the late Yousef Mohammed al Shihri

Thomas Joscelyn reports that another released Guantanamo prisoner who rejoined al Qaeda was this time permanently detained by Saudi security forces.

On Oct. 13, a former Guantanamo detainee named Yousef Mohammed al Shihri was killed in a shootout at a checkpoint along the Saudi-Yemeni border. Al Shihri and his accomplices were stopped by Saudi security forces after their suspicious behavior drew attention.

Two of the travelers, including al Shihri, were reportedly dressed as women. Saudi security personnel decided to search the al Qaeda car and its passengers, but al Shihri and the others opened fire. Al Shihri and one other al Qaeda member were killed in the shootout, while a third was arrested. One Saudi security officer was also killed. …

Yousef Mohammed al Shihri was repatriated to Saudi Arabia in November 2007 along with thirteen other Saudi citizens. At least several of them have returned to al Qaeda’s ranks. One of those who rejoined al Qaeda is Said Ali al Shihri, who has become the deputy chief of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was reportedly involved in the September 2008 attack on the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. According to memos prepared at Gitmo, Said Ali al Shihri is Yousef Mohammed al Shihri’s brother. However, according to a report by Caryle Murphy in the Christian Science Monitor, Saudi authorities have said the two al Qaeda terrorists were brothers-in-law.

Regardless, Yousef and Said were relatives. And their stories demonstrate the pitfalls of the US government’s transfer and release decisions. Prior to their transfers, US intelligence officials at Guantanamo had determined that Said was “a known al Qaeda operative.” Moreover, when they inquired about Yousef, they found that he was considered one of the more dangerous Saudis held at Guantanamo.

In a memo prepared at Guantanamo, US intelligence officials reported that:

A foreign government service provided information on detainees held at Guantanamo Bay that they designated as being high priority targets, in order of precedence. [Yousef Mohammed al Shihri] is number four on the list.

The “foreign government service” is likely Saudi intelligence, as that organization would have the most information on Yousef and his fellow Saudi al Qaeda compatriots. Well more than 100 Saudis were detained at Guantanamo, so Yousef must have been considered especially dangerous to be listed as number four on the list.

In addition, US intelligence officials alleged that Yousef Mohammed al Shihri made his allegiances and animosity for America well-known long before being transferred to Saudi Arabia. Regarding Yousef Mohammed al Shihri, memos prepared at Guantanamo alleged:

The detainee stated he considers all Americans his enemy. The detainee decided that he hates all Americans because they attack his religion, Islam. Since Americans are the detainee’s enemy, he will continue to fight them until he dies.

The detainee pointed to the sky and told the interviewing agents that he will have a meeting with them in the next life. …

The detainee stated that the FBI, the United States and the interrogators are the enemy.

Despite all of this, Yousef and Said were transferred to Saudi custody. They both graduated from the Saudi jihadist rehabilitation program and then joined nine others in a planned escape from Saudi soil. They fled to Yemen, where they joined al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is currently one of the strongest al Qaeda branches. Said lives on to fight another day, while Yousef now gets to test his theory of the afterlife.

The Arab News reports on a case of domestic discord in Laith, Saudi Arabia, which demonstrates exactly why the Archbishop of Canterbury’s assertion that the adoption of “aspects of Sharia law” was inevitable in Britain led to widespread criticism.

A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days.

A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride,” he said.

He added that he had been engaged to his wife’s elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education. “In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable,” he said.

Litigation explosion’s latest victim

This news item from the LA Times makes it clear that adoption of sharia law by western jurisdictions will only produce an increase in litigation in new and interesting ways.

A family in Saudi Arabia has filed suit in a religious court against an unnamed genie, or jinn, who sounds most unpleasant: It steals cellphones, whispers threats and occasionally flings stones.

“We began to hear strange sounds,” a family member who requested anonymity told the Saudi daily Al Watan. “At first we did not take it seriously, but then stranger things started to happen, and the children got particularly scared when the genie started throwing stones.”

