility on the street?

Since the London bombings of July 2005 a whole string of Muslim organisations have come forward, claiming to have the answers to violent extremism.

Search for answers

The Muslim Council of Britain, the main umbrella body, has been marginalised in an ongoing political row – but two others touted as significant players have had little impact.

Vast sums of money are being spent on research into violent extremism, and entire government teams have sprung from nowhere to try to find answers.

Then into this mix came Ed Husain. Last year he published The Islamist, his story of a life in hardline community politics.

He was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), a global body calling for a single Islamic state across the Middle East.

Husain says the hardline rhetoric of organisations like HT took him and other British teenagers to dark places – places which are the starting point on a road that leads to suicide bombing in the name of al-Qaeda.

Maajid Nawaz (centre): Imprisoned with former colleagues in Egypt

It’s an alluring argument and the book is a compelling read. One government official e-mailed scores of colleagues inside Whitehall late last year, effectively instructing them to read it.

Now Ed Husain and another, less well-known, man, Maajid Nawaz, are launching Quilliam (named after a 19th century British convert) as the counter-argument to extremism.

They say Islam in its purest universal form, as the last message of God to mankind, sits perfectly well in modern multicultural societies – providing that Muslims find the right way to express their faith.

And if British Muslims rediscover the purity of the faith, they argue, they can cast off the political and cultural baggage that would see Islam as the enemy of the West.

This is, however, an argument fraught with danger – which is why Quilliam’s progress will be interesting to watch.

Enemies

Ed Husain’s book has annoyed many people who would otherwise be on his side, including serious Muslim thinkers who were once of the same radical mindset as him.

Some Muslims who advise government have raised eyebrows over his links with Conservative thinkers. The author himself is a Labour supporter who says the challenge is not party-political.

Supporters say he has been the victim of community sniping because he has had the guts to stand up and be counted and to reveal, warts and all, what lies beneath the surface.

This is where Maajid Nawaz comes in. For years, Essex-born Nawaz was one of the most influential figures in Islamist politics in the UK.

Quilliam says Islam sits perfectly well with modern multi-cultural societies

And he paid for it by being jailed in Egypt for membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir – witnessing the torture of other prisoners and fearing for his own life.

But before finding himself in a Cairo cell, he personally recruited to the cause the very men and women Quilliam is now targeting.

He is known among communities around the country and delivers talks rooted deep in Koranic theology, rather than the writings of the ideologues who provided al-Qaeda’s intellectual foundations. In short, he has street credibility.

The two men and Quilliam’s other founders form an attractive package – effective communicators who believe they can join the dots between communities, counter-extremism strategy and young Muslims.

But it’s this determination to influence government which will be the most challenging issue for Quilliam.

‘State-approved Islam’

Islamist political groups will use any kind of association between the think tank and policy makers as an attack, accusing it of doing ministers’ bidding.

If Quilliam is to have success with its message it will need to manage this relationship very carefully.

Another organisation, the Radical Middle Way, delivers fascinating lecture tours by progressive Islamic thinkers – but it is dismissed by hardliners because it received Foreign Office funding.

Other schemes involving government cash have also struggled to avoid accusations of “state-approved Islam”.

So can Quilliam reach the young men and women who need most to hear the message?

Quilliam’s strategy is to bathe in the media and political spotlight – but to back this up with a coherent grassroots campaign of rigorous ideas.

And so it hopes to become a rolling ball gathering the moss of former Islamists – and the more moss it gathers, the greater its momentum in communities.

Its founders have deliberately avoided using the difficult theological term of “reformation” – but the think tank is determined to sell the idea of a “Western Islam”.

The organisation initially in its sights is Hizb ut-Tahrir.

By coincidence, it sent out an e-mail on the morning of Quilliam’s launch, calling on supporters to “Stand for Islam” against the onslaught of Western values. It appears to be feeling the heat.

Shoaib Mansoor to make sequel to Khuda Kay Liye April 19, 2008

After the hard-hitting, Khuda Kay Liye Shoaib Mansoor plans a sequel to the film. However, the project stands to lose because of the nightmarish experiences the middle-aged director went through.

