Not much news coverage about this, but you can bet if the suspect’s last name was Ahmed or Mahmoud instead of “Stewart” he would immediately be labeled a “terrorist.”

What if he were Muslim? (h/t: CriticalDragon)

Suspect Throws Bombs, Leads Police on 40-Mile Chase

A suspect with an anti-police agenda and wanted for attempted murder in Virginia is under arrest in Great Falls, Mont., after leading police Thursday on a wild 40-mile chase during which he tossed seven ignited pipe bombs into the path of pursuing officers.

Laurence Alan Stewart II, 25, is believed to have fled Stafford County, Va., on Tuesday during the height of Hurricane Sandy after separate pipe bombs exploded at the homes of a sheriff’s deputy, a detective and Stewart’s ex-girlfriend. No one was injured.

On Thursday, 1,800 miles away from where the saga began, a Montana state trooper stopped a red Hyundai for speeding on U.S. Highway 87 southeast of Great Falls. As the trooper returned to his vehicle to check the driver’s license, the fugitive’s car sped off with Montana license plates stolen the night before from a Wal-Mart parking lot.

The driver of the vehicle, later identified as Stewart, led state troopers and sheriff’s deputies from two counties on a 40-mile chase, Bradley Beyersdorf, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told Hatewatch today. Local schools were locked down as a squad of police cars chased the fugitive vehicle while it sped across the Montana plains.

“He tossed out approximately seven devices (pipe bombs) during this high-speed chase with police,” Beyersdorf said.

After spike strips failed to stop the vehicle, a deputy finally forced Stewart’s vehicle into a ditch.

“At that point, he gets out and runs with a handgun,” Beyersdorf said. Stewart eventually surrendered without gunfire as a Department of Homeland Security helicopter and several police officers arrived on scene.

After Stewart was arrested, a bomb squad found several more pipe bombs in his car. Beyersdorf declined to provide a more precise description of the munitions or say whether other bomb-building components were found in the vehicle.

A 40-mile stretch of the highway was closed until 4 a.m. Friday as police and evidence technicians picked up remains of the pipe bombs, some of which exploded. No one was hurt by the explosions.

“From what we know at this point, he was angry at law enforcement in Virginia for investigating him,” the ATF spokesman said. “There is no indication that he had any extremist agenda outside of his propensity for violence toward law enforcement officers.”

It’s not known why Stewart was fleeing to Montana, a state that is regarded as a haven for assorted anti-government extremists and white supremacists.

Investigators at this point also don’t know when or where the suspect built his arsenal of pipe bombs, or where he obtained plans to build them, Beyersdorf said.

Stewart is charged in Stafford County, Va., with two counts of attempted murder of law enforcement officers and two counts of arson of an occupied dwelling and one count of use of a weapon for a terrorist act. Additionally, he is charged in Fredricksburg, Va., with one count of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, firing a missile into an occupied dwelling and arson of an occupied dwelling.

He is being held in the Cascade County jail in Montana, where additional state or federal charges are expected to be filed.

Stewart was arrested on a domestic assault charge on June 26 in Stafford County, Va., and failed to show up for a court hearing on that case, the Fredricksburg News reported in today’s editions.

Prior to the bombings, Stewart set up a website and claimed he has been unfairly treated in Stafford, the newspaper reported. “He had particularly harsh words for the former girlfriend and several of the officers involved in the misdemeanor cases against him,” the newspaper account said.

“With all of the lies and dirty dealings I feel like I do not have a chance for justice,” he wrote.

“At this point, I might as well commit some crimes,’’ Stewart wrote, according to the Fredricksburg newspaper. “If I am to be blamed for wrongdoing I should at least have some fun and do whatever I want without regard. Tell a man he is something enough times and eventually even he will start to believe it.”

Excellent breakdown by Sheila Musaji of the nonsensical conspiracies created by the Islamophobia movement.

She writes that false stories, no matter how absurd do have a negative effect on the perception of Muslims. (h/t: CriticalDragon):

Arlington, Virginia Mall Bombing and “sudden jihad syndrome”

by Sheila Musaji (TheAmericanMuslim)

Leon Alphans Traille, Jr. was arrested this week for an attempted mall bombing in Arlington, Virginia.

It is puzzling how Islamophobes have so little memory about our own recent history.  Debbie Schlussel is suspicious because the facts that we know so far don’t add up (in her mind).  She wonders how Leon Traille can be a crazy or homeless person and also well educated (M.S. from Georgia Tech).