The genie — or genies — had demands: “A woman spoke to me first, and then a man. They said we should get out of the house,” said the family member, adding that his clan fled their home near the city of Medina. …

Sheikh Amr Al Salmi, head of the local Sharia court, said he will investigate the family’s claims that it has been harassed for two years: “We have to look into this case and verify its truthfulness despite the difficulty of
its consideration,” he told the Saudi daily. “What is interesting is that the complaint has come from every member of the family, and not just one.”

Raymond Ibrahim at Pajamas Media contemplates the historical context and semiotics of Obama’s bow.

Is Obama’s deep bow (with slightly bent knee) to the Saudi king as bad as it seems? The White House, apparently forgetful that we live in the Internet age, where everything is swiftly documented and disseminated — or else thinking it leads a nation of the blind — insists the president did not bow. He supposedly always bends in half when shaking hands with shorter people, though he certainly seemed quite erect when saluting the British queen, who is much shorter than the Saudi king.

Obama bowed; this much is certainly not open to debate. All that is left now is to place his odious obeisance in context. As such, history has much to say about the seemingly innocuous bow.

Millennia before the current war between the West and Islam — the war Obama insists does not exist in the first place — the ancient Greeks (forebears of Western civilization) warred with the Persians (forebears of the soon-to-be-nuclear Islamic theocracy, Iran).

Writing in the 5th century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus explained: “When the Persians meet one another in the roads, you can see whether those who meet are of equal rank. For instead of greeting by words, they kiss each other on the mouth; but if one of them is inferior to the other, they kiss one another on the cheeks.”

This explanation reminds one of Bush’s hand-holding/kissing sessions with the same Saudi monarch, which some insist exonerate Obama’s bow. Not so; as the Greek historian explains above, such behavior is representative of equal rank in Eastern cultures.

As for Obama’s conduct, Herodotus continues, “yet if one is of much less noble rank than the other, he falls down before him and worships him.”

“Much less noble rank”? Could Obama, like his wife Michelle, who only recently became proud of America, be operating under the conviction that being American is not all that noble?

As for “falls down before him and worships,” this phrase is a translation of the Greek word proskunesis, which means “to make obeisance,” to “worship, adore,” as one would a god, or king, or god-king. Basically, to fall on one’s face in prostration to another. Connotatively, it implies “to make like a dog” — base, servile, and submissive. …

Whatever prompted that rather instinctive bow — Obama may be used to bending the knee to Saudi royalty, considering that Saudis may have paid his college tuition — and regardless of antiquated notions of “honor” and “dignity,” merely diplomatically, it was a bad move.

The President of the United States assumes a posture of submission to the Saudi King

Of course, why we should expect someone who has no understanding of the fundamental American idea of Liberty, no appreciation of the basic American values of independence and personal responsibility, no grasp of the benefits of a free economy to be acquainted with terribly old-fashioned notions about the United States’ status as a Republic and the correct protocols for presidential behavior toward foreign monarchs?

Bowing down to a backward barbarian despot is certainly not worse than bowing down to the political idols and chimeras at the center of leftism’s cultus of demagogic envy and statism. Still, real Americans everywhere are bound to wince in embarassment. The founding fathers are spinning in their graves.

3:36 video

Greg Pollowitz explains, at National Review Online, that it was not simply Neocon Zionists who torpedoed the Freeman nomination. It was his financial ties to foreign governments (the Saudis and China) and his own extreme statements, particularly those expressing contempt for human rights in China, that did him in.

Meanwhile, David Broder is shedding big, salty tears over the nation’s loss of the services of someone so “thoughtful and obviously smart as hell,” with a special gift for seeing “how situations look to the people on the other side,” particularly when those other people are lining his pockets.

Why, Freeman is so smart, Broder argues, that he would have been able to “explain” Chinese behavior in the recent incident in which Chinese vessels harassed a US intelligence ship in international waters.

