Saudi King slams intelligence leak

The King of Saudi Arabia has strongly criticized the country's intelligence officials for disclosing a secret document, which shows Riyadh has links with terrorist activities carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq.

According to a report by Iraq's Buratha news agency on Friday, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz ordered a special committee to investigate the intelligence leak and inform him about those liable in the case.

Some 37 members of Saudi's intelligence service, accused of being behind the leakage of the confidential document, were also reported to have been arrested.

The condemnation by the Saudi monarch comes as the Iraqi news agency disclosed the amount of money transferred by Saudi government officials to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Saudi officials are also reported to send explosives and weapons to the terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, Secretary General of the Saudi National Security Council Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz is said to be the main guilty behind the case.

The report came as earlier last week, Saudi army officer Abdullah al-Qahtani was arrested in Iraq over charges of planning a terrorist attack during the upcoming FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The Saudi national entered Iraq in 2004 and was involved in militant operations carried out by al-Qaeda.

read more...

List of passengers

Following is the list of passengers who travelled on the Air India Express plane that crashed Saturday in Mangalore city.
1. Harshini Poonja
2. Aaron Joel Fernandes
3. Niha Imthiaz
4. Bhaskaran T.V.
5. Komalavally Alinkeel
6. Narayana Kanthav Rao
7. Vani Narayana Rao
8. Vaishnavi Narayana Rao
9. Mohammad Ishaque Rafique Ahmed
10 Hasanabba Abubakkar
11. Hiba Azeena (child)
12. Mushina (child)
13. Haifa Hasha (infant)
14. Joyanrichard Saldanha
15. Ummer Farook Mohammed
16. Shahida Nushrathar
17 Zeshan Abdul Rehman (child)
18. Kannur Zulekha Banu
19. Nazeema Muhammad Ashraf
20.Satyanarayana Ballakuraya
21. Sujatha Rao
22. Fathimamehzan Shafqat
23.Rashaad Shafqatmahmood (infant)
24. Khader Ammangod Mohammed Shafy
25. Suhaib Mohammed Naseer (child)
26. Bibi Sara (child)
27. Nabeeha Mohammed Nasir (child)
28. Mohammad Asraf
29. Maimoona Asraf
30. Ashaz Abdulla (child)
31. Ayesha Afsheen (child)
32.Plaviashakunthala Lobo
33. Venishanikola Lobo
34. Vishalfloid Lobo (child)
35. Abdullah K.M.
36. Rosly Shibu
37. Godwina Thomas (child)
38. Gloria Thomas (child)
39. Bhagali Prabhakar
40. Kammadam Kunhabdulla
41. Shashikanth Punja
42. Manirekha Punja
43. Abdulbarr Damudi (child)
44. Mahesh Shetty
45. Mohamed Naser
46. Anwar Sadiq
47. Hassan Kutty
48. JoelPratap DSouza
49. Arunkumar Shetty
50. Abdul Samad
51. Prasadand Manjrekar
52. Krishnan Koolikunnu
53. Mullachery Balakrishnan
54. Shanthi Olivera
55. Chethana Mukeshkumar
56. Ahmednaushad Abbu
57. Rajan Pulikodan
58. Jayaprakasha Devadiga
59. Jayaram Kotian
60. Chitra Jayaram
61. Rahul Jayaram (child)
62. Prabhavati Karkera
63. Ashitha Bolar
64. Akshay Bolar
65. Suresh Kunder
66. Soman Narayani
67. Pradeep G.K.
68. Kallingalabullah
69. Thalangara Ebrahimkhaleel
70. Naziya Afarin
71. Mohammed Abaanruknuddin (child)
72. MohammedRafi Beliyapura
73. Abdullah Mohammed
74. Ibrahim Saheb
75. Sameena Saheb
76. Issam Ibrahim
77. Rida Ibrahim (child)
78. Perumbalamohammed
79. Shivakumar Nagaraj
80. Meenu Gupta
81. Shetty K.K.
82. Gangadharan Nair
83. Prabathkumar Attavar
84.Sathisha Shetty
85. Irshad Ahmed
86. Neha Parveen
87. Affan Ahmed (infant)
88. Sameerbeerran Moideen
89. Abdunnazir Avinja
90. Riju John
91. Sabrina Nasrinhuq
92. Mahammooda Abdulla Kanyana
93. Althafahmed Moolana
94. Lokeshasadananda Belchada
95. Hameed Pookayam
96. Mayankutty K.P.
97. Vipin Kattoor
98. Kishorekumar Kudpapoojary
99. Chandukutty Nair K.
100. NM Bharatham
101. Abdulazeez Anchikatta
102. Umashan Vijayan
103. Cavin Sequuiera
104. Reshmasanthosh Rai
105. Nalandshaunsantosh Rai (child)
106. Vihasantosh Rai (infant)
107. Vamana Prabhu
108. Ganesh Prabhu
109. Qazi Abdulsalam
110. Qazizulekah Khuddus
111. Jackson Periera
112. Mahammed Ismail
113. Naveen Kumar
114. Sanjaykumar Mahabal
115. Mahendra Kodkany
116. Indumathi Nayak
117. Vijesh Kovval
118. Ramakrishna Nayak
119. Ajesh Mottathil
120. Navid Ibrahim
121. Ignatius DSouza
122. Sukumara Kuzhiyamkottuchal
123. Abdul Basheer KM
124. Mohiddin Farasusman
125. Mahim Mohammedpalli
126. Mohammedashraf KA
127. Mohamed Usman
128. Naveenwalter Fernandes
129. Saritaphilomena Dsouza
130. Ullas Dsilva
131. Mannapadupuashraf Abdul
132. Safdharali Sheik
133. Mahesh Shetty
134. Abdulharish Koppalamhouse
135. Abdul Jebran
136. Parambathkunhi Krishnan
137. Prabhakaran Pachikaran
138. Nekkareibrahim Ismail
139. Melwynkiran Menezes
140. Siddeeque Choorisulaiman
141. Putturismail Abdulla
142. Somashekhar Potyalsrinivasa
143. Lokesh Narayanan
144. Lolitta Dias
145. Lilly Dias
146. Praveena Sundar
147. Hilda Douza
148. Pradeep Deepanivas
149. Denis Saldanha
150. Ashton Saldanha (child)
151. Manthur Hassainar
152. Rama Satish
153. Mohammed Basheer
154. Aboobacker Siddeeq
155. Mohammed Usman
156. Shaileshrao Brahmavara
157. Mohammed Ziad
158. Sameena Abdul Karim
159. Zainab Mohammedziad (child)
160. Mohammed Subairzaid (child)