But, she is on the case.  She says

And you can’t help but notice that the once shaven Traille now sports a beard, like many Muslims do when they commit violent jihad. Did Traille convert to Islam? Why did he try to bomb a shopping mall? And why–given his tech expertise–were his bombs so crude and ineffective? A lot of questions.

Brilliant people are not immune from mental problems, or from carrying out senseless acts of violence.

How about the brilliant science student James Holmes, the Aurora Colorado shooter who was getting his PhD at the time of the shooting.

How about the brilliant, and crazy mathemetician Ted Kaczynski who was even better educated than this fellow (with a PhD from Harvard) and carried out a nation-wide mail bombing campaign.  Kaczynski lived in a shack in Montana, off the grid, and also grew a beard.

This ridiculous allegation based on nothing except a beard is right up there with the claims by the Islamophobes that Joel Hinrichs and Seung-Hui Cho were probably Muslims.

Joel Hinrichs was the individual who detonated a large bomb made of TATP outside of a packed football stadium in Oklahoma.  He was described as an example of “sudden jihad syndrome”.  In that case, the “facts” that the Islamophobes used were that there is an Islamic Center near the campus which Hinrich’s roommate attended (the roommate was a Muslim), and Hinrichs was seen walking through the parking lot of this mosque.  This is not too surprising for a student whose on-campus apartment was only a block away from the mosque.

Seung-Hui Cho, was the individual responsible for the Virginia Tech massacre.  He was considered by the Islamophobes to be possibly another case of “sudden jihad syndrome” because his father had worked in Saudi Arabia before Cho was even born.

It appears that the Islamophobes are engaged in a disinformation campaign that involves throwing out as many crazy charges as possible in the hopes that even one out of a hundred will turn out to be true.  In the meantime, whether the charge is totally baseless or not doesn’t matter, because the sheer volume of “crazy Muslim” stories has an effect on the perception of ordinary people who have heard many of these stories.

Read the rest…

Virginia mosques vandalized; area Muslim leaders call for calm

By Pamela Constable and Tara Bahrampour

(Washington Post)

Ever since the first mosque opened in Harrisonburg, Va., 14 years ago, the immigrants from Pakistan, Iraq and other countries who worship there say they have felt welcomed in the rural college town. They participate in local food banks and shelter programs, have close relations with local churches and often receive non-Muslim visitors at their weekly prayer services.

So on Friday, worshipers were shocked when they arrived at the mosque to find graffiti scrawled on the building, including obscene and racial insults against “Irakis” and a warning: “This is America,” followed by another slur. Some speculated that the sudden harassment must have sprung from the anti-American violence that has swept the Middle East over a vulgar anti-Muslim video made in the United States.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to us before, even after 9/11,” said Ehsan Ahmed, a director of the Islamic Center of Harrisonburg mosque and an economics professor at nearby James Madison University. “We have always been welcomed here, and we participate in many community activities. We can’t say what their motive was, but the timing is very coincidental.”

On Saturday morning, members of the Dar al Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church emerged from an early prayer service to find that someone had smashed the windows of about 30 cars parked on neighborhood streets. No written slogans were left, but mosque officials initially thought the vandalism was directed at them.

Later in the afternoon, a Fairfax County police spokeswoman said the incident was a “random act of vandalism” that was scattered over a widespread area and that “the mosque was not at all the target.”

Over the past several days, Muslim leaders in the Washington area and across the nation have rushed to denounce the vulgar video and the anti-American violence it has provoked.

American Muslim immigrants have taken the furor in stride, saying they refuse to be provoked or exploited by extremist forces on either side.

In Harrisonburg, members of the vandalized mosque said they were immediately bolstered by sympathetic support from the community. A city council member hastily set up a Web site called “We are all Harrisonburg” and invited residents to attend a solidarity meeting at the mosque Sunday. More than 500 people signed up.

“This incident has given people an opportunity to reach out and get to know their neighbors, to build something positive from it,” said Kai Degner, the council member and a real estate agent. “Our city is growing and changing and becoming more diverse, with 57 languages in our schools. Change can require adjustment, but we have had no horror stories here.”

Mohammed Aslam Afridi, a Pakistani-born veterinarian who is president of the mosque, said he was sure the graffiti was connected to recent events elsewhere. “This anti-Islamic video has stirred people up, and so has the attack on the Sikh temple in Wisconsin,” he said. “People are angry and upset. But we are all children of Adam. This is my Harrisonburg, my Virginia and my country.”