“My kismet was with me. If in Pakistan, we didn’t have President Musharraf in-charge of the regime my film would’ve been in serious trouble. Yes, he openly supported the film. He saw Khuda Kay Liya and made his appreciation and approval so apparent that the work of the censors became quite easy. I don’t think my film would have made it into the theatres.”

Surprisingly the Pakistani fundamentalists also kept their peace. “The majority of the audience reacted so positively that they didn’t have the guts to raise their voice. Also, I covered my bases well. If Naseeruddin Shah’s anti-fundamentalist rhetorics had any flaws I’d have been hauled over the coals. I’ve a fair command over my religion. However if you ask a maulvi about it, he would say I am not Muslim at all specially after seeing my film. But I’d like to say I’m a far better Muslim than any maulvi. Just as they say, they’re doing a Jihaad I’d like to think I’ve done Jihaad through my film. If I’ve shown so much courage and taken such a personal risk to depict the true meaning of religious faith it’s a form of Jihaad born of strong convictions.” It isn’t as if Shoaib Mansoor thinks it’s all peaches-and-creams in the Land Of Dreams. “If you and I travel together you can sail through customs. But I’ll be grilled although I dress conventionally. Intolerance is a way of life in every culture. Even today, women are treated as commodities in many countries. Through my leading lady Iman Ali I wanted to show how women are treated.”

And now Shoaib Mansoor plans a sequel to Khuda Kay Liye. “But I wonder if I’m equal to the task. I had members of the cast who didn’t behave well during the shooting. How can I work with them again? My lead actor Shan gave an interview before the release of Khuda Kay Liye where he said I had made the film only for myself and for my close friends. These commercial actors believe audiences actually want potboilers.” So did Shan apologize after Khuda Kay Liye succeeded? “Apologize? He hasn’t called me once since the release. The whole of Pakistan has changed their mind about Shan after my film. I Believe I could only realize 50% of my script. I don’t want to go through that suffering. Whatever I make, it would’ve a powerful message. I feel I’ve to use the cinematic medium to say something meaningful.”

Apparently the leading man Shan who’s a major star in Pakistan gave Mansoor hell. He evades the question. “Maybe these stars behave the same way with all directors. Later I found out that these stars were being far more disciplined with me than with other Pakistani filmmakers. I wish they’d have looked at Naseeruddin Shah. What convictions and integrity he has! After hearing my script his first condition was, ‘I’d do it for free’. My other actors first wanted to know how much money they’d get.” Interestingly all the actors except Naseer and Shan in Khuda Kay Liye were feature-film firsts. Shoaib’s next film could be an Indo-Pak production. “I’d like that. I feel the predicament regarding religious bigotry is the same in both countries. I feel Pakistan and India are casualties of wrong policies. I wish to address my films to these issues. It’s important to bring about an awakening in people. Not that I feel cinema can change mindsets. I don’t think Khuda Kay Liye has revised Muslim bigotry.”

Shoaib is gung-ho about Jodhaa-Akbar. “The effort and the funds are evident. I was awed by the film’s magnitude. I wish I could make a period film like this. History and fiction are my lifelines. I’m very interested in the life of Akbar. And I’m very impressed by Jodhaa-Akbar. My only grouse is that Hrithik Roshan is miscast. It was important to make sure that the actor who plays a historical character is correct in posture and bearing. In my own film too some actors were miscast. But then I wasn’t in a negotiable position.”

Shoaib admits Khuda Kay Liye got recognition outside Pakistan only at film festivals. “The film went through a nightmare in the US. I had no distribution setup. So I negotiated with some people on the e-mail. On trust, I sent them the prints of the film. They ran the film for a month in the US. And then vanished with the funds and the prints. In fact, I should make a film on my experiences while making the film. For example, the actor whom I initially wanted in the lead Junaid Jamshed was my close friend. I introduced him on television and promoted him to become a top musician in Pakistan. When I offered him the role he said yes eagerly. But then he became a mullah and lost nerve. I lost precious eight months in his dillydallying.”