read more...

Jews find Peace in Islam

Washington, May 22: For many people, the word 'Islam' conjures up images of violence, suicide bombings and holy war. But not for Maryam Kabeer Faye, a Jewish-born American. She believes the religion she adopted after a long spiritual journey represents peace, love and mercy.
Kabeer Faye describes her transformative experience, from her Jewish roots to Sufi Islam, in her recent book, "Journey through Ten Thousand Veils:the Alchemy of Transformation on the Sufi Path."
Search for answers
As far back as she can remember, Maryam Kabeer Faye yearned for spiritual fulfillment.
She was born in 1946 to a liberal Jewish family in Hollywood, California. While her parents were kind and loving, they were not religious, which left Kabeer Faye with a spiritual void.
At the age of 12, she was given a painted scroll of an ancient man with the words, "Seek and the truth shall make you free." That message resonated with her as she grew up in the tumultuous political climate of the 1960s.
At 16, she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, then a hotbed of social and political activism. While there, she studied the teachings of the Koran, the scriptures of Advaita Vedanta - a form of Hindu philosophy - and the poetry of 13th century philosopher Jelaluddin Rumi.
Spiritual quest
She left Berkeley after just two years, to begin a spiritual quest to find what she calls her "truth."
"It was not any particular religion that I was seeking or that I knew about," says Kabeer Faye. "I was seeking that liberating truth, wherever the call was coming from."
The call led her to places far beyond America's shores, including Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It was on a bus trip through an Afghan desert that she first encountered the faith that would come to define her spiritualism.
"The bus went into the middle of the desert and at a certain moment the call to prayer came just lilting through the desert - first time I've ever heard it - and then the bus stopped and all of those colorful people got off the bus," she remembers. "Everyone had their prayer mats and they laid them out in the desert and prayed. [It was the] first time that I saw people praying in that way. And it was so pure and beautiful and truly inviting."
Kabeer Faye had witnessed what all devout, practicing Muslims do five times a day. They set aside other activities, face in the direction of the Muslim holy city of Mecca, and kneel down in worship.
The experience was a call that she eventually answered.
Finding her religion
"Countless, countless moments of awakening led me ultimately to the path of Islam, and within that, to the practice of Sufism, or Tasawuf, which for me is intricately united with Islam," explains Kabeer Faye.
Sufism arose as an organized movement after the death of Muhammad, the central prophet of the Islamic faith. Many consider it a mystical form of Islam.