Read the rest…

A beautiful story: Synagogue welcomes Muslims seeking a place to pray. Good deeds like this have a snow ball effect and can lead to better relations and harmony.

(h/t: Ali Nihal and Critical Dragon)

US synagogue welcomes Muslims seeking a place to pray

At a time when religious differences are sparking conflict in the Middle East and beyond – it is cooperation between two faiths which is allowing this unique programme flourish.

The BBC’s Katty Kay reports on how the Jewish community opened its doors because the area’s mosques could not accommodate all of the growing Muslim population.

In May of 2010, Douglas Story‘s vehicle was photographed containing anti-Islam slogans and neo-Nazi symbols:

Is this the back of some neo-nazi's truck, or the cover of Robert Spencer's next book?

CAIR filed a complaint with the Virginia Department of Transportation about the “license plate of Douglas Story” claiming that the numbers “14″ and “88″ were symbolic neo-Nazi code.

As Loonwatch contributor Rousseau reported at the time,

CAIR picked up on this loony truck driver’s mural and then apparently noticed his license plate number, which read “14CV88.” Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of CAIR, argued that this number was code for neo-Nazi white supremacist ideas; Hooper explained: “…Among neo-Nazis, 88 refers to ‘Heil Hitler,’ because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. White supremacists sometimes use the number 14 as shorthand for the 14-word motto, ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’”

Story denied being a neo-Nazi, saying instead that the numbers on his license plate referred to his favorite NASCAR racers. This turned out to be a lie…more anti-Muslim so-called taqiyyah if you will.

CAIR was correct that Story was a White Supremacist. The Washington Post’s Brigid Schulte reported just a couple of days later that Douglas Story’s Facebook page was replete with white supremacist associations:

Arguing that his license plate was purely about NASCAR and had nothing to do with race, Story told me that he had a Jewish sister-in-law and had attended his niece’s bat mitzvah. He denied being anti-Semitic.

But here’s how he describes himself on Facebook:

“100% WHITE MAN, 100% ARYAN, 100% PRO-LIFE (Children are innocent), 100% PRO DEATH PENALTY (Criminal Scum aren’t innocent).
Over the past 28 years; I, like David Duke, have had an Awakening.”

Note to self: In these days of social media, Twitter and personal oversharing on the web, always check Facebook…

When I called Story to ask about the Facebook page, he continued to maintain that his license plate message had nothing to with racism. He stuck by his NASCAR story. “Southern white men. Southern white sport. What else needs to be said?” he said.

Story acknowledged that he thinks of himself as 100 percent Aryan. “Aryan is a Sanskrit word that means noble,” he said, “no matter what spin the liberal media tries to put on it as being a racist, hate word.”

He said he is an admirer of David Duke, who, he said was “reamed by the media because of his Klan affiliations.” “I am a white nationalist,” Story said. “I am in favor of the whites having their own homeland.” When I asked him where that homeland would be, he said he didn’t know. “The Pacific Northwest maybe. Alaska. Denmark. Greenland. Iceland.”

I asked if he really thought that the Holocaust was a hoax. “I don’t know what to think,” he said.

Rather than condemn Story, Spencer offered this initial defense,

Hamas-linked CAIR smears anti-jihad Virginia driver as Neo-Nazi

…CAIR’s whole story was false in the first place: the driver in question, Douglas Story, is not a neo-Nazi at all, but a racing fan. The alleged code numbers for neo-Nazi slogans were actually favorite race car drivers’ numbers.

Will Honest Ibe Hooper apologize to Douglas Story? Come on, Ibe! It would be the decent thing to do!

Spencer also argued the entire episode was a ploy by CAIR to link “anti-jihadists” like Spencer to neo-Nazi white supremacists,

The implication of the story, of course, was that anti-jihadists are neo-Nazis — which, despite the febrile fantasies of libelblogger Charles Johnson and his cohort, CAIR’s amiable stomach-stapled beekeeper Honest Ibe Hooper, flies in the face of the facts…

Spencer never apologized for being so horribly wrong about his “anti-Jihadist” buddy being a White Supremacist. Instead he posted a one sentence update saying, “The Washington Post has uncovered evidence that Douglas Story is indeed a white supremacist racist. In that case, he deserves whatever he gets from the DMV.”

In a new twist to this story, yesterday, Douglas Story was arrested by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force “after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.”

A Manassas man accused of being a white supremacist was arrested Wednesday by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.