I’m sure Freeman would have said that the Chinese were simply re-asserting their national pride after being so cruelly mistreated by the Western powers in the 19th century, and that their making innovative maximalist claims to territorial sovereignty over the South China Sea is a natural expression of their wounded dignity to which we should understandingly concede. Behaving otherwise on our part would be arrogant and provocative. See, Mr. Broder? The country doesn’t need Charles Freeman as head of NIC. I can tell you myself just what he would have said.

Former Saudi Ambassador Charles Freeman said he was throwing himself under the bus, as a form of protest against the nefarious domination of American foreign policy by the International Zionist Conspiracy.

Washington Post:

Charles W. Freeman Jr. withdrew yesterday from his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council after questions about his impartiality were raised among members of Congress and with White House officials.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said he accepted Freeman’s decision “with great regret.” The withdrawal came hours after Blair had given a spirited defense on Capitol Hill of the outspoken former ambassador.

Freeman had come under fire for statements he had made about Israeli policies and for his past connections to Saudi and Chinese interests. …

In an e-mail sent to friends yesterday evening, Freeman said he had concluded the attacks on him would not end once he was in office and that he did not believe the NIC “could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack.” He wrote that those who questioned his background employed “selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record . . . and an utter disregard for the truth.”

Such attacks, he said, “will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.” And he said he regretted that his withdrawal may cause others to doubt the administration’s latitude in such matters.

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But, as Greg Sargent reports, Chuck Schumer is trying to take credit for pushing him.

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Andrew Sullivan finds the process interesting. The debate was in the blogs, not the MSM.

There are a couple of things worth noting about this minor, yet major, Washington spat. The first is that the MSM has barely covered it as a news story, and the entire debate occurred in the blogosphere. I don’t know why. But that would be a very useful line of inquiry for a media journalist.

The second is that Obama may bring change in many areas, but there is no possibility of change on the Israel-Palestine question. Having the kind of debate in America that they have in Israel, let alone Europe, on the way ahead in the Middle East is simply forbidden. Even if a president wants to have differing sources of advice on many questions, the Congress will prevent any actual, genuinely open debate on Israel. More to the point: the Obama peeps never defended Freeman. They were too scared. The fact that Obama blinked means no one else in Washington will ever dare to go through the hazing that Freeman endured. And so the chilling effect is as real as it is deliberate.

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Our own original 2/26 posting was one of the earliest.

Charles Wellman Freeman, Jr.

Barack Obama’s choice to lead the National Intelligence Council, the body which advises policy makers on global strategy and which produces the National Intelligence Estimate, is reported to be former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles W. Freeman, Jr.

The radical left is rejoicing over what even the AntiWar.com Blog describes as an “amazing appointment.”

Freeman’s position on the political map can be identified by the fact that he succeeded George McGovern as head of the Middle East Policy Council.

He is renowned for anti-War-on-Terror and anti-Israel public pronouncements, as well as for statements sympathetic to the viewpoint of despotic regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and China.

Marty Peretz, at New Republic, expresses profound indignation at this appointment.

Here is the most stunning prospective appointment of the Obama administration as yet. Not stunning as in “spectacular” or “distinguished” but stunning as in bigoted and completely out of synch with the deepest convictions of the American people. What’s more, Charles “Chas” Freeman is a bought man, having been ambassador to Saudi Arabia and then having supped at its tables for almost two decades. …

That Chas, as he is so artfully called, also made himself a client of China and China a client of himself, is evidence that he has no humane or humanitarian scruples that underlay well, his unscrupulous political views, viz, his remonstrance to Beijing that it should have smashed the democracy protests as soon as they emerged on the streets. …

Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic administration. He has never displayed a liberal instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets quiet. And frankly, Chas brings a bitter rancor to how he looks at Israel. No Arab country and no Arab movement–basically including Hezbollah and Hamas–poses a challenge to the kind of world order we Americans want to see. He is now very big on Hamas as the key to bringing peace to Gaza, when in fact it is the key to uproar and bloodletting, not just against Israel but against the Palestinian Authority that is the only group of Palestinians that has even given lip-service (and, to be fair, a bit more) to a settlement with Israel.