Reacting to the film’s box office performance in India, Shoaib says, “I keep myself away from such things. But I wish the film’s Indian distributors had treated it with more importance. It’s the costliest film ever made in Pakistan. And I raised the funds somehow on my own.”

Iran predicts Hezbollah will destroy Israel April 9, 2008

Feb 18, 2008

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday predicted Hezbollah would destroy Israel, in a new verbal onslaught against the Jewish state after the murder of a top commander of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group.

“In the near future, we will witness the destruction of Israel, the aggressor, this cancerous microbe Israel, at the able hands of the soldiers of the community of Hezbollah,” the ideological force’s commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying.

Jafari’s comments came in a condolence message to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah after the murder last week in Damascus of top commander Imad Mughnieh, who has been blamed for a string of anti militant attacks on US and Jewish intrests.

“With the martyrdom of this true Muslim, the intentions of all revolutionary and combatant Muslims, especially the comrades of this dear martyr, will without doubt become firmer against the Zionist regime,” Jafari said.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already blamed Israel for killing Mughnieh, hailing him as a “great” man whose his death would serve to increase resistance against the Jewish state.

In a sign of Iran’s respect for Mughnieh, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki attended his funeral in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut on Thursday and gave a speech.

The Islamic republic has a longstanding policy of non-recognition of Israel but its rhetoric against the Jewish state has sharpened during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad has provoked international outrage by repeatedly predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear. He also courted more controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust.

Iran insists its position is in no way anti-Semitic but anti-Zionist, pointing to the continued existence in the country of the largest Jewish community in the Middle East after Israel.

Mughnieh, who was killed in a car bombing in Damascus on Tuesday, was suspected of masterminding the abduction of Western hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s and of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people.

He was also linked to the bombing of the US marine barracks at Beirut airport in 1983, in which 241 American servicemen died and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, in which a US navy diver was killed.

Israel, while welcoming the death of Mughnieh, has denied any link to his murder. Meanwhile, the US intelligence chief has publicly suggested that internal elements in Syria or even Hezbollah could be to blame.

“There’s some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria. We don’t know yet, and we’re trying to sort that out,” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told Fox News.

The Syrian pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported on Sunday that the authorities have detained Arab suspects for questioning in connection with the murder.

The events come amid growing US frustration with Iran’s activities in Shiite majority Iraq and in Lebanon which has a substantial Shiite community.

The United States accuses Iran, along with its regional ally Syria, of arming and financing Hezbollah, as well as working to destabilise Lebanon in its current political crisis.

Overwhelmingly Shiite Iran jubilantly cheered Hezbollah’s resistance against Israel in the 2006 war but insists it only gives the Lebanese group political support and not military aid.

Washington also accuses Tehran of being a leading sponsor of terror and developing technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons, another allegation that Iran vehemently denies.

“We are not harbouring any illusions about the Tehran regime’s true intentions nor its extremist agenda,” commented Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev.

Israel: We’ll ‘destroy’ Iran April 9, 2008

JERUSALEM – Israel will “destroy” Iran if Tehran decided to launch a war against the Jewish state, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said today.

The unusually harsh warning from Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister, was delivered as the official visited his ministry’s war room, which took part today in a massive, nationwide, weeklong drill that is set to include simulated chemical missile attacks on central Israel.

“The Iranians won’t rush to attack Israel, because they understand the significance such action would have and are well aware of our strength,” Ben-Eliezer told reporters. “However, Iran continues to aggravate the situation by supplying arms to Syria and Hezbollah, and we must deal with this.”

The minister said this week’s war drill “is not a meaningless spectacle or a fictional scenario. The future reality is likely to be a number of times harsher than that which we recognize now. We are confronted with a situation where the home front becomes the front line.”

“In a future war, it will be much safer to live in (the northern towns of) Nahariya and Shlomi instead of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, since I expect that in the opening attack hundreds of missiles will strike Israel,” Eliezer said. “There will be no place in the country which is not within range of Syria and Hezbollah’s rockets.”

Israel’s current war drill is the country’s largest-ever. It aims to prepare the public and government and army institutions for the possibility of a future war. The drills reportedly include testing of missile alert sirens, Israel Defense Force war simulations, Homefront Command, police and emergency services responses and drills in hospitals and emergency centers.

