TRUE ISLAM - What it Really Means

This is what Islam REALLY is.

NOT what the murderous fanatics of ISIS profess.  Also, Islam does not have a single person (no matter what the ISIS leader clams) that speaks for all of Islam.

WAR ON ISIS - The Shrinking of ISIS

"ISIS 'radically shrinking' amid U.S.-supported campaigns.  Here's why" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  At the end of a brutal campaign to retake Mosul in Iraq, and as the fight for Raqqa continues, where does the battle against the Islamic State stand?  Judy Woodruff speaks with Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk, who says the Islamic State is “radically shrinking” and that President Trump's decision to delegate rapid decision-making has greatly assisted their efforts.

SATAN'S ARMY - Iraq, More ISIS Mass Graves

REMINDER:  'ISIL (aka ISIS) is a theocracy, proto-state and a Salafi or Wahhabi group.  It follows an extremist interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence, and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates.'

The members of ISIS are NOT mainstream followers if Islam, and DO NOT represent the vast majority of Muslims.

"Another Mass Grave Dug by ISIS in Iraq, and a Ghastly Ritual Renewed" by Tim Arango, New York Times 11/30/2016

The battle was over in Hamam al-Alil, Iraq, an old spa resort town that the country's security forces had wrested from the Islamic State a few days ago, but one Iraqi soldier was still on a very personal mission.

The soldier, Zaman Mijwal, was looking for his older brother, Munther, a former policeman he described as “a quiet man, a poor man,” who lived in a nearby village but hadn't been heard from in weeks.

Mr. Mijwal's circuit had taken him to a stretch of road flanked by two dirt fields.  He pointed to one side, where decaying, headless corpses were lying in heaps of trash on a barren plot of land that had once been a shooting range for the Iraqi Army.

“He may be there,” he said.

He pointed to the other side of the road, just an expanse of earth that looked freshly moved.

“Or he may be there.”

With every mile of territory the Iraqi security forces retake from the Islamic State, it seems another mass grave is uncovered.  It has become nearly ritual, and despairingly regular.

The legacy of the mass grave in Iraq is long, stretching back further than the Islamic State to the times of Saddam Hussein's industrial-scale killings.  It is the horrible symbol of what has been for decades a gut-wrenching constant of Iraqi life, the disappearance of loved ones into the machinery of despotism.

For Iraqis, the Islamic State, for which the mass grave is as much a part of the group's infrastructure as makeshift prisons and slave-holding houses, is just a new form of tyranny with direct links to Mr. Hussein's regime.  Many former Baathist officers from Mr. Hussein's security forces populate the top ranks of the Islamic State, mimicking the former dictator's tactics.

Lately, with the Islamic State under pressure from Iraqi security forces, the group's cruelty has gone into overdrive: Many of the mass graves recently uncovered, the biggest of which was in Hamam al-Alil, contain the bodies of local men.  Most of the buried were former members of the security forces who were executed only in recent weeks, after the campaign for Mosul began.

There are those, like Jamal Abul Younis, who count themselves as lucky.  Mr. Younis is a former policeman from Hamam al-Alil who was also marked for execution, but survived by hiding in a hole in the ground, obscured by an air cooler, in his dirt-floor house.  Of his time hiding out, he said, “Each one hour was like one year.”

He is now one of just a few surviving witnesses to the Islamic State's killings in Hamam al-Alil.  One evening around 8 p.m. several weeks ago, he said, he watched from his rooftop as eight minibuses drove toward the area where the mass grave was discovered, and he heard gunshot after gunshot.

“I saw DAESH bury 200 bodies over here,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.  (The official government estimate is that roughly 100 people were killed in Hamam al-Alil.  But Human Rights Watch, after carrying out its own investigation, believes that at least 300 were killed there.)

In the days before the killings, he said, Islamic State militants herded hundreds of people — perhaps thousands — from nearby villages and took them to Hamam al-Alil, using them as human shields against the possibility of American airstrikes.

In the city, he said, the militants gathered the people, reciting verses of the Quran and praying to God to protect them from Iraq's Shiite militias and army.  Then they separated out the former policemen, many of whom, after the Islamic State conquered their lands more than two years ago, repented for their service and made peace with their new rulers.

Now, as government forces waged an offensive to reclaim these territories, the Islamic State saw them as potential spies, or a fifth column preparing to rise up and join the security forces, and ordered them killed.

“I cannot believe I am still alive,” Mr. Younis said.

For Iraqis, the pain of not knowing can be the worst of all.  The International Commission on Missing Persons, a Netherlands-based organization, has estimated that up to a million Iraqis have gone missing in recent history.  That encompasses the war between Iran and Iraq, the mass killings ordered by Mr. Hussein after a Shiite uprising in 1991, the Iraqi government's Anfal chemical-weapon strikes against the Kurds in the late 1980s, and the more recent sectarian civil war of the last decade.

The commission noted on its website that there are “millions of relatives of the missing in Iraq who struggle with the uncertainty surrounding the fate of a loved one.”

Go anywhere in Iraq, especially in the south where Shiites dominate, and knock on almost any door, and you will hear a story of a lost loved one and, improbably, of a remaining shard of hope.

Nihad Jawad, a teacher from the southern city of Hilla, said that one night in 1991, her brother left home and was never heard from again.  She has heard all sorts of rumors — that he was seen being apprehended by the military, that he was shot.  “We searched everywhere for him, and we have found nothing,” she said.  “We still have hope that he is still held in one of the secret prisons.”

The Islamic State's brutality has written a new chapter in that dark history.  The number of bodies has overwhelmed the capacity of the Iraqi government, and very few of them are ever identified by DNA testing.

In Diyala Province, where the Islamic State was once strong, a father who lost his son about two years ago said he scours jihadist websites for videos that might show his missing child.  He rushes to the scene of every mass grave uncovered in the province.

“The most difficult thing is when my grandson asks me about his father,” said the man, who gave his name as Abu Marwan.  “I answer, ‘He is on a trip and will return one day.'”

Mr. Mijwal, the soldier, like millions of others here who have endured the same painful ritual, has found no answers about what happened to his brother.

“We have no information about him,” he said.  “So I came here.  It's very difficult for me.  I don't know his destiny, his fate.  At the very least, I need to find his body.  This is the important thing for us.  So we can have a funeral.”

He added, “Thousands of people don't know the fate of their loved ones.”