That Freeman would be chosen as the president’s gatekeeper to national intelligence is an absurdity.

The appointment of head of the NIC does not require Senatorial confirmation, so, outrageous as it is, this one is probably a done deal.

Mohamed Abdullah Al Harbi aka Abul Hareth Mohammed al-Awf

Another US-released Guantanamo detainee, Mohamed Abdullah Al Harbi aka Abul Hareth Mohammed al-Awfi, has been reported captured by the Yemeni government while working as a high level al-Qaeda operative.

The (Yemen) Interior Ministry says it sent back the Saudi national, Ahmed Owaidan al-Harbi, on Thursday, 20 days after his arrest in eastern Yemen. The ministry hasn’t released any details on al-Harbi’s case.

The extradition comes two days after Yemen returned another Saudi national who was once held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo and later became an al-Qaida operative in Yemen. Officials say that suspect, Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, surrendered himself

Evan Kolhmann’s NEFA report on The Eleven: Saudi Guantanamo Veterans Returning to the Fight provides a revealing profile.

However, contrary to his account before the ARB panel, the U.S. military learned from its own sources that al-Harbi had allegedly been “in Chechnya for approximately nine months in 1999… A source reported that the detainee underwent basic training and physical training in Chechnya.” … Aside from his purported tour of duty with the mujahideen in Chechnya, according to the U.S. military, al-Harbi was also recognized by a “senior al Qaida lieutenant” as “possibly being at his site, a guest house in Kabul,
in 1998 or 1999.”

In the late fall of 2001, Mohammed al-Harbi traveled on a religious pilgrimage to the Saudi city of Mecca for the holy month of Ramadan. It was “at this time he decided to travel to Pakistan and provide assistance to the Afghani refugees that were residing at camps on Pakistani soil.”…

Al-Harbi gathered together at least 14,000 Saudi Riyals and US$8,000 (a total of approximately $12,000) and on the eighth day of Ramadan (November 24, 2001), traveled from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Karachi, Pakistan. …

According to intelligence obtained by the U.S. military, Mohammed al-Harbi was a “member” of Al-Wafa al-Ighatha al-Islamiya, a thinly-veiled fraudulent charitable front for Al-Qaida terror financing. As cited previously, Al-Wafa “claimed to be a charitable organization, but it was common knowledge that al Wafa delivered weapons and supplies to Afghanistan fighters in Tora Bora… Al Wafa provided money of all currencies, including United States Dollars, to those fighters who needed it.” The Pentagon further alleged that al-Harbi had been identified as “one of approximately 400 Arabs who claimed to be members of a subset of al Wafa… [who] were actually Mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan.”…

Al-Harbi was … quick to deny the charges that he had “received hand grenade, machine gun, pistol, map reading and explosives training” at Al-Qaida’s Al-Farouq terrorist training camp; that he had served as a “fighter in Kandahar, Afghanistan”; and, that he had participated in the battle of Tora Bora in late November 2001, and had been seen fighting there. …[He] continued to stubbornly maintain his innocence. …

On November 9, 2007, al-Harbi was released from U.S. military detention in Guantanamo Bay and transferred to the custody of local security forces in Saudi Arabia.

Less than six months after returning to Saudi Arabia, Mohammed al-Harbi fled with a group of other Saudi Al-Qaida members to sanctuary in neighboring Yemen. It is not known when, how, or why al-Harbi was able to escape the custody of the Saudi government. On January 23, 2009, the Al-Fajr Media Center published new video footage of joint sermons delivered by a group of Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaida leaders in a recording titled, “From Here We Will Begin and in Al-Aqsa We Shall Meet.” One of the men featured in the video was former Gitmo detainee Mohammed al-Harbi, carrying the official title of “Field Commander of the Al-Qaida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula.” During his speech, al-Harbi threatened:

