Islamist threat to Turkey’s secular system

Turkish secularism on the ropes. Sharia is advancing in what is always held out to be that exemplary beacon of democracy in the Islamic world, Turkey. The reasons why Sharia supremacists are advancing there have not — unsurprisingly — been sufficiently explored by Western analysts, who of course dismiss out of hand the appeal of a call to restore Islamic authenticity.

“Erdogan Set for Election Win That May Revive Tension Over Islam,” by Ben Holland for Bloomberg, March 27

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to win a fresh mandate from voters that may embolden his challenge to the country’s military and courts, which see him as an Islamist threat to Turkey’s secular system.

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Turk Arrested Over Kurds’ Killings in ’90s

A Turkish officer was arrested Wednesday in connection with suspected extrajudicial killings in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeast in the 1990s.

A court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, issued the arrest warrant for the officer, Col. Cemal Temizoz, pending a trial.

Colonel Temizoz served near the town of Cizre, about 40 miles from the Iraqi border in Turkey’s southeast, between 1993 and 1996, when hundreds of Kurdish civilians and activists were said to have been killed by security forces with links to the military.

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Hamas popularity rises after Gaza war

Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians has risen sharply since a three-week Israeli war in January devastated the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, an opinion poll released Monday showed.

If an election were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would beat Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president and leader of Fatah who advocates a peace deal with Israel.

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ICC warrant on Sudan President insult to Muslims – Larijani

Iran’s Parliament speaker says the ICC arrest warrant for Sudan’s president is an insult to the African country and the Muslim world.

After arriving in Khartoum on Friday, Speaker Ali Larijani said the so-called human rights guardians in the International Criminal Court (ICC) showed that they are on the wrong path by issuing the warrant.

The ICC on Wednesday issued an international warrant for the arrest of President Hassan al-Bashir.

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IAF aircraft hit gaza as rockets fall on Israel

Four Kassam rockets fired by Gaza terrorists hit southern Israeli civilian areas on Sunday morning.

Two of the rockets hit the Eshkol region and two struck the Sdot Negev area.

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Attack on Baghdad police kills 28

A suicide bomber has killed 28 people at a police recruitment centre in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police say.

At least 57 other people were wounded in the attack, which was reported to have been carried out by a bomber who drove his motorcycle into a crowd.

The victims were queuing outside the academy when the bomber struck.

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U.S. diplomatic overture to Syria

Hillary Clinton has just concluded her first trip to the Middle East as secretary of state. She also announced that Jeffrey Feltman, acting secretary of state for the Near East, and Daniel Shapiro, the National Security Council staff director for the Middle East, would be going to Syria for talks. The Bush administration had not done much business with Syria in the last several years. What do you think will come of this new initiative?

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Soldiers of Peace

Compare and contrast the following three events: At the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday, George Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA, pointed an accusatory finger at Syria. Damascus, Schulte said, has not come clean on its nuclear program. That program, of course, was exposed in September 2007 when Israel reportedly destroyed Syria’s North Korean-built, Iranian-financed al-Kibar nuclear reactor.

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Bomb kills 10 in Baghdad

A car bomb exploded Thursday in a crowded livestock market selling sheep, cattle and goats south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi police and medical officials said.

The parked car exploded at the height of the morning buying and selling at the market on the outskirts of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Iraqi police Maj. Muthana Khalid. The blast scattered bodies and animal carcasses throughout the market, a witness said.

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Iran a threat to Europe, Russia

Iran poses a threat to Europe and Russia, both from Tehran’s direct efforts and its support of terrorist groups, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.

The Tehran government is intent on interfering in the Middle East, she told reporters aboard her flight to Brussels from the region.

“There is a great deal of concern about Iran from the entire region,” she said. “I heard it over and over and over again in Sharm el Sheikh, in Israel, in Ramallah.

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