There is a well-known Iraqi novel called “Saddam City,” by Mahmoud Saeed, in which the protagonist disappears into one of the old Hussein regime's many prisons, leaving his loved ones scrambling for information.

In the novel, pondering his own fate as a prisoner, he recalls “the futility of trying to help a neighbor find her husband, who had disappeared.” They visited a hospital, where “we were no more than the latest link in a long chain of people who visited hospitals inquiring about missing loved ones.”

A few pages later, Mr. Saeed wrote, “Events like this happened routinely.”

Just up the road from the Hamam al-Alil killing grounds where Mr. Mijwal searched for his brother, others were looking for answers, too.

A former policeman named Muneer Muhammed, 37, said that he hid on the night of the killings, but that his brother, Anmar, another former policeman, was among the hundreds rounded up.  “They took the former policemen because they were afraid they would rise up,” he said.

Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“I'm crying because I was able to save myself, but I couldn't save him,” he said.

ISIS - After the Fall, What?

"If ISIS falls, where will its fighters flee?" PBS NewsHour 10/13/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  If the Islamic State group is driven out of Iraq and Syria, where will the remaining militants go?  William Brangham learns more about the current state of the militant group from Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times and Peter Neumann of King's College.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  At its peak between November of 2014 and May of 2015, ISIS controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria, but, since then, ISIS has taken serious losses on the battlefield and has lost critical territory.

To understand what this means for the group's future, I'm joined by two people who studied ISIS in great detail.

Peter Neumann runs the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College in London.  And Rukmini Callimachi is a reporter at The New York Times.

Welcome to you both.

Rukmini, I would like to start with you, if you don't mind.

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, The New York Times:  Sure.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Give us a status report.  How is ISIS doing right now?  Where are they operating?  And how are they doing?

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI:  They have certainly lost some territory both in Iraq and also more recently in Libya.

And we have seen that there has been a significant dip in their output in terms of their propaganda.  They're putting out less videos, less images, et cetera.

But I wouldn't be quick to declare victory of any kind.  This is a group that has shown itself to be very nimble.  And despite their losses on the battlefield, we're seeing that attacks in the West are continuing to proliferate.  Just in the last couple of days, German officials were able to dismantle a plot in Germany that was meant to be against the Berlin Airport possibly, and that, according to the officials I have spoken to, could have looked as bad as the Brussels attack that we saw in March of this year.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Peter Neumann, is there anything you would add to that about how ISIS is doing globally?

PETER NEUMANN, King's College:  Right now, there are still an estimated 10,000 foreign fighters in ISIS territory.

If Syria and Iraq fall, those 10,000 will have to go somewhere.  Some will go to Turkey.  Some will try to return to their home countries.  Others will try to go to other battlefronts.  So I think the story of ISIS is not over once ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Peter, just staying with you for a moment, your center just put out a study that showed how ISIS is increasingly recruiting individuals who have criminal backgrounds.  And I wonder, just tell me, what is it that you have found?

PETER NEUMANN:  So, if you speak to European security agencies, they will tell you that, in Germany, for example, 66 percent of ISIS recruits were known to police.

The same picture in Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France.  A lot of former criminals are becoming attracted to ISIS.  The head of Brussels police is talking about ISIS as the super gang, and it's kind of true, because ISIS offers in many ways what gangs are offering, a strong sense of identity, power, a sense of strength.  And it kind of recruits in the same areas, often very deprived, socioeconomically marginalized areas, the suburbs of Paris and those of Brussels.

It's a very different type of recruit from the more sort of intellectual types that we saw in al-Qaida 15 years ago.

WAR ON ISIS - Fight for Iraq

"To drive ISIS from Mosul, a complicated coalition joins forces" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Two years ago, Islamic State troops stormed Mosul, Iraq.  Today the city is the militant group's last remaining urban base in the country, but Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.  and others, are preparing to drive them out.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports from Qayarah, Iraq, in partnership with Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now the first of three reports this week on the fight for Iraq.

Thirteen years after the U.S.  military invasion, the country still struggles to stand on its own, as it faces profound challenges, none more dire than the threat posed by the Islamic State, which controls parts of the country.

Tonight, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Jane Ferguson and producer Jon Gerberg look at the coming crucial battle to reclaim the city of Mosul from ISIS and to drive it from Iraq once and for all.

JANE FERGUSON, special correspondent:  Hungry and crushed together in the punishing sun, these Iraqis, refugees in their own land, desperately grasp for food.

They have fled south of Mosul City, where fighting between government forces and ISIS has been raging for months.  New offensives have ISIS in retreat, but with their homes, and all they know, engulfed in the battle, they have come here.

Escaping from Mosul just days ago, this woman says she and her family of seven were lucky to get away.  Running away from ISIS is dangerous, and she didn't want to be identified.

WOMAN (through translator):  There are many people who want to leave, but cannot.  The ones they catch, they break their legs.  They just use a block on the sidewalk and break their legs.  If the person has already gone very far, they just kill them.

JANE FERGUSON:  We are 60 miles south of Mosul.  Just up the road, these troops are fighting the ISIS insurgency.  Iraqi special forces have already pushed ISIS from many areas of the country.  The battles have been tough, destroying almost everything in sight.

The Iraqi army has fought for months over these areas south of Mosul City, swathes of land and villages just like this that they have been pushed out of.  But even though they retook this land several months ago, civilians have yet to return.

These soldiers now have their sites set north, planning to take back the city of Mosul, the Islamic State's last remaining major urban base in Iraq.

At 23, Mahmoud has fought and won several battles against the group.  And these men are ready to take Mosul.

MAHMOUD DUYOUL SABBAGH, Iraqi Special Forces (through translator):  By God, my morale is high.  Praise be to God.  Praise and thanks be to God.  We will kick is from Mosul.

"The controversial force joining the fight against ISIS" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Militia groups, made up mostly of Shia fighters and often backed by Iran, have become instrumental in the charge to drive the Islamic State from Iraq.  But their battlefield presence makes them a controversial force -- many militia members are accused of war crimes and have killed Americans.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

"In Fallujah, ISIS is gone — but so is everything else" PBS NewsHour 10/7/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  An hour west of Baghdad, Fallujah used to be a thriving population center.  Two years ago, it was overtaken by the Islamic State.  The Iraqi army regained control of the city in June but now faces another hurdle,  rebuilding.  In over a decade of warfare, nearly all of Fallujah has been destroyed.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

FOR REF:

• Sunni Islam (ISIS/ISIL are the far extremists, NOT all Sunni are followers of ISIS)
• Shia Islam
• ISIL/ISIS/DASH

WAR ON ISIS - Mass Graves Discovered

"Mass graves of ISIS victims discovered across Iraq and Syria" PBS NewsHour 8/30/2016

ISIS, the disciples of Satin.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Documenting atrocities committed by the Islamic State can seem impossible.  A new report from the Associated Press, however, catalogs 72 mass graves around Syria and Iraq -- including one site that held 1,700 bodies.  Gwen Ifill speaks with the AP's Lori Hinnant about the locations of these burial sites, what happened to the victims entombed within them and whether anyone is being held responsible.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Cataloging the atrocities committed by the so-called Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq is a difficult, sometimes impossible task.

