Syria: Al Qaeda Training Western Citizens for Terror Abroad

Israel National News reports: “Al-Qaeda has been using the influx of foreign nationals to Syria to train potential terrorists to begin cells abroad, specifically in the United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU), Britain's The Telegraph reported Monday.

A defector from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Western security sources confirmed to the British news agency what UK and other intelligence officials have long suspected: that at least some foreign nationals who leave to fight in the Syrian civil war plan to use their experience and training there to attack their native countries upon their return.

The defector, speaking from the Turkish border - a route commonly taken by foreign Islamist fighters into Syria - said that Al Qaeda has been training recruits from Europe, the UK and the US how to make and detonate car bombs and suicide vests in anticipation of being sent home to start new terror cells.

‘They talked often about terrorist attacks,’ the defector, who would only give the name of Murad, stated to the British daily. ‘The foreigners were proud of 9/11 and the London bombings. The British, French and American mujahideen [holy warriors] in the room started talking about places that they wanted to bomb or explode themselves in Europe and the United States. Everyone named a target. The American said he dreamed of blowing up the White House.’…”

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Atheists Demand Florida City Remove Bible from City Hall Chambers

A nationally-recognized atheist activist group is demanding that officials with a Florida city remove a 40-year-old Bible from city hall chambers.

The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently sent a letter to officials in Pinellas Park, Florida on behalf of local businessman Randy Heine, who states that the Bible makes him feel uncomfortable when he attends city meetings.

"The Bible must go. It doesn't belong in a government meeting," he told Fox13 Tampa Bay. "Every time I speak, it makes me feel awkward."

According to reports, the Bible was presented to the city in 1975 by the local Kiwanis club and has rested on a desk in the chambers for nearly 40 years since.

Government Relations Administrator Tim Caddell said that local residents have not expressed any grievances about the Bible in the decades that have passed.

"We've not had complaints from residents, from people who participated," he told Bay News9. "We have complaints from groups who come in looking to find something wrong."

However, FFRF says that the Bible serves as a government endorsement of Christianity, and asserts that such a suggestion is unconstitutional.

"It's on display, and that certainly is improper. It shows an endorsement of the Bible as a holy book over other holy books," Co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told reporters. "How would the people of Pinellas Park feel if it was a Quran?"

Therefore, the organization sent a letter to city officials, contending that the Bible must be removed.

"Not only is the city council sending a message of endorsement for Christianity over other religions and nonreligion," it read, "but display of this King James Bible sends a message of endorsement of one particular Christian sect over all others."

The letter also takes issues with inserts that are included with city utility bills, which advertise for church events, as well as prayers that precede city hall meetings.

FFRF has sent letters to Pinellas Park in the past, which have heretofore been ignored. However, a review of the correspondence is said to be underway this week.

Reaction to the matter has been mixed.

"I love the Freedom From Religion Foundation! … Help pull this country out of the insanity of superstitious beliefs," one commenter wrote. "Magical thinking will not improve the human condition."

"[T]here is nothing about separation of Church and State in the Constitution. The 1st Amendment simply says that the government (federal) will not declare any religion the religion of [the] State.

"This was due to what England did by making the Church of England the official religion of the country," another stated.

"Religious freedom means you are free to worship and display your worship. You are not supposed to worship behind closed doors!"

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Evolution: Plenty of People Believe, But at What Cost?

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe in human evolution and one-third reject the idea, according to a Pew Research Center study highlighting a battle of worldviews with implications for multiple facets of life.

Sixty percent of those surveyed said "humans and other living things have evolved over time," while 33 percent said "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time," Pew reported Dec. 30.

About half of those who reported a belief in human evolution said it's "due to natural processes such as natural selection" while 24 percent said "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today."

Pew's study contrasts with a Gallup poll from 2012 that found 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. In that poll, about a third of Americans said they believe humans evolved but with God's guidance, while 15 percent said God had no part in the process.

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture told Baptist Press the Pew data could be analyzed to mean 57 percent of Americans hold a view compatible with Intelligent Design, that the universe is the product of intelligence rather than blind chance.

"If you define evolution as mere 'change over time,' then sure, most Americans (about 60 percent) believe humans have 'evolved,'" Luskin said. "But if you further define evolution as 'unguided natural selection,' then apparently only about a third of Americans agree with that type of evolution.

"If we interpret the poll correctly, well over half of Americans -- at least 57 percent -- take a view that fits within Intelligent Design and don't support Darwinism," Luskin said.

Ken Ham, president and founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, which are grounded in the belief that God created the world in seven literal days and that the earth and universe are thousands –- not billions –- of years old, told Baptist Press the way Pew phrased the questions determined how people answered and even he would have said living things have not existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

"I believe there have been a lot of changes in animals because there has been a lot of speciation within a kind," Ham said. But overall, he is encouraged that the study indicates that a strong number of people have not been persuaded by the human evolution theories.

"In a culture where generations of kids are being taken through a public education system where there's been legislation to protect them from even hearing about creation and to teach them evolution as fact -- that we still have a third of the population who would stand basically very similar to where we stand, I think that shows there's been a significant influence in this culture to teach people about [God as creator]," Ham said

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California Veteran Boots Hawk Suspended from Job for Using 'God Bless America' in an Email Signature

STOCKTON, CA - A retired military veteran is seeking legal action after he was suspended from his job for using "God Bless America" as his email signature.