Maryam Kabeer Faye describes her conversion to Sufi Islam in her book, "Journey through Ten Thousand Veils:the Alchemy of Transformation on the Sufi Path."
"It's kind of the interior illumination of the practices of Islam, which bring out the best in it. That is the love, the mercy, the kindness, wisdom, light," says Kabeer Faye. "And so that was the destiny that was marked for me, that was decreed for me."
She studied and travelled with Sufi masters in Israel, Sri Lanka, Senegal and Gambia, as well as closer to home in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, in order to deepen her understanding of this particular form of Islam.
"The experience I've had [is] not with the abstract study of Sufism in books - because we can always read about Sufism in the 12th century - but in my case, my destiny was to be guided from one Sufi master to the next, until my present teacher, who is Sheikh Harun Rashid Faye from Senegal, West Africa."
It is from this teacher that Maryam Kabeer took her last name.
Kabeer Faye acknowledges that while many believe Islam is a violent religion, the Islam she knows and embraces is a religion of mercy and compassion.
"I can't count the numbers of people I met who were the most generous, kind, and giving, loving, caring people," she says. "That is, caring for the orphan, caring for the disadvantaged, caring for women, caring for me. How did I become a Muslim? It's by that love. How would I transmit it to anyone else? Through that love."
Those who espouse violence in the name of Islam, says Kabeer Faye, have distorted the true faith.
"I learned by studying, that suicide is forbidden in Islam, and killing of innocents is forbidden in Islam, and even cutting down trees in a defensive battle is forbidden. So life is supported by Islam. Therefore oppression and aggression are forbidden, whereas mercy, tolerance, kindness and charity are commanded."
Born Jewish but now a Sufi Muslim, Maryam Kabeer Faye lives in Philadelphia with her grown son, Issa.
In addition to attending conferences and workshops, Kabeer Faye teaches Arabic and Islamic studies to women and girls in the U.S. and in Gambia, as well.
And, once a week, she visits a prison where she speaks to inmates about the transformative powers of her Sufi faith.
Now that her first journey of spiritual learning is complete, she has embarked on a second journey as an author and teacher to share the knowledge she's acquired during a lifetime of experiences with Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
-Agencies

read more...

158 killed in India plane crash

New Delhi - At least 158 people were killed Saturday when Air India Express flight 812 from Dubai overshot the runway while landing in the western Indian city of Mangalore, officials said.

The Boeing 737-800 with 160 passengers and six crew members overshot the tricky hilltop runway and crashed into a forested gorge, airport officials and eyewitnesses said.

The aircraft broke into pieces and caught fire. Eight passengers, who managed to jump out, survived.

'Four of them suffered major injuries, three had minor injuries and one miraculously escaped unhurt,' federal Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said at a briefing in Mangalore.

Patel said more than 125 bodies had been recovered and it was hoped the rest would be retrieved by sundown.

An Air India official confirmed that 158 passengers and crew, including the two pilots, were dead.

'Many of the bodies are badly burned and charred,' Patel said. 'It will takes some time to identify them and hand them over to their kith and kin.'

Patel also said it was too early to say what caused the accident. He said the entire wreckage of the plane had been found and the black box was also expected to be recovered.