A new report from the Associated Press attempts to document the mass graves holding some of the group's victims.  The AP found 72 mass grave sites around Syria and Iraq.  One of the sites held as many as 1,700 bodies.

For more, we are joined by Associated Press reporter Lori Hinnant, one of the authors of the investigation.

Lori, thank you for joining us.

Seventy-two mass grave sites, how were you and your colleagues able to find them and document them?

LORI HINNANT, Associated Press:  Well, we used a variety of sources.

We first went to Iraqi Kurdistan, where there are at least 35 mass graves on Sinjar Mountain alone, most of them holding the bodies of minority Yazidi.

We also talked to the Kurdish regional government, who told us of at least two others, one outside Mosul at a prison, where 600 to 800 inmates were killed, and another in a deep natural geological pit.

Then we asked the government in Baghdad what they knew to try and triangulate some of the other information.  We also went into archives of news reports when sites were discovered.  For Syria, we can't go in.  So, we had to speak to activists, locals, some fighters who are fighting against Islamic State, and people who are trying to document human rights abuses.

GWEN IFILL:  Do mass graves also — always mean mass killings?  That is to say, did all of the people — or the bodies that you found in these graves all come from single episodes, single assaults?

LORI HINNANT:  Not necessarily, although, largely, they did.  And even for some of them, it's not clear who is even in them.  The graves have not been excavated and they are untouched.

Others are in territory that no one has seen.  The pit outside Mosul and another one in Syria, for example, we know from Islamic State's own propaganda that they have buried hundreds, if not more, bodies in them.  And they just tossed them in really without a thought.  We have no idea why the people were killed exactly or when.

So, in those cases, yes, the victims are killed at different times.  In Sinjar, they were all killed at the same time.

FIGHTING EXTREMISM - The Path of Jesse Curtis Morton

"An extremist's path to academia — and fighting terrorism" PBS NewsHour 8/29/2016

NOTE:  I have made two changes from the original transcript to clarify which persona is talking.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Jesse Curtis Morton begins work as a counterterrorism researcher at George Washington University this fall.  But his path to the position was highly unconventional:  until 2012, Morton was Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a Muslim extremist who founded a radical Islamist website.  His decision to go undercover and assist in counterterrorism efforts while in prison changed his trajectory profoundly.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Across the country, students are heading back to school.  As on many campuses, today is also the first day of class at George Washington University.

This summer, a think tank at the school made one of the most unique hires in academia.

The “NewsHour” has a broadcast exclusive interview with a man who was once convicted of terrorism-related charges, and is now a researcher on campus.

I caught up with Jesse Curtis Morton recently.

This is Jesse Curtis Morton.  In 2010, he went by another name, Younus Abdullah Muhammad.

YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD:  We will fight you and destroy you if we have to, but we prefer that you come home and pack it up.  Stop killing our innocent men, women and children overseas.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Born in the U.S., he grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but Morton became a Muslim extremist.  This was him on the streets of New York.

YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD:  There will be no peace with Israel until Israel is in pieces.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Morton (aka Younus Abdulla Muhammad) also helped found Revolution Muslim, a Web site that the FBI says encouraged Muslims to support Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and other violent jihadi groups.

The Web site threatened violence against the creators of the Comedy Central show “South Park” for a 2010 cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed.  In 2012, Morton was sentenced to more than 11-and-a-half years in jail for using the Internet to threaten bodily harm.

But here we are four years later.  He's a free man with a decent-paying job at a George Washington University think tank in the nation's capital.  Morton is out of jail early because he cooperated with authorities in the U.S. and overseas.  He worked undercover to gather intelligence on those who still trusted the man they saw in those videos.

He helped train law enforcement to recognize people on the path he was on, and helped analyze the behavior of suspected terrorists with insights only someone like him could have.

You're on camera now.  Your face is going to be out there.  And you're going to be walking around a college campus, as someone who has been convicted of supporting al-Qaida.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON, George Washington University:  Yes.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  There's 10,000 sets of parents who might be a little concerned that someone with a target on their back might be walking around on the same campus as their students.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON:  Well, there has been an extensive security plan put in place by a very competent security team at G.W.  And we have assessed the risk with the law enforcement community, federal, local, and some state agencies.  And there is very, very, very little risk at this point.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Getting to this point, Morton says, has been a long road through radicalization and then de-radicalization.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON:  I came from a very tumultuous childhood, where there was very severe abuse.  And when I reached out to my society and tried to get assistance to stop that abuse, the school, my family, and the society around me didn't prevent it.  And so, at a very young age, I rejected American culture and the American way of life, so to say, and sought a new identity.

ISIS - Syrian Child-Soldier's Escape

"One Syrian child soldier's desperate struggle to escape ISIS" PBS NewsHour 8/5/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Their faces are flooding the internet:  the thousands of child soldiers fighting in Syria.  Whether they join armed groups out of economic need or a sense of cultural obligation, these children become instruments of violence and propaganda, often witnessing--and executing--acts of sheer inhumanity.  For those able to escape, like 15-year-old Ibrahim, the trauma proves difficult to overcome.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  For centuries, children have been used as weapons of war.  Today's conflict in Syria is no exception.

ISIS has recruited and exploited children in Syria and Iraq, using them as soldiers, informants and even executioners.

NewsHour special correspondent Marcia Biggs brings us a profile of one former ISIS child solder, and his deep emotional scars.

And a warning:  This report contains material that may be disturbing to some viewers.

MARCIA BIGGS (NewsHour):  The images are all over the Internet, children growing up in the ranks of armed groups in the war in Syria.  This child in an ISIS propaganda video beheads a Syrian regime soldier.  These children execute captured soldiers in the ancient city of Palmyra.