Boots Hawk served as an Army soldier for 20 years, before he retired and took a job at Dameron Hospital in Stockton, California.
Hawks, who has worked at the hospital for 10 years, was asked to remove the phase from his emails by his supervisor.

According to Hawk, he followed the supervisor's direction, but also let them know that he would be consulting with an attorney about his right to keep the phrase.
The next day, Hawk noticed the combination on his locker had been changed and his computer password was suspended.

Hawk was placed on leave for "insubordination" just days before Veterans Day.
"I think Dameron provides fantastic care to people and I hate to see bad publicity and I don't mean this to be publicity. I just see that we need to have justice done," said Hawk.
The Pacific Justice Institution has taken Hawk's case and wrote a letter to the hospital demanding an apology.

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Syrian Opposition Warcrimes Record Deepens Peace Plan Faultline

(Reuters) - War crimes blamed on the Syrian opposition are predominantly being carried out by foreign fighters, a U.N. human rights investigator said on Monday, highlighting a deepening rift in the opposition that has been an obstacle to peace talks.

"If you're going to look for the (opposition) groups that are committing the worst crimes, look particularly for the foreign fighters, where the foreign fighters are fighting," Karen Koning Abuzayd told reporters in Geneva.

By contrast, Salim Idris, head of the Western-backed Supreme Military Council that oversees a loose grouping of rebels known as the Free Syrian Army, was trying to "infuse human rights law" and train soldiers in the rules of war, she said.

Abuzayd is one of the four lead members of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, a body set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council two years ago to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Syrian conflict.
Although most of the commission's evidence has implicated forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, its reports this year have directed increasing suspicion to opposition groups and are frequently cited by supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.

The commission's contrasting views of Syria's domestic opposition and the Jihadist foreign fighters may add to pressure on efforts to bring all parties to the conflict together for peace talks at a so-called "Geneva 2" conference.

Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said there were now foreign fighters from about 20 countries in Syria including some from Europe.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hope to agree a date for the conference when they meet in New York at the end of September. International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is currently seeking to convene all parties possibly around mid-October.

The conference guidelines set out by major powers in June 2012 require all parties to agree to a ceasefire but leave it to the Syrian people alone to determine their future through a transitional authority. That gives the foreign fighters a duty to lay down their arms but no say in the running of Syria once the conflict is over, making them a potential new enemy.

"The Syrian fighters, they say that only the first of the wars is fighting the government, and the second one is getting rid of these people. They don't want them," said Abuzayd.
Louay Meqdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said the Supreme Military Council was very clear and would not condone any crime in Syria. He said the Free Syrian Army was short of resources while militants were getting stronger, taking control of oilfields and other valuable areas.
"We should face the problem and find the solution. They are fighting against us, against the Free Syrian Army. They killed some of our commanders," he told Reuters in Istanbul.

Diplomats say regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar that are funding the foreign fighters must agree to stop supporting them in order for a peace deal to be struck at Geneva. In return, Syria's allies Iran and Russia would have to stop supplying weapons to Assad's government.
However, there would be a risk that foreign fighters would remain in Syria and keep fighting.
"We need somehow somebody who has contacts with these foreign fighters who represent them in some way or another," said a U.N. official.

"Stopping the violence entails stopping these people," said a diplomat who expects to be involved in any Geneva 2 talks.

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Third of Marriages in Eastern Turkey Involve Child Brides: NGO

A third of marriages in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern provinces involve brides of minor age, with a significant proportion under the age of fifteen, a study by an NGO in the area has shown.

The study, conducted by KAMER, an NGO focusing on the improvement of women’s conditions and rights, is based on interviews with 60,000 women across 23 provinces.

The results paint a worrying picture of the extent of child marriages, particularly in rural areas, and were announced following the tragic death of yet another child bride in Siirt province made headlines across the country, after she gave birth to her second baby.

“The civil authorities should make partnerships as soon as possible with teachers, imams, the gendarmerie and mukhtars to raise awareness on the issue of child brides. Preventive measures must be adopted in every province, district and village,” KAMER’s Van branch director, Esra Gürcan, said in a written statement.

Among the women interviewed by KAMER, 4,711 were married at 16 or 17 in the last 10 years. Some 2,217 were married between the ages of 13 and 15, while 54 were married at the age of 12 or below.

Referring to the harrowing story of the child bride shot to death in Siirt, Gürcan said this matter represented a big test of women’s right and gender equality.

“If we are talking about a girl married at the age of 11, who died at the age of 14.5 after giving birth to two children, this should be shame for us all,” Gürcan said, urging the authorities to carry a thorough investigation.

“The family that marries the [child bride] off at 11, the man who marries her, whether she gave a premature birth, everything should be questioned,” she added.

The legal age for marriage in Turkey was recently raised to 17 from 15, but many families still change the date of birth of their daughters so they can marry legally.

Experts highlight that laws lack persuasive power and are not enough on their own. Instead, many say, the importance of raising awareness on gender equality should be stressed.

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