Court records show Douglas Howard Story, 48, of the Manassas area, allegedly provided a semi-automatic AK-47, along with $120, to an undercover law enforcement agent with the intent that it be modified to become fully automatic. He then allegedly received the modified weapon from an undercover agent and was subsequently arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and FBI  Assistant Director for the Washington Field Office announced Story’s arrest Wednesday.  He has been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act – a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Manassas Patch, 30 May 2012

See also Inside NoVa, 31 May 2012

I’m not a fan of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, as they have been deeply involved in abusing constitutional rights, through profiling, secret surveillance and entrapment activities. Story’s arrest however does, once again, bring to surface the fact that the so-called “anti-Jihad/counter-jihad” movement is filled with neo-Nazis, fascists, and racists of one stripe or another.

It is also another opportunity to point out Spencer’s hypocrisy. He asked Ibrahim Hooper to apologize for “defaming” Douglas Story, but cannot and will not bring himself to apologize for supporting a “White supremacist” and defaming Ibrahim Hooper.

Robert Spencer will you finally apologize for defending a neo-Nazi “White Supremacist” even after the above image of his car, replete with neo-Nazi symbolism, the Confederate flag, and anti-Islam propaganda were evident? Do you, Spencer, agree with the neo-Nazi Story that “all we need to know about Islam we learned on 9/11?”

Something tells me Spencer’s apologies and answer will not be forthcoming.

Members of the Spiritual Life Center of Sacramento have their Easter morning services for their Christian church, at the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM) auditorium next to their mosque in Sacramento, Calif., April 08, 2012.

Sacramento Muslims open mosque to Easter service

SACRAMENTO – A Sacramento congregation was facing an Easter without a home this year until the most unlikely of locations opened their doors and welcomed them inside.

The Spiritual Life Center of Sacramento lost the lease to their church a month prior to their biggest service of the year, but Reverend Michael Moran said a dream offered hope in the face of despair.

“We were desperately looking for a place to hold our Easter services. I had a dream and in the dream I saw a newspaper headline that read, ‘Easter at the Mosque’,” reveals Moran. “But when I awoke, I said that will never happen.”

But in an act of compassion and generosity, the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM) turned Moran’s dream into reality.

Ifran Itaq of SALAM said the decision to allow Moran’s congregation to celebrate their faith at the mosque was simple.

“For us, mosques, churches, synagogues are places where God’s name is mentioned and they are holy places, and this is the sharing of those faiths in one of those institutions.”

Beyond the surface-level expression of hospitality and good will, Moran believes the interfaith congregation on Easter Sunday holds much greater significance.

“Our mission from the very beginning was to bring the different faith traditions together in cooperative efforts,” Moran explains. “I love what the Dalai Lama said, he said, “Until there’s peace among the world’s religions, there will never be peace on earth. I think this is one of those steps towards peace.”

News10/KXTV

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At great personal risk, John Oliver witnesses Muslims praying in a church’s all-purpose room.

Virginia Anti-Shari`ah Bill Irks Muslims

RICHMOND – A leading American civil rights group has criticized a new proposed Virginia bill to ban courts from considering any religious codes in litigation, confirming that the bill was a new step towards effort to stigmatize Muslims and undermine their religious traditions.

“Bigotry needs to be repudiated, not legitimized through the introduction of a bill that has such hate-filled and un-American origins,” Gadier Abbas, staff attorney at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a press release on Friday, January 20.

Titled Morris’ HB631, the new bill was introduced by Virginia General Assembly Delegate Rick L. Morris (R-House District 64) on January 11.

The anti-Shari`ah new proposed law would ban courts from applying religious traditions to proceedings, such as the execution of a will among Muslims.

Not only the religious Muslim code, the new bill would also prohibit the application of the Catholic equivalent, canon law, and other religious guidelines.

The suddenly controversial bill is scheduled to be heard by a Virginia legislature House subcommittee next Monday.

In Islam, Shari`ah governs all issues in Muslims’ lives from daily prayers to fasting and from, marriage and inheritance to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.

In US courts, judges can refer to Shari`ah law in Muslim litigation involving cases about divorce and custody proceedings or in commercial litigation.

Defended

Sponsoring the bill, Morris said that he aimed at enforcing US laws only.

“It’s definitely not an anti-Muslim bill,” Morris told the Virginian-Pilot in a brief phone interview Friday.

He said his goal is to make it clear that Virginia judges can rely only on state and federal law in their rulings.