According to a study published by Georgia State University, it's a phenomenon that's playing out on all sides of the conflict, with almost 1,000 children in the last three years showing up in online eulogies, calling kids martyrs, having died for the cause.

And those are only the ones whose videos made it to the Internet.

Riyad Al-Najem represents one of only a handful of small local organizations trying to combat this problem inside Syria, visiting families one by one.

RIYAD AL-NAJEM, Executive Manager, Hurras Network:  In some areas, the main reason of child recruitment is poverty.  Parents can't find food for their children, so they push them into armed groups to get money and food.  In other areas, it's about culture.  Parents consider that their children have become men, and they should carry weapons, that it's not acceptable for a child of his cousin holding a weapon and he's not.

MARCIA BIGGS:  In Idlib province, activists from the group Children Not Soldiers hang signs and spray-paint graffiti to create awareness.

The U.N. has a campaign of the same name, but has not yet been able to gain a foothold here.  Fighting recruitment of children is an uphill battle within a brutal war.  And no activists can work in highly radicalized areas, where a sinister form of manipulation is used as ammunition.

We met Ibrahim and his mother, Rania, in a hotel in Southern Turkey.  They were too afraid of ISIS sleeper cells to meet elsewhere.  We can't show you their faces.

Before the revolution, Ibrahim loved math and dreamed of being an aeronautical engineer.  His father was killed by a sniper in 2012, leaving his mother alone with three children.  Ibrahim was 13 years old when ISIS took his town of Deir el-Zour, and enlisted him and his friends.

IBRAHIM, Former ISIS Soldier (through translator):  They started to recite verses from the Koran, speeches from Mohammed.  They said they were the real Islamic State and would fulfill all the obligations of Islam.  They came to us and said, you will be martyrs and you will earn paradise and virgins.

MARCIA BIGGS:  He says he began as an informer, and then graduated to weapons training.

IBRAHIM (through translator):  They had me be a rat for the people who smoked, who didn't go to mosque.  They forced me to follow the women who didn't wear the right clothes and bring them in from the street.  Sometimes, they brought captive soldiers, and they told us, if you want to kill any of these prisoners, you are allowed to kill them.

TERROR IN AMERICA - President Obama on Trump

"OBAMA CONDEMNS TRUMP" by Julie Hirshfeld Davis & Matt Flegenheimer, San Diego Union-Tribune 6/15/2016

NOTE:  This is from the online version of the newspaper, therefore no article link.

President Barack Obama denounced Donald Trump on Tuesday for his remarks in the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando, Fla., warning that Trump was peddling a “dangerous” mindset that recalled the darkest and most shameful periods in U.S. history.

“We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence,” Obama said at the Treasury Department, without mentioning the Republican presidential candidate by name.

His statement, an extraordinary condemnation by a sitting President of a man who is to be the opposing party’s nominee for the White House, came after Obama met with his national security team on the status of the effort against the Islamic State.  Obama said the meeting was dominated by discussion of the Orlando rampage.

“Where does this stop?” Obama said of Trump’s approach, noting that Trump had proposed a ban on admitting Muslims into the U.S., and that the Orlando assailant, like perpetrators of previous domestic terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Fort Hood, Texas, was a U.S. citizen.  “Are we going to start treating all Muslim-Americans differently?  Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance?  Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?” Obama asked, his voice rising with frustration.  “Do Republican officials actually agree with this?  Because that’s not the America we want— it doesn’t reflect our democratic ideals.  It won’t make us more safe.  It will make us less safe.”

Appearing in Pittsburgh as Obama spoke, Hillary Clinton gave a denunciation of her own.  She assailed Trump’s temperament, ridiculing his proposals and arguing that he had failed to meet the gravity of the moment.

“History will remember what we do in this moment,” she told hundreds of supporters inside a union hall, asking “responsible Republican leaders” to join her in condemning Trump.  “What Donald Trump is saying is shameful.”

Trump, unbowed by the criticism, said Obama was coddling terrorists.

“President Obama claims to know our enemy, and yet he continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies and, for that matter, the American people,” he said in a statement Tuesday.  “When I am President, it will always be America first.”

Members of Trump’s party were themselves critical of the candidate’s language and proposals.  House Speaker Paul Ryan said at a news conference Tuesday that Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigrants was not in the country’s interest, nor did it reflect the principles of his party.

“There’s a really important distinction that every American needs to keep in mind: This is a war with radical Islam.  It’s not a war with Islam,” Ryan said.  “The vast, vast majority of Muslims in this country and around the world are moderate, they’re peaceful, they’re tolerant, and so they’re among our best allies, among our best resources in this fight against radical Islamic terrorism.”

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., has been among the most outspoken in his party about withholding his endorsement of Trump.  Flake said in a Twitter post that he was “appreciative” that Ryan had spoken out.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, declined to talk about Trump, an indication of the precarious position in which Trump has placed Republican elected officials.

Obama rejected criticism from Trump and other Republicans about his refusal to use the term “radical Islam” to describe the Islamic State.  Obama said he would not use the wording because he was unwilling to give the Islamic State the victory of acceptance of its vision that it is the leader of a holy war between Islam and the West.

“If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists’ work for them,” Obama said.

During a rally in Greensboro, N.C., hours after Obama’s remarks, Trump offered a brief response.

“I watched President Obama today, and he was more angry at me than he was at the shooter,” Trump said.  “The level of anger, that’s the kind of anger he should have for the shooter and these killers that shouldn’t be here.”

Obama is scheduled to travel to Orlando on Thursday to visit with the surviving victims and the families of those killed.  Obama spoke ominously of the stakes for the nation’s security, and its very identity, if the ideas espoused by Trump and many in the Republican Party are widely accepted.  “We’ve gone through moments in our history before where we acted out of fear, and we came to regret it,” Obama said.  We’ve seen our government mistreat our fellow citizens, and it as been a shameful part of our history.”

Clinton, in a striking departure from her speech Monday, when she refrained from saying Trump’s name and said it was “not a day for politics,” took direct aim Tuesday at his penchant for conspiracy theory.  She reminded the crowd that he was “a leader of the birther movement” questioning Obama’s birthplace.

After the Orlando attack, she noted, Trump suggested on television that Obama sympathized with Islamic terrorists.

“Just think about that for a second,” Clinton said.  “Even in a time of divided politics, this is way beyond anything that should be said by someone running for President of the United States.”

Obama staunchly defended his administration’s approach to countering terrorism, listing gains that the United States has made against the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and Libya; killing the group’s top leaders, capturing more of its territory and whittling away at its financial resources.