As part of the drill, Israel will simulate a massive missile bombardment, including a chemical missile attack.

The drill and Ben-Eliezer’s warning come as Syria, Lebanon and Israel increased their alertness along a joint border zone amid a possible breakout of hostilities.

The countries are preparing for the possibility of Hezbollah attacking Israel in retaliation for the assassination of arch-Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car bomb in Syria in February.

According to Israeli security officials, Israel has warned Syria, which sends Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, that Damascus would be held accountable for any Hezbollah attack on Israeli soil.

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Dan Harel warned last week Israel will “respond with a heavy hand” against anyone trying to target Israel.

Touring Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria, Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated last week Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East and warned against challenging it.

Barak was to travel last week to Berlin for strategic talks about the Middle East but postponed the trip due to tensions with Syria, his aides said.

Anti-Muslim Film Boorish and Boring April 2, 2008

Last week, the anti-immigrant Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, released on the internet a film intended to smear Muslims. But his movie “Fitna” is such a bore that it has only given freedom of expression a bad name.

“Fitna,” the Arabic word for “social strife,” is being trumpeted as a provocative manifesto with the potential to create yet more strife in the cosmic confrontation between Islam and the West.

I have watched it. Others should too, not because it is compelling but because, in its utter predictability, the film reminds us why freedom of expression is worth defending. To remain powerful, freedom demands creativity — the very creativity that Fitna lacks.

It is a patchwork of scenes plucked straight from the stock image warehouse: news footage of 9/11 and the Madrid train bombings spliced with clips of hate-spewing Muslims, interrupted by headlines about Theo Van Gogh’s murder in the streets of Amsterdam, all juxtaposed to incendiary passages from the Qur’an.

To be sure, egregious events, preachers and scriptures exist. By no means am I suggesting that they be sanitized. Put them on the public record, in all their vileness.

(Just be certain to secure permission. “Fitna” features a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban-turned-time bomb — one of many cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in 2005. Local Muslim protests escalated to larger boycotts of Danish goods and culminated in full-fledged riots in various Islamic capitals. Ironically affirming that expression is never completely free, the artist who sketched the bomb-donning Prophet has announced plans to sue Wilders for violating copyright.)

The politician’s problems do not stop there. By stitching together one inflammatory visual after another, Wilders has achieved little more than a garden-variety harangue. This makes “Fitna” not only dull but, worse, easily dismissed by those who deserve to be held accountable for their silences about violence and human rights abuses committed under the banner of Islam.

A more engaging approach would have been to pepper the film with positive verses from the Qur’an, thereby revealing that Muslims who expound hostility are actively choosing to ignore the better angels of Islam.

There are plenty of positive passages to highlight. The possibility for women’s dignity is shown by 3:195, which states that God rewards “any worker among you, be you male or female — you are equal to one another.” Imagine aligning that passage with the shot of a woman’s body mutilated by an honor killing.

To shame the imams who cry death to non-Muslims, Wilders could have followed their words with these from 2:62 of the Quran: “Jews and Christians and Sabians, all who heed the One God and the Last Day, have nothing to fear or regret as long as they remain true to their scriptures.”

Indeed, he could have hammered home this point with a shorter, simpler passage — 109:6, which proclaims “unto you your religion, unto me my religion.”

Above all, Wilders missed the opportunity to give Wahhabi sermonizers and sympathizers a real run for their oil money. He could have done so by cutting between their fevered warnings of hellfire on the one hand and, on the other, diverse Muslims reading 2:256 of the Quran: “There is no compulsion in religion.” The resulting message is simple yet nuanced: If Saudi-inspired Muslims insist on literalism, then why not take literally the Quran’s crystal-clear decree against compulsion?

None of this demands deleting or diluting reality. I believe Wilders has every right to publicize harsh verses from the Qur’an. He also has the right to make a painfully stale statement.

In so doing, however, Wilders debases the value of free expression. As it stands, “Fitna” reduces liberty to banality. If that is the best a freedom fighter can do, then what is the big deal about having freedom at all?