Patel said the two-and-a-half year-old aircraft had no history of defects or malfunction and the weather conditions were relatively normal when it landed.

Though it had been raining in the region since Thursday, there was no rain and the runway was dry when the aircraft landed, Patel said.

The commander of the aircraft, Z Glusica - a British national of Serbian origin - had 10,200 hours of flying experience and had flown planes at least 19 times to the Mangalore airport, the minister said.

Patel said a wing of the aircraft appeared to have hit an instrument at the end of the runway after which it veered off and fell 200 to 300 feet into the adjoining valley.

The airport on the outskirts of Mangalore is located in a hilly area. Landings and take-offs from its 2,450-metre runway have little overshoot area and are considered difficult, according to aviation experts.

Patel acknowledged that there was very little spill-over space along the runway - about 900 metres of sandy surface - but pointed out that the runway had been operational without any mishap since 2006.

India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation had ordered an enquiry into the accident and Air India had constituted a team of experts to establish the circumstances behind the accident, Patel said.

Indian media speculated that the crash could have been caused by a pilot error or a burst tyre.

'The aircraft touched down the runway 24 slightly beyond the touch down zone, overshot the runway and went in the valley beyond the runway,' a federal Civil Aviation Ministry release said.

All the passengers were Indian nationals, Air India's director of personnel, Anup Srivastava, said at a press briefing. The passengers comprised 105 men, 36 women and 19 children, four of them infants.

Firefighters took over four hours to douse the blazing aircraft.

Mangled parts of the plane were spread over a two-kilometre-radius of forested hillocks.

Fifteen teams of rescue workers were engaged for hours searching for survivors and victims.

All eight survivors had jumped from the aircraft immediately after it went off the runway. They escaped through gaping holes and broken windows as the aircraft cracked into pieces.

'A crack appeared on the plane's body where I was seated,' Ummer Farooq told the NDTV news channel from his hospital bed. 'I immediately jumped out. ... As I fled from the aircraft, flames engulfed it.'

Most of the crash victims belonged to the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka and were workers returning home from the Gulf region for a summer vacation
.

This is the first major aircraft accident in India since an Alliance Air Boeing-737 crashed into a residential area near the eastern city of Patna on July 17, 2000, killing 61 people.

Air India Express is a low-cost wing of the state-owned Air India.

India's worst aviation accident ever was November 12, 1996, when 349 people were killed in a mid-air collision of a Saudi Arabian Airlines
plane and a Kazakhastan Airlines plane over northern India.

read more...

US cartoonist apologises over Facebook Muhammad row

A cartoonist whose work inspired an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad has apologised for her role in the row.

Writing on her blog, Molly Norris said her satirical cartoon was "hijacked" and that the campaign was "offensive to Muslims".

Other people set up a page on the social networking site Facebook backing an Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

It sparked outrage in Pakistan, where a court ordered Facebook to be blocked.

On Thursday the video-sharing website YouTube was also blocked in Pakistan. Reports say more protests against the Facebook campaign are planned for Friday.

'Right to expression'
Molly Norris drew a cartoon in April to protest against the decision by a US television channel to cancel an episode of the popular show South Park because of a contentious depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

In her cartoon, Ms Norris satirically proposed May 20 as an Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.
The idea inspired a separate Everybody Draw Muhammad Day group on Facebook which rapidly gained in popularity.

The page contains drawings and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and characters from other religions, including Hinduism and Christianity. Depictions of the Prophet are forbidden in Islam.
Ms Norris says that she had nothing to do with the page even though her name was posted on it. Some media reports implied that she had set up the Facebook campaign.

"I never started a Facebook page; I never set up any place for people to send drawings to and I never received any drawings," she said on her blog.

She apologised for her role in the controversy and said that the content of the page was "offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place".
Violent demonstrations
Pakistan said it blocked the popular video-sharing website YouTube because of its "growing sacrilegious content".

Correspondents say it remains to be seen how successful the new bans will be in Pakistan and whether citizens find a way round them.

YouTube said it was "looking into the matter and working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible". The site was briefly blocked in Pakistan in 2008 - ostensibly for carrying material deemed offensive to Muslims.