He called on Congress to enact gun restrictions that it has so far resisted, including the resurrection of a ban on assault weapons and a measure that would bar people on “no-fly” lists because of suspected terrorist ties from buying a gun.

Davis and Flegenheimer write for The New York Times.

TERROR IN AMERICA - Orlando Shooting

"LGBT, Latino community hit hard by massacre in Orlando" PBS NewsHour 6/12/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Pres. Barack Obama said Sunday that he stands in support with the LGBT community after a gunman killed 50 people at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando.  Carlos Smith of Equality Rights, a group that advocates for LGBT rights, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what the attack means to the community.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  President Obama noted that today's mass shooting is especially painful for gay and lesbian Americans as a club where they socialized in solidarity was the target.  To discuss what the Orlando mass shooting means for the LGBT community, I am joined by Carlos Smith from Equality Florida, a group that fights for LGBT rights.  Tell us a bit about the community that was affected today.

CARLOS SMITH, EQUALITY FLORIDA:  Sure.  Well, our entire community is devastated, and Equality Florida sends its thoughts and prayers to all of those who were affected by this tragedy.  This tragedy happened at a popular nightclub, Pulse Orlando, a gay nightclub.  It happened during LGBTQ Pride Month.  It happened at a time when the club was at maximum capacity.  So it's clear that the shooter had every intent of inflicting the maximum amount of violence and damage.

And I think what's really important to understand is that the LGBTQ community has gone to gay nightclubs like Pulse Orlando and places around the country for decades, since the days of Stonewall, as a place where people can be safe, as a place where people can with who they are and have a sense of community.

So we're devastated to see this type of violence.  But I think it's also important that people understand that the central Florida LGBTQ community is standing in solidarity also with the Muslim and Islamic community.  Both of our communities have been targets of violence, of hate and of discrimination.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Is there a history of disproportionate discrimination or just any discrimination against the LGBT community in Florida, in central Florida?

CARLOS SMITH:  Well, what we've seen unfortunately in the last couple of years is there has been a rash of violence, particularly against transgender women of color.  There was a hate crime murder incident that happened actually recently in Florida that was devastating to the community that targeted a transgender black woman.

And what we're seeing now is that even in the year 2016, hate and bigotry still exists.  And we're doing what we can in our communities, at the local level, at the state level, at the national level, to eradicate all forms of hate and discrimination, and to make sure that we fight against all phobias.  Not just homophobia, not just transphobia, but also against Islamophobia.

"Orlando Sentinel editor on shooting:  ‘We joined that list'" PBS NewsHour 6/12/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The attack that killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando was a devastating blow to the local community.  Managing Editor of the Orlando Sentinel joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype to discuss the latest developments.

"Can the U.S. do more to prevent ISIS-inspired attacks?" PBS NewsHour 6/12/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  When a terror attack occurs in the U.S. -- often it can provoke a change in policy which may or may not be in the country's best interest.  Stephen Biddle of the Council of Foreign Affairs and Policy joins Hari Sreenivasan for some analysis on what policymakers can do to respond to these attacks.

U.S. LONGEST WAR - Taliban's Top Mulla Dead!

"With killing of top mullah, what's next for the Taliban in Afghanistan?" PBS NewsHour 5/23/2016

COMMENT:  Yah, we are suppose to warn Pakistan about our attacks on the Taliban.  Just ignore the sympathy and support of some government officials, and some of their army.  Pakistan has a whole area/province where the Taliban rule and hide.  No, we are not about to warn the Taliban.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  On Saturday, a U.S. drone strike killed Mullah Mansour, the leader of the Taliban and architect of the group's bloody reconquest of Afghanistan this past year.  Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports on the killing, and Hari Sreenivasan talks to former Pakistani diplomat Riaz Mohammad Khan and former State Department official Barnett Rubin about what lies ahead for the Taliban.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  The man who led the Afghan Taliban for the past year was killed in a U.S. operation over the weekend.  The group had been gaining ground and waging a bloody war against the Afghan government.

So, what's next for the Taliban, and the countries who fight it?

Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner begins our coverage.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  Smoldering wreckage on a Pakistani roadside was all that remained of the Taliban commander's vehicle hours after he died in it Saturday.

Today, in Vietnam, President Obama officially announced a U.S. drone strike killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  It has been confirmed that he is dead.  And he as an individual who, as head of the Taliban, was specifically targeting U.S. personnel and troops inside of Afghanistan.

MARGARET WARNER:  Mullah Mansour took over the Afghan Taliban last summer, after the group finally announced that longtime leader Mullah Omar had died in 2013.  The new leader faced down rivals, in part by rejecting Afghan- and U.S.-backed peace talks.

Under his direction, Taliban forces briefly seized the Northern Afghan city of Kunduz last September, and carried out a bloody assault in Kabul itself in April, killing 64.

Word of his death was welcomed by Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah:

ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, Chief Executive, Afghanistan (through interpreter):  He was in charge of all terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, and he had direct contact with other terrorist networks.  This will bring a big change in the Taliban condition.  His death is a blow to their abilities in carrying out terrorist attacks against the Afghan people.

MARGARET WARNER:  Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signaled that the Taliban leader's death could also open the door to renewed peace talks.  The drone strike that killed Mansour was the first by the U.S. inside Baluchistan, in Southwestern Pakistan.  It's long been a Taliban stronghold.

In London yesterday, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack, saying the U.S. gave no advance warning.

NAWAZ SHARIF, Prime Minister, Pakistan (through interpreter):  We are protesting strongly.  This is a violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan.

MARGARET WARNER:  But Afghanistan's government accuses the Pakistanis of harboring a veritable who's-who of most wanted terrorists.

GEN. DAWLAT WAZIRI, Spokesman, Afghan Defense Ministry (through interpreter): The Haqqani Network is in Pakistan.  Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden were in Pakistan, and now Mullah Mansour was killed in Pakistan's Baluchistan.  It would be better if Pakistan cooperated with Afghanistan and didn't give shelter to these people who are continuing the war in Afghanistan.

MARGARET WARNER:  Pakistani authorities say a passport found near the drone strike wreckage shows Mansour had just returned from Iran.  Officials there denied the claim.

Meanwhile, the already-fractured Taliban is scrambling to close ranks.  Senior leaders met today, and speculation over a successor centers on Mansour's deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, a warlord seen as even more brutal than Mansour.