It is, of course, a huge deal when cleverly exercised. Exposing the range of choices offered by the Qur’an, “Fitna” could have put the onus on Muslims to look deep within. Non-Muslims would have learned something new. And Wilders might have advanced a serious debate — to say nothing of a necessary one — that lives up to freedom’s promise.

Therein lies the paradox: Those who crusade for freedom often do it the greatest disservice. Not unlike what has happened to Islam itself.

Afghan Taliban say attack Dutch over anti-Islam film April 2, 2008

LONDON, April 1 (Reuters) – The Taliban has said two attacks on Dutch forces in Afghanistan were in retaliation for an anti-Islamic film by a Dutch politician, the SITE Intelligence Group said on Tuesday.

In a communique posted on Web sites used by militants dated April 1, the Taliban said its Shura Council Leadership announced reprisal operations against Dutch forces because “one of the members of the Dutch parliament produced a film that hurts Islam, and he published it with bad intentions”.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, launched the anti-Koran film “Fitna” — an Arabic term that can mean “strife” — last Thursday on the Internet.

The film urges Muslims to tear out “hate-filled” verses from the Koran, and starts and ends with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by the sound of ticking.

It was condemned by Muslim nations as a provocation, while Dutch Muslim leaders urged restraint. The Dutch government has said the film in no way reflects its own views.

Before its launch NATO expressed concern it could worsen security for foreign forces in Afghanistan, including 1,650 Dutch troops.

The Taliban statement referred to two revenge attacks on Sunday which it said killed a large number of “occupier soldiers”.

The Dutch Defence Ministry said in a Web statement dated April 1 that five Dutch soldiers from NATO-led forces were wounded in two separate incidents on Sunday.

One soldier lost both his legs in the explosion and his condition was critical but stable, the ministry said.

The Dutch ministry said no Dutch soldiers have died in attacks in the past week. (Reporting by Gilbert Krieger in Amsterdam, writing by Mary Gabriel; editing by Myra MacDonald)

Dutch Lawmaker to Edit Anti-Quran Film March 31, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch lawmaker whose anti-Quran film drew worldwide condemnations will edit out a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad after complaints of copyright infringement, his office said Monday.

Geert Wilders used the cartoon by Danish artist Kurt Westergaard twice in the film “Fitna.” The drawing, which depicts Islam’s prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse, provoked violent protests in Muslim countries when it was published by European newspapers two years ago.

The Danish Union of Journalists has said it would sue Wilders for copyright infringement.

Wilders’ spokeswoman Daphne Rozenboom said in an e-mail that Wilders would replace the cartoon and make other minor edits. She could not give details on how Wilders would change a film that has been dispersed widely over the Internet and downloaded millions of times since its release late Thursday.

In Denmark, Westergaard said he was happy with Wilders’ decision and believed the lawsuit would be dropped.

He added that Wilders might have won his permission to use the cartoon if he had asked.

“I don’t want my drawing to be used in something that I don’t know anything about. Had Mr. Wilders contacted me, we could have talked together and I could have found out what he wanted with the drawing,” he said.

The 15-minute film showed verses from the Quran juxtaposed with scenes of violence and terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.

It led to protests in Pakistan and drew condemnations from Muslim countries and politicians around the world. The Dutch government also denounced the film, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “offensively anti-Islamic.”

On Monday, about 40 hard-line Muslims demonstrated outside the Dutch Embassy in Indonesia, calling for Wilders’ death. The protesters from Islamic Defenders Front — a small group that has occasionally staged violent protests against Western targets — threw a plastic bottles and eggs at the compound before dispersing.

Malaysia’s Islamic opposition party delivered a protest note to the Dutch Embassy and urged Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products.

Wilders, whose party holds nine seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, said the film was intended to warn the West of the dangers posed by Islam.

On Monday, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen met with ambassadors of countries belonging to the Organization of the Islamic Conference to assure them the film “in no way reflects the opinion of the Dutch government,” spokesman Rob Dekker said.

He said the diplomats inquired whether Wilders would be prosecuted for violating hate speech laws. Prosecutors have said they have not yet decided whether to take action