“I say to America’s collaborators… the Saudis… the grenade of our brother Ali al-Mabadi, may Allah have mercy upon him, is in our hands, and by Allah, we shall fulfill his oath or die trying—unless you seek forgiveness from Allah for the war that you are waging against Islam and the Muslims. And we warn our imprisoned brothers to avoid the ‘attention and advice program’ which is administered by the ignorant oppressor Mohammed Bin Nayef and his criminal helpers like Dai Turki al-Atayan—who headed the delegation of psychological investigators sent to Cuba, and helped the Americans to conduct psychological examinations and to extract confessions from us using psychiatric methods employed in the prisons of Saudi Arabia against the mujahideen. [These methods are used] in order to persuade us to stray from Islam and our path using every tool and method through the plan of advice… Finally, we say to the Christian countries which are preparing for war in Saudi Arabia and which are supporting the Christian war against the Muslims: by Allah, we are surely coming for you! By Allah, we are surely coming for you! We are walking the path of our former brothers, like Shaykh Yousef al-Ayyiri, Shaykh Esa al-Awshin, Khaled al-Haj, Turki al-Dandani, Ali al-Mabadi, and other lions of Allah who have been slain in Saudi Arabia. And we say to the police and [internal] investigations [system] of the Saudis, and to those who guard the Jews and the Christians: repent to Allah for the deception and treachery that you are culpable for when you guard the entrances to their embassies, their secret temples, their population centers, and their military and intelligence bases. The one who gives fair warning cannot [afterwards] be blameworthy, O’ servants of the Dirham and the Dinar.”

It was the Bush Administration that released this particular lamb. Just imagine the caliber of the people the Obama Administration is going to be releasing.

New York Times notes that another satisfied client of Shearman & Sterling has returned to his normal life.

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. …

Mr. Shihri, 35, trained in urban warfare tactics at a camp north of Kabul, Afghanistan, according to documents released by the Pentagon as part of his Guantánamo dossier. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he traveled to Afghanistan via Bahrain and Pakistan, and he later told American investigators that his intention was to do relief work, the documents say. He was wounded in an airstrike and spent a month and a half recovering in a hospital in Pakistan.

The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of “extremists” in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.

However, under a heading describing reasons for Mr. Shihri’s possible release from Guantánamo, the documents say he claimed that he traveled to Iran “to purchase carpets for his store” in Saudi Arabia. They also say that he denied knowledge of any terrorists or terrorist activities, and that he “related that if released, he would like to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wherein he would reunite with his family.”

“The detainee stated he would attempt to work at his family’s furniture store if it is still in business,” the documents say.

This terrorist, let’s recall, was released by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, along with dozens of others who have rejoined the jihad. Obama has 245 he can release.

Violence in Iraq has dropped to pre-Insurgency levels. General Petraeus’s tactics have clearly worked at killing off terrorists on the ground in Iraq, but more is going on. Reinforcement by new jihadis seeking martyrdom has also plummeted, so insurgent casualties are no longer being replaced.

Two recent articles explain how US military success is being supplemented by an ideological counter-offensive within the Islamic World.

Stratfor’s George Friedman explains that Saudi money is being used very actively to purchase peace and the right kind of theology.

At current oil prices, the Saudis are absolutely loaded with cash. In the Arabian Peninsula as elsewhere, money buys friends. In Arabia, the rulers have traditionally bound tribes and sects to them through money. At present, the Saudis can overwhelm theological doubts with very large grants and gifts. The Saudi government did not enjoy 2004 and does not want a repeat. It is therefore carefully strengthening its ties inside Saudi Arabia and throughout the Sunni world using money as a bonding agent. …

With crude prices in the range of $130 a barrel, the Saudis are now making more money on oil than they could have imagined five years ago when the price was below $40 a barrel. The Saudis don’t know how long these prices will last. Endless debates are raging over whether high oil prices are the result of speculation, the policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve, conspiracy by the oil companies and so on. The single fact the Saudis can be certain of is that the price of oil is high, they don’t know how long it will remain high, and they don’t want anything interfering with their amassing vast financial reserves that might have to sustain them in lean times should they come.