However, CAIR confirmed that the bill was drafted by anti-Islam activist David Yerushalmi.

Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam, managed to gain the support of prominent Washington figures.

He is head of the anti-Islam hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which on its now password-protected website offered a policy proposal that would make “adherence to Islam” punishable by 20 years in prison.

The proposed Virginia legislation is just one of more than 20 similar bills that have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide in the past year.

Over the past few years, lawmakers in at least two dozen states have introduced proposals last year forbidding local judges from considering Shari`ah when rendering verdicts on issues of divorces and marital disputes.

The statutes have been enacted in three states so far.

Earlier this January, a US federal court upheld an injection on a proposed ban on Islamic Shari`ah in the state of Oklahoma, saying the drive was unconstitutional and discriminates against religion.

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Alabama Anti-Shariah Bill Penned by Key Islamophobe

An Alabama state senator plans to introduce a constitutional amendment that would ban state courts from looking to Islamic Shariah law in adjudicating cases, Hatewatch has learned.

Republican Senator Cam Ward pre-filed the “American and Alabama Laws for Alabama Courts Amendment” with the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 4.

The amendment’s language is clearly drawn from model legislation drafted by anti-Muslim lawyer David Yerushalmi, who equates Shariah with Islamic radicalism so totally that he advocates criminalizing virtually any personal practice that is compliant with Shariah. His “American Laws for American Courts” initiative enjoys support from Muslim-hating blogger Pam Geller, who plumbed new depths of foulness this week by expressing her “love” for the U.S. marines who were videotaped urinating on dead Taliban combatants.

Yerushalmi, who says the “War on Terror” should be a war against Islam “and all Muslim faithful,” has also proposed to outlaw Islam and deport Muslims and other “non-Western, non-Christian” people to protect the United States’ “national character.”

Ward, who could not be reached for comment, apparently shares Yerushalmi’s dislike of immigrants. The Alabama lawmaker is a member of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), a national coalition that attributes to “illegal aliens” what it describes as “[i]ncreasingly documented incidences of homicide, identity theft, property theft, serious infectious diseases, drug running, gang violence, human trafficking, terrorism and growing cost to taxpayers.”

Since its founding in 2007, SLLI has taken a leading role in fostering xenophobic intolerance in statehouses across the nation. The group works hand-in-glove with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant hate group whose legal arm devised the draconian immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, portions of which have been enjoined by courts concerned about their constitutionality. Though Ward did not introduce Alabama’s immigration enforcement law, he has been a vocal supporter of the measure, which is widely viewed as the harshest of its kind.

Ward is not the first Alabama lawmaker to introduce an anti-Shariah measure. In 2011, Republican state Senator Gerald Allen sponsored SB 62, a virtual replica of Oklahoma’s notorious anti-Shariah “Save Our State” amendment, which was struck down on Tuesday by the 10^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Allen’s proposal, which singled out Shariah law as its principle target, was not taken up for consideration before last year’s legislative session ended.

Ward may stand a better chance of success. According to the Public Policy Alliance, which hired Yerushalmi to write the “American Laws for American Courts” model legislation, versions of the law have already been passed in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arizona. Unlike Oklahoma’s amendment, none were immediately enjoined. The Public Policy Alliance describes its creation in explicitly anti-Muslim terms, claiming on its website, “we are preserving individual liberties and freedoms which become eroded by the encroachment of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah.” But the legislation itself does not contain any reference to Shariah law or Islam, thus avoiding the issue that immediately flagged Oklahoma’s legislation as unconstitutional.

Ward has not commented publicly about his proposal, so it is impossible to know what inspired him to think that Alabama needs to worry about Shariah law in the first place. The various state proposals banning Shariah, in effect, attack a problem that does not exist and will not under the U.S. Constitution.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, less than 1% of Alabamans are Muslim. And of all the states in the union, Alabama has unique insight into what happens when theocrats get it into their minds to bring their religion into the courts.

In August 2001, Roy Moore – then-chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court – hauled under cover of night a 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments into the building that houses the state’s appellate courts and law library. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (which publishes Hatewatch), sued, leading U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson to rule that the monument created “a religious sanctuary within the walls of a courthouse” and had to be removed. The 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision on July 1, 2003. When a defiant Moore refused to comply with the order, he was removed from office for ethics violations, and that was that for Alabama courts’ experiment with mingling secular and religious law.

The monument went too. It now resides at a church in Moore’s hometown of Gadsden, Ala.