Top Muslim Cleric Shot Dead In Russian Province Of Tatarstan; Another Wounded In Car Bomb

Posted by Women Against Sharia

The Washington Post:

A top Muslim cleric in Russia’s Tatarstan province was shot dead Thursday and another was wounded by a car bomb, attacks that the province’s leader and local religious authorities said were probably related to the priests’ criticism of radical Islamists.

Valiulla Yakupov, the deputy to the Muslim province’s chief mufti, was gunned down Thursday as he left his house in Tatarstan’s regional capital of Kazan, Russia’s Investigative Committee said. Minutes later, chief mufti Ildus Faizov was wounded in the leg after an explosive device ripped through his car in central Kazan, it said.

Both clerics were known as critics of radical Islamist groups that advocate a strict and puritan version of Islam known as Salafism. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Russian media his agency was looking into the clerics’ stances as a possible reason for the attacks. By Thursday evening, investigators said they were viewing the attacks as terrorism.

Read it all here.

Chechen-Born Islamist Calls For Jihad In Russia

Reuters:

Chechen-born rebel leader Doku Umarov [pictured], Russia’s most wanted man, called on Muslims throughout the country to wage jihad against the state in videos posted on websites on Thursday.

He also urged the Arab world to usher in radical Islam during the resulting unrest.
A decade after federal forces drove separatists out of power in the second war in Chechnya, the Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency throughout the North Caucasus, where rebels want to create a separate Islamic state.

Sharia Slapped Down in Russia

Moscow Times

ST. PETERSBURG — A Muslim lawyer’s attempt to create St. Petersburg’s first sharia court flopped just weeks after the court opened amid a storm of criticism from local Muslim leaders and human rights activists that climaxed with an order from prosecutors for its closure.

The court, which adhered to Islamic law, had no judicial power, and its activity was limited to civil disputes, such as reconciling members of estranged families, founder Dzhamaliddin Makhmutov said.

AHMADINEJAD EXPECTS WAR IN EPICENTER SOON: Also, rift developing between Russia and Iran

Joel Rosenberg
UPDATED: “Iran expects the United States to launch a military strike on ‘at least two countries” in the Middle East in the next three months, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told state-run Press TV,” reports Reuters. “In an interview recorded on Monday, Ahmadinejad did not specify whether he thought Iran itself would be attacked nor did he say what intelligence led him to expect such a move. The United States and Israel have refused to rule out military action against Iran’s nuclear program which they fear could lead to it making a bomb, something Iran denies. ‘They have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months,’ Ahmadinejad said in excerpts broadcast on the rolling news channel on Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad’s warning comes amidst several interesting developments in the region — surprisingly tough new economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union and Canada, as well a curious rift developing between Russia and Iran. Moscow and Tehran have been increasingly close allies in recent years. But in recent weeks Russia voted for new U.N. sanctions on Iran, criticized Iran for moving towards nuclear weapons, and now says it will not deliver S-300 missiles to Iran (after saying just a few weeks ago that it would).