In short, the Saudis are trying to reduce the threat of war in the region. War is at this moment the single greatest threat to their interests. In particular, they are afraid of any war that would close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large portion of the oil they sell flows. The only real threat to the strait is a war between the United States and Iran in which the Iranians countered an American attack or blockade by mining the strait. It is assumed that the United States could readily deal with any Iranian countermove, but the Saudis have watched the Americans in Iraq and they are not impressed. From the Saudi point of view, not having a war is the far better option.

The Saudis are engaged in a massive maneuver to try to pacify the region, if not forever, then for at least as long as oil prices are high. The Saudis are quietly encouraging the Syrian-Israeli peace talks along with the Turks, and one of the reasons for Syrian participation is undoubtedly assurances of Saudi investments in Syria and Lebanon from which Damascus can benefit. The Saudis also are encouraging Israeli-Palestinian talks, and there is, we suspect, Saudi pressure on Hamas to be more cooperative in those talks. The Saudis have no interest in an Israeli-Syrian or Israeli-Hezbollah conflict right now that might destabilize the region.

Finally, the Saudis have had enough of the war in Iraq. They do not want increased Iranian power in Iraq. They do not want to see the Sunnis marginalized. They do not want to see al Qaeda dominating the Iraqi Sunnis. They have influence with the Iraqi Sunnis, and money buys even more. Ever since 2003, with the exception of the Kurdish region, the development of Iraqi oil has been stalled. Iraqis of all factions are aware of how much money they’ve lost because of their civil war. This is a lever that the Saudis can use in encouraging some sort of peace in Iraq.

It is not that Saudi Arabia has become pacifist by any means. Nor are they expecting (or, frankly, interested in) lasting peace. They are interested in assuring sufficient stability over the coming months and years so they can concentrate on making money from oil.

Meanwhile, as Lawrence Wright describes in the New Yorker, the Islamic theologian who wrote the books inspiring al Qaeda’s jihadist movement last year published a new book, “Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World,” featuring a major change of heart.

The premise that opens “Rationalizing Jihad” is “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property.” Fadl then establishes a new set of rules for jihad, which essentially define most forms of terrorism as illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances. His argument may seem arcane, even to most Muslims, but to men who had risked their lives in order to carry out what they saw as the authentic precepts of their religion, every word assaulted their world view and brought into question their own chances for salvation.

In order to declare jihad, Fadl writes, certain requirements must be observed. One must have a place of refuge. There should be adequate financial resources to wage the campaign. Fadl castigates Muslims who resort to theft or kidnapping to finance jihad: “There is no such thing in Islam as ends justifying the means.” Family members must be provided for. “There are those who strike and then escape, leaving their families, dependents, and other Muslims to suffer the consequences,” Fadl points out. “This is in no way religion or jihad. It is not manliness.” Finally, the enemy should be properly identified in order to prevent harm to innocents. “Those who have not followed these principles have committed the gravest of sins,” Fadl writes. …

To Muslims living in non-Islamic countries, Fadl sternly writes, “I say it is not honorable to reside with people—even if they were nonbelievers and not part of a treaty, if they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum with a decent life and other acts of kindness—and then betray them, through killing and destruction. This was not in the manners and practices of the Prophet.”

It is to this recent book by Dr. Fadl that Ayman Zawahiri has been responding indignantly in his taped messages.

UPI:

The virtue police in Saudi Arabia have ordered shops to remove roses and other items that are red to prevent the celebration of Valentine’s Day Feb.14.

Shop workers in Riyadh say agents of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice visited flower and gift shops during the weekend to issue warnings, the Saudi Gazette reported Monday.

Each year on the eve of Valentine’s Day, commission agents conduct raids and confiscate any red items they find.

Islamic scholars preach celebrating Valentine’s Day and other non-Islamic holidays is a sin, especially Valentine’s Day.

“As Muslims we shouldn’t celebrate a non-Muslim celebration especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women,” Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari said.