PARIS RECKONING - Anti-Radicalization Conference

"Relatives of Western jihadist fighters go public, hoping to stop others" PBS NewsHour 5/3/2016

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Relatives of fighters who joined the Islamic State militants and other groups came together at an anti-radicalization conference in Paris with hopes of reaching a turning point in the fight against extremism.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  While we’re reporting on that war-torn country, for months, we have reported on Western-born young people who travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Parents and relatives of some of the young European men who’d joined ISIS and other extremist groups met late last week at a conference in Paris.  Among the group were also family members of victims of the terrorist attacks last fall in Paris.  They gathered to grieve, to condemn terrorism and the extremism that drives it, and look for ways to prevent other young people from following the fates of their loved ones.

From Paris, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  This is the Bataclan club, where Islamist gunmen slaughtered 89 concert-goers last November the 13th.

It was, briefly, a place of pilgrimage for a group of people inextricably linked to the massacre through the ideology embraced by their relatives, even though they didn’t participate in the attack.

Karolina Dam, mother of 18-year-old Lukas, a boy with learning difficulties, converted and radicalized in Denmark and believed killed in an airstrike on the Syrian Turkish border.  Janne Mortensen (ph), also from Denmark, whose convert foster son, Kenneth, was killed in Syria three years ago.

Briton Michael Evans, whose brother Thomas converted and joined Al-Shabaab in Africa.  This footage shows the jihadist with the nom de guerre Abdul Hakim just before he was killed in a battle with Kenyan troops.

MICHAEL EVANS, Brother of Killed Foreign Fighter:  It’s just such a tragic waste of life.  You know, people out just enjoying their night were cut down for nothing.  It’s so sad to be here.  I don’t understand how someone who is my own flesh and blood could be — could think like this.  I just don’t understand.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Canadian Christianne Boudreau wants deradicalization programs to make the most of the experiences of families like these, by using them as educators, helpers, and guides.

She’s campaigning in memory of her convert son Damian killed in fighting near Aleppo in Syria.
-----
BJORN IHLER, Utoya Survivor:  All forms of extremism are very similar in many ways.  Extremism thrives on the same kind of factors regardless of what ideology is titled.  And at the end of the day, their ideology very quickly becomes just an excuse, essentially, for being violent.

The issues we need to address are not necessarily the theological issues, but rather the ideological issue of violence and how violence is being used for political means.

AL-QAIDA - After Bin Laden

"How al-Qaida has changed since bin Laden's death" PBS NewsHour 5/2/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Five years ago, U.S. special operations forces launched a daring mission to kill al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden.  Special correspondent Nick Schifrin, who visited the scene shortly after the battle, describes what he observed, then former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta joins Hari Sreenivasan to reflect on how international terrorism has changed over the past five years.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Five years ago,U.S. special operations forces launched one of the most daring raids in history.  They invaded a U.S. ally to kill the most wanted man on the planet.

I recorded this conversation last week with NewsHour special correspondent Nick Schifrin, who visited the scene shortly after the battle.

Nick Schifrin was the first Western reporter to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that day, and delivered exclusive, extraordinary video, images from inside the compound just hours after bin Laden was killed.

At the time, Nick was ABC News correspondent in the region.  And now he's a NewsHour special correspondent.

And he joins me in the studio.

So, what did we see in that video?

NICK SCHIFRIN (NewsHour):  Hari, we saw how the world's most wanted man lived and how he died.

In terms of how he lived, we see a bedroom, a large bed, bigger than any bed anywhere else in the house.  We saw the medications he was on, very simple medications available at the local pharmacy.  We saw a pantry where there was a week's worth of food stored up.  We saw so many signs of children.

There was a red wagon outside in the backyard.  There were 12 kids living there.  Half of them were bin Laden's.  We also saw a satellite dish outside.  That was a one-way communication device used to watch TV on that dish, of course, never used it to communicate with the outside world.

And, of course, we saw how he died, the pools of blood in his bedroom and the room of Khaled, his son, and the mess that Navy SEALs left behind.  They ransacked the room where all the computers were.  And all the files from those computers became what intelligence officials referred to as the Abbottabad files.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Here we are five years later.  The news is almost — almost on a daily basis mentions ISIS.  It doesn't mention al-Qaida so much.  Is there — explain the shift?

NICK SCHIFRIN:  Yes.

I think, as one longtime al-Qaida puts it, al-Qaida has kind of like become Microsoft.  It's still got a decent share of the market, but it's not preeminent.  It's not really seen as cutting edge.  And it doesn't really appeal to the younger generation.

And that is because, of course what we call core al-Qaida, the al-Qaida leadership as it was defined in 9/11 and the years after, has been decimated.  And that started before bin Laden was killed, about two or three years before, probably 2009.  The CIA moved a lot of assets and intelligence and technology into the region, and drones started picking off these leaders.

INSIDE KENYA - Al-Shabab

"Al-Shabab exploits Kenya's divisions to wage war" PBS NewsHour 4/8/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Kenya is the U.S.'s primary ally in the fight against east Africa's deadliest terror group.  Its long war against al-Shabaab has taken a heavy toll and there are fears that reprisals from Kenyan security forces against ethnic Somalis are only breeding more enemies.  Special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin report in a collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, tonight we begin a series, "Inside Kenya."

The East African nation is the United States' primary ally in the region, and in the fight against the deadly terror group Al-Shabaab, based in Somalia.  Al-Shabaab attacks government and military institutions in Somalia, but it has also launched major attacks in neighboring Kenya.

Special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin traveled extensively throughout Northeastern Kenya, along the Somali border.

Tonight, with the help of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, we start our series with a look at how Al-Shabaab is targeting Kenya, and how Kenya is fighting back.

And a warning:  The story contains images some viewers may find disturbing.

NICK SCHIFRIN (NewsHour):  On Kenya's front line against Al-Shabaab, police on patrol are armed like soldiers.  They search traditional straw houses, checking I.D.s at the barrel of a gun.

JULIUS KIRAGU, Kenyan Army (through interpreter):  The main threat here is the Al-Shabaab.  That is terrorism, because they are associated with al-Qaida, and you know what al-Qaidas are.

NICK SCHIFRIN:  Officer Julius Kiragu heads Kenya's administrative police in Wajir, only 70 miles from the Somali border.  Every night, they search for smuggled weapons and hiding fighters.

JULIUS KIRAGU:  They pretend they are selling milk and all these things, but they are waiting for the appropriate time to strike.

