“Islamic terrorism” on The Daily Caller

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI issued pleas for peace to reign across the world during his traditional Christmas address Sunday, a call marred by Muslim extremists who bombed a Catholic church in Nigeria, striking after worshippers celebrated Mass. (more)

On October 14 a Tunisian television station aired “Persepolis,” an animated movie about a girl coming of age during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes film festival, but its depiction of Allah as an old, bearded man upset Tunisia’s ultra-conservative religious radicals. Islam generally prohibits creating or showing images of God, Muhammad and other Muslim prophets. (more)

Islamists are far less likely to come to power in Syria than in Egypt if the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad ultimately falls, respected Middle East experts tell The Daily Caller. (more)

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Connecticut chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Thursday that the Obama administration has refused to use the term “violent Islamist extremism,” arguing that the White House’s overly cautious word parsing constitutes a refusal to ”speak honestly.”  (more)

A Balkan Muslim who killed two U.S. Air Force servicemen in March has told a German judge Wednesday that he was motivated after seeing the movie “Redacted,” which was made as a political statement in 2007 by Hollywood director Brian De Palma, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and several high-profile movie industry producers. (more)

A suicide car-bomb attack on the United Nations office in Nigeria’s capital city Abuja killed at least 18 on Friday, and a radical Muslim sect from that country’s northeastern region has already made claims of responsibility through telephone calls to broadcasters at the BBC and Voice of America. (more)

Al Jazeera is planning to expand into the United States, and the chattering classes are treating it as a simple free speech matter. Let’s not let the Islamic supremacists once again invoke the freedom of speech to kill our freedom of speech. The ruse of using freedom of speech to allow propaganda broadcasts over our airways is another stealth attack on the United States of America. The issue of the expansion of Al Jazeera into the United States can only be likened to an expansion of Goebbels’s media network into the U.S. at the height of World War II. (more)

The Left faces an examination in the coming days, and peaceful survival for all of us depends on its registering a passing grade: can the Left comprehend that, while we embrace Muslims — the people — as siblings in humanity, simultaneously we can and must circumscribe the lethal ideology that derives from a frank reading of the Quran and Muhammad’s hadith? (more)

The threat of homegrown terror is real, as the terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Texas vividly illustrated. Today the House Committee on Homeland Security, under the chairmanship of Congressman Peter King (R-NY), held a critically important hearing on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.” Predictably, the liberal media is up in arms condemning the hearing and politically correct liberal groups have likened it to modern-day McCarthyism. (more)

A Muslim convert and college dropout was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to attempting to provide material support to a Somali-based terrorist group and threatening the lives of the writers of the “South Park” satiric television show for portraying the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. (more)

(HT Hot Air)As if the threat of deadly drug cartels in Mexico wasn’t enough, some of them are joining forces with Middle East terror groups. (more)

A coalition of 51 religious and civil rights groups is calling on congressional leaders to stop upcoming hearings on Muslim extremism in the U.S. or have the investigation refocused to include other hate groups. (more)

Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical cleric and high-profile member of al-Qaeda, attempted to coordinate an attack on a U.S.-bound airplane with the help of a British Airways insider, prosecutors said in a British court Tuesday. (more)

One democratic uprising or vote does not make a country a democracy. This important point is being overlooked in the debate about the U.S. response to the populist uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East. Pundits have filled the airwaves claiming the United States must choose between supporting “democracy” and governments that are friendly to America. This is a false choice. (more)

Mass protests demanding democratic reform and freedom on the streets of Egypt — the Arab world’s most populous nation and one that holds tremendous political and cultural influence throughout the Middle East — left Washington unsure whether it should continue its support of an oppressive regime or stand for the values Americans cherish most. The U.S. government has an unprecedented opportunity to offer Reagan-esque support to an indigenous popular movement in the heart of the Arab world that could fundamentally change the political fabric of the region and secure America’s long-term goal of a free and democratic Middle East. The Obama administration’s response to the protests was shockingly slow and apprehensive, as was the response from other U.S. leaders on both sides of the aisle. The U.S. government must now act swiftly to embrace this unique opportunity and not let an exaggerated fear that militant Islamists might fill a void left by an ousted President Hosni Mubarak inhibit it from voicing support for the very principles on which America was founded. (more)

Two years after President Obama took office and embarked upon a kinder, gentler approach to dealing with the Muslim world, we must ask whether this approach is bearing fruit. Perhaps the best indicator of this is how the “Arab street” commemorated the last anniversary of 9/11. Translations of numerous articles about 9/11 published in Arab newspapers suggest that the Arab world’s perception of America is deteriorating. (more)

On January 16, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released its fourth edition of “Inspire” magazine. (more)

With attacks against Christians on the rise in majority-Muslim nations in the Middle East, experts say the future of Christianity in the region is gravely threatened. (more)