"Because YouTube is a platform for free expression of all sorts, we take great care when we enforce our policies. Content that violates our guidelines is removed as soon as we become aware of it," said the company.

Facebook said in a statement that it would take action if any content "becomes an attack on anyone, including Muslim people", but that in this case its policies were not violated.

Five people were killed in Pakistan in 2006 during violent demonstrations following publication of Muhammad cartoons in a Danish newspaper.

source:BBC

read more...

France makes way for Grand Mosque

MARSEILLE, France — French Muslims celebrated a milestone on Thursday when work began to build a Grand Mosque in Marseille, the country's biggest and a potent symbol of Islam's place in modern France. A day after the French government approved a bill banning the full Islamic veil, Muslim leaders and local politicians hailed as "historic" the laying of the mosque's cornerstone at a dusty construction site in northern Marseille.

France's second city is home to 250,000 Muslims, many of whom flock to makeshift prayer houses in basements, rented rooms and dingy garages to worship.

With a minaret soaring 25 metres (82 feet) high, the Grand Mosque will hold up to 7,000 people in its prayer room and the complex will also boast a Koranic school, library, restaurant and tea room when it opens in 2012.

Muslims in Marseille have long campaigned for a mega-mosque as a prominent gathering place that would bring Islam out of the basements and allow it to thrive under the Mediterranean sun.

The turning point came in 2001 when Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, a member of President Nicolas Sarky's right-wing party, threw his weight behind the project, overriding objections from the far-right.

Like Sarkozy, Gaudin sees the new mosque as a way to help France's large Muslim minority integrate into the mainstream and foster a form of moderate, modern Islam that shuns burqas.

"The construction of this Grand Mosque will serve as a showcase for Marseille's Muslims to promote the true face of Islam, an enlightened Islam," said Mohamed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim faith.

After years of delays, the project still faces hurdles to raise the full 22 million euros (27 million dollars) needed to finance it.

Nourredine Cheikh, an Algerian-born businessman and president of the association leading the campaign for the mosque, said his group is hoping for big donations from north African countries, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Among the dozen diplomats from Muslim countries who attended the ceremony, Algerian Ambassador Missoum Sbih said Muslims in Marseille "could not do without a dignified place of worship" in France, which he described as "Europe's number one Muslim country."

Algeria will sit down with other donor countries to work out financing, he said.

The grand mosque will be built in the Saint-Louis area of Marseille, an ethnically mixed neighborhood that suffers from high unemployment and poverty.

Home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority, estimated at between five and six million, France has for years been debating how far it is willing to go to accommodate Islam, now the country's second religion.

Soon after Switzerland voted to ban minaret construction last year, Sarkozy warned French Muslims to "avoid ostentation" in the practice of their religion and he has declared the face-covering veil "not welcome" in France.

With parliament now set to debate a bill that would bar women from wearing the full Islamic veil, Muslim leaders worry about a surge of Islamophobia in France.

Last month, gunmen sprayed bullets across the facade of the Arrahma mosque in Istres, a town a few dozen kilometres from Marseille, raising alarm among Muslims.

Nadia Houte, a 31-year-old teacher, said the mosque would bring Muslims together and promote a positive image of Islam.

"We are Muslims, not fundamentalists," she said. "The burqa doesn't interest me. This has nothing to do with me."

There will be no blaring call to prayer from the Grand Mosque's minaret, but simply a blue light that will flash five times a day to summon the Marseille faithful.

read more...

Facebook blocked in Pakistan over Prophet Mohammed cartoon row

Islamabad:After blocking Facebook and Youtube, Pakistani authorities today further widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to popular social networking website Twitter.

Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site.

When users tried to log into site, there browsers displayed a message that said "this site is restricted."

Over the past two days, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has blocked websites like Facebook and Youtube, citing "sacrilegious contents" on the websites as the reason for the action.

The crackdown began after the Lahore High Court issued an order for blocking Facebook over a page hosting a contest for blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammad.

Over 450 URLs have been blocked so far by the authorities.

read more...