NICK SCHIFRIN:  Most of his officers are ethnic Somali, like the majority of the local population.  Some officers wear civilian clothing and ride around in unmarked cars.  They work with local tribal chiefs, like Zein Abdulla.

What kinds of weapons have you found here?

ZEIN ABDULLA, Tribal Chief:  There were guns.  There were grenades.  There were ammunitions and such things.

NICK SCHIFRIN:  So, Shabaab has supporters even here?

ZEIN ABDULLA:  So, they have representatives at least in every district.

NICK SCHIFRIN:  Al-Shabaab has waged a decade-long war in Somalia.  In 2011, Kenya invaded Somalia, in a campaign called Protect the Country.

Emmanuel Chirchir was the face of the campaign in Somalia, and on Twitter.

"How Al-Shabab is recruiting young men from Kenya" PBS NewsHour 4/10/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Al-Shabab, an Al Qaeda-linked militant group based in Somalia responsible for a shopping mall attack in Kenya that killed 67 in 2013, is enlisting more recruits from Kenya than any other country.  In the second part of the NewsHour series “Inside Kenya,” young men talk about why they joined.

WEST AFRICA - Freeing Hostages

"Cameroon, Nigeria join forces to free Boko Haram hostages" PBS NewsHour 2/29/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Hundreds of hostages held by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram were freed over the weekend after a joint raid by Cameroonian and Nigerian forces.  The raid followed increased U.S. military efforts to cooperate with regional governments against the jihadist group, which has killed more than 20,000 people over the last six years.  Gwen Ifill talks to special correspondent Nick Schifrin for more.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Over the weekend, several hundred hostages of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram were freed.  It happened during a raid by Nigerian and Cameroonian forces along the border between the two African nations.

The raid comes as the U.S. military has moved to increase cooperation with regional governments to fight the jihadist group.  Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, or ISIS, last year.  According to Amnesty International, the six-year uprising has killed more than 20,000 people.  Another 2.8 million have been forced from their homes in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.

Boko Haram gained worldwide infamy in 2014 after kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in Northeastern Nigeria.  That sparked a global campaign to free the girls, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls as a social media rallying cry.  The girls’ plight was a contributing factor to then-President Goodluck Jonathan’s election loss last year.

The U.S. has military personnel operating a new drone base in Cameroon to provide intelligence. And there is now discussion of sending American special forces near the front lines of Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram.  They would advise the military in its operations.

I’m joined now by special correspondent Nick Schifrin.  He’s currently on assignment for us in Nairobi, Kenya, and he reported in-depth from Nigeria for the “NewsHour” last year.

Nick, it’s good to talk to you again.

So, tell us what you know about this new U.S. engagement in Nigeria.

NICK SCHIFRIN (NewsHour):  Yes, Gwen, good evening.

There’s a new recommendation by the U.S. military’s top Africa Command that one to three dozen special operations forces troops be deployed to Northeastern Nigeria.  This is what the military calls an advise-and-assist mission.

They are towards the front lines, but not really on the front lines, advising the Nigerian military in their fight, assisting that fight, things like intelligence and training those troops.  Now, this is just a recommendation right now.  This will have to go through the State Department and the Pentagon and the White House.

But this is what the military in Africa wants.  And it’s what one military official describes as a national progression to a real escalation in what the U.S. has been doing against Boko Haram and helping the Nigerians.  The first step in that is intelligence.  There’s a new drone base in nearby Northern Cameroon.  Predator drones have been supplying the Nigerian and the countries all along the Lake Chad Basin with imagery, with intelligence, so they can go after Boko Haram.

That’s new in the last few months.  And just in the last few years, the U.S. has resumed a training mission in Northwestern Nigeria.  That is for Nigerian special forces far from the front line.  That’s a mission the U.S. has really been trying to resume after it ended about a year ago.

And, Gwen this is in addition to real concerted effort diplomatically to try and help the Nigerians improve things like the police. So, this is a real escalation in the U.S. helping Nigeria and all the countries fighting Boko Haram.

ISIS - Southeast Asia

"Explosions and gunfire in Jakarta leave 5 gunmen, 2 civilians dead" by Joshua Barajas, PBS NewsHour 1/14/2016

Several attackers set off a series of explosions that targeted downtown Jakarta on Thursday and exchanged gunfire with Indonesian authorities, leaving at least seven people, including five assailants, dead.

Updated:  The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on its website.

The blasts focused on the Sarinah shopping center in the Indonesian capital with at least one explosion at a Starbucks cafe.  Initial images of the aftermath showed bodies in the streets, as police arrived at the cafe, engaging the suspects in a shootout. More explosions soon followed.

Hours after the first blast, police said five suspects and two civilians were killed and 10 more people were injured.  A Dutch man was among the dead, Indonesia’s security minister Luhut Panjaitan said.  Indonesian President Joko Widodo appeared on national TV to say the situation was “under control” and to call for calm.

“This act is clearly aimed at disturbing public order and spreading terror among people,” he said.  “The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and lose to, such terror acts.”

It’s unclear whether the attackers detonated bombs or grenades.

"How well-organized is ISIS in Southeast Asia?" PBS NewsHour 1/14/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Multiple gunmen and suicide bombers struck the center of Jakarta, targeting a police booth as well as a nearby Starbucks.  Two civilians were killed and five attackers died.  The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility.  Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports, and Judy Woodruff explores ISIS's expansion into Southeast Asia with Joby Warrick of The Washington Post.

AMERICAN MUSLIM - Ask A Muslim

"Muslim woman sets up 'Ask A Muslim' stand in Massachusetts & what happens may surprise you" by Leslie Salzillo, Daily Kos 12/28/2015

In a beautiful act of courage and hope, Mona Haydar, a Muslim, set up an “Ask a Muslim” stand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoping to bring more understanding of the Muslim community.  She also offered people who passed by the stand in front of a local library a free cup of coffee and doughnut to further beckon a Q&A chat.

The idea came to Haydar during dinner with her husband.  In efforts to create positive change, they decided to do something “kind of crazy.”

"He had seen this segment on This American Life, where a young Iraqi man had done 'Ask an Iraqi,' " Haydar tells NPR's Carrie Kahn.  "And so [Sebastian] was like, 'Why haven't we thought of this before?  Why don't we get out and talk to people?'

"So, we did it," Haydar says.

NPR staff reports:

After the day was done, she posted a summary to Facebook — a post which has now garnered more than 11,000 likes and the attention of several different media organizations.

"We weren't out there that long today but the take away was clear: Keep your heads held high, dear Muslim family," she wrote in that post.  "There is an overwhelming amount of love and so remember this post when you are faced with bigotry and hatred towards you or your faith.

Mona Haydar says she initially thought the experience would be negative.  As it turns out, the experience and interaction with many folks was very positive—so much, in fact, that she and her husband look forward to doing it again soon.  Haydar mentioned that rather than asking questions, most people approached her to say they liked what she was doing.  Some passersby even felt compelled to apologize for the worldwide discrimination against Muslims.  Pretty cool.

You can read more of the Carrie Kahn/NPR interview with Mona Haydar via NPR.org.  There is so much good in this world, and many of us want to believe that the good ultimately, and always, out-trumps the bad.  (And yes, that pun was intended—for goodness sake.)

Thank you Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins.  You can visit Mona Haydar on her Facebook Page.

VIEWS ON ISLAM - Divergent Voices

"How do we reconcile today’s divergent voices of Islam?" PBS NewsHour 12/23/2015

IMHO:  ISIS is NOT Islam and has no right to speak for all of Islam.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  With the rise of the Islamic State group, there have been questions about just who speaks for Islam and what the message should be.  Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner talks with Manal Omar of the United States Institute of Peace and Asra Nomani, co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, about standing up to violent religious extremism.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  The recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, its perpetrators inspired by jihadist ideology, have reignited a long-running debate about the nature of Islam and its links to violent extremism.

In his address after the San Bernardino killings, President Obama urged Americans not to scapegoat all Muslims.  But he also called on Muslims to combat what he described as a dangerous trend in their faith.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  An extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities.  This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse.

MARGARET WARNER:  The next day, leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the U.S. and a more watchful approach to those living here.

DONALD TRUMP, Republican Presidential Candidate:  We have to look at mosques.  And we have to respect mosques.  But, yes, we have to look at mosques.  We have no choice.  We have to see what’s happening, because something is happening in there.  Man, there’s anger.  There’s anger.  And we have to know about it.

MARGARET WARNER:  Democratic contender Hillary Clinton has taken the opposite tack in discussing Islam.

HILLARY CLINTON, Democratic Presidential Candidate:  Islam is not our adversary.  Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

MARGARET WARNER:  This debate extends to the global Muslim community as well.  Jordan’s King Abdullah, who speaks often of a war within Islam, insists Islamic State militants are way outside the mainstream.

KING ABDULLAH II BIN AL-HUSSEIN, Jordan:  These are outlaws.  These are renegades.  They have nothing to do of understanding what our religion is about.

MARGARET WARNER:  The struggle to understand and agree on what Islam represents in an age of terror is sure to continue.

And, for more, we’re joined by two Muslim American women, both former journalists.  Manal Omar is associate vice president for the Middle East and Africa Center at U.S. Institute of Peace.  And Asra Nomani is co-founder of Muslim Reform Movement.  She’s also the author of “Standing Alone:  An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam.”

WAR ON ISIS - One Year Later

"Study:  Arrests for alleged ISIS supporters on the rise in the U.S." PBS NewsHour 6/27/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Monday marks the first full year since ISIS declared the "Caliphate" -- an Islamic State -- part of the justification for its terror campaign across the Middle East.  A new study from Fordham University has uncovered an increase in the number of Americans arrested for allegedly supporting ISIS.  The Director of Fordham's Center on National Security, Karen Greenberg, joins Hari Sreenivasan with more.

HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:  Monday marks the first full year since ISIS declared the caliphate, an Islamic State, part of the justification for its terror campaign across the Middle East.

Just this week, ISIS claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait, and is suspected of an attack in France.

The Justice Department has estimated at least 2,700 Westerners have traveled to join ISIS in the fighting in Syria, including some from the U.S.

Now, a new study from Fordham University Law School shows arrests in the U.S. for allegedly supporting ISIS are growing.  Since last March of 2014, federal prosecutors have charged 56 people for supporting ISIS.  Law enforcement killed three other suspects.

Fordham researchers say most of the accused are U.S. citizens.  More than 60 percent of those charged are 21 or younger, and more than 80 percent of the cases involved recruitment with social media.

I’m joined now by the head of that study, the Director of Fordham’s Center on National Security, Karen Greenberg.

NIGERIA - The New President

"Nigeria’s new President Buhari vows fight against Boko Haram at inauguration" PBS NewsHour 5/29/2015

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  We turn now to Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.  The troubled country, struggling with massive economic problems, corruption and an Islamic extremist insurgency, made history today, as it inaugurated it’s new leader, Muhammadu Buhari.

Nigerians celebrated their new president and a strengthened democracy today, as the country’s first democratic transfer of power was finalized.

MAN (through interpreter):  It’s a new beginning with an honest man who is serious and focused and determined.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  That honest man:  Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator who calls himself a born-again democrat.

PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI, Nigeria (through interpreter):  I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  The 72-year-old former general vowed to take charge of the fight against Boko Haram militants, who control portions of Northeast Nigeria.

PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI (through interpreter):  Boko Haram is a mindless, worthless group who are as far away from Islam as one can think of.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Just today, at least seven people were killed in Borno state, when suspected Boko Haram militants carried out twin bombings at a wedding party.  Hundreds of Boko Haram captives have been freed by the military in recent weeks.

But the fate of the Chibok girls, whose capture sparked the global campaign to Bring Back Our Girls, remains unknown.  The U.S. has assisted in that search, and Secretary of State Kerry was on hand today, reaffirming strong U.S.-Nigerian ties.

With the leadership change, the U.S. is reportedly now ready to expand military assistance.  That could include sending more advisers to train Nigeria’s army.  In addition to the fight against Boko Haram, Buhari inherits a host of other problems from outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, chief among them, tackling institutionalized corruption, and reinvigorating Africa’s largest economy, which has faltered badly.

Nigeria faces a $63 billion national debt.  And even though it is a top global oil producer, it is suffering a months-long fuel crisis.

"Will Nigeria’s new president reset relations with the U.S.?" PBS NewsHour 5/29/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Nigeria’s new President Muhammadu Buhari has inherited a host of problems from outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, including the fight against Boko Haram militants.  Does Nigeria’s new leadership offer an opening for better relations with -- and more help from -- the U.S.?  Judy Woodruff learns more from J. Peter Pham of The Atlantic Council.