'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'

Balkans expert Marko Gasic predicts Libya will become a new Iraq. He says that now that the cease-fire is needed for peace, that should be the aim of the mission. The mission has now become compromised, he says, and should be stopped as soon as possible.

Osama bin Laden - Is he Dead or Alive ? More evidence suggest he is .....

Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.

This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?

What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?

Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.

Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.

But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.

The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).

Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'

There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.

The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.

His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.

The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.

Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'

Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.

'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear, from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.'

Then came a second videotape on November 3, 2001. Once again, an ailing Bin Laden lashed out at the United States. He urged true Muslims to celebrate the attacks - but did not at any time acknowledge he had been involved in the atrocity.

And then there was silence until December 13, 2001 - the date Griffin claims Bin Laden died. That very day, the U.S. Government released a new video of the terror chief. In this tape, Bin Laden contradicted all his previous denials, and suddenly admitted to his involvement in the atrocity of 9/11.

The tape had reportedly been found by U.S. troops in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, after anti-Taliban forces took over the city. A label attached to it claimed that it had been made on November 9, 2001.
Bush

Bush made Bin Laden's capture a national priority, claiming he could get his man - dead or alive

The tape shows Bin Laden talking with a visiting sheik. In it, he clearly states that he not only knew about the 9/11 atrocities in advance, but had planned every detail personally.

What manna for the Western authorities! This put the terrorist back in the frame over 9/11. The Washington Post quoted U.S. officials saying that the video 'offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks'.

A euphoric President Bush added: 'For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.'

In London, Downing Street said that the video was 'conclusive proof of his involvement'. The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, added: 'There is no doubt it is the real thing. People can see Bin Laden there, making those utterly chilling words of admission about his guilt for organising the atrocities of September 11.'

Yet Professor Griffin claims this 'confessional' video provokes more questions than answers. For a start, the Bin Laden in this vital film testimony looks different.

He is a weighty man with a black beard, not a grey one. His pale skin had suddenly become darker, and he had a different shaped nose. His artistic hands with slender fingers had transformed into those of a pugilist. He looked in exceedingly good health.

Furthermore, Bin Laden can be seen writing a note with his right hand, although he is left-handed. Bizarrely, too, he makes statements about 9/11 which Griffin claims would never have come from the mouth of the real Bin Laden - a man with a civil engineering degree who had made his fortune (before moving into terrorism) from building construction in the Middle East.

For example, the Al Qaeda leader trumpets that far more people died in 9/11 than he had expected. He goes on: 'Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.' (In reality the Twin Towers' completely fell down).

The words of the true Bin Laden? No, says Griffin, because of the obvious mistakes. 'Given his experience as a contractor, he would have known the Twin Towers were framed with steel, not iron,' he says.

'He would also known that steel and iron do not begin to melt until they reach 2,800 deg F. Yet a building fire fed by jet fuel is a hydrocarbon fire, and could not have reached above 1,800 deg F.'

Griffin, in his explosive book, says this tape is fake, and he goes further.

'A reason to suspect that all of the post-2001 Bin Laden tapes are fabrications is that they often appeared at times that boosted the Bush presidency or supported a claim by its chief 'war on terror' ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

'The confession tape came exactly when Bush and Blair had failed to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 and both men were trying to win international public support, particularly in the Islamic world, for the anti-terrorist campaign.'

Griffin suggests that Western governments used highly sophisticated, special effects film technology to morph together images and vocal recordings of Bin Laden.

So if they are fakes, why has Al Qaeda kept quiet about it? And what exactly happened to the real Bin Laden?

The answer to the first question may be that the amorphous terrorist organisation is happy to wage its own propaganda battle in the face of waning support - and goes along with the myth that its charismatic figurehead is still alive to encourage recruitment to its cause.

As for the matter of what happened to him, hints of Bin Laden's kidney failure, or that he might be dead, first appeared on January 19, 2002, four months after 9/11.

This was when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told America's news show CNN: 'I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. The images of him show he is extremely weak.'

In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.

How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.

And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.

'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.

The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'

It was Christmas in Washington DC and London and the report hardly got a mention. Since then, the Bin Laden tapes have emerged with clockwork regularity as billions have been spent and much blood spilt on the hunt for him.

Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?


Much thanks to daily mail for this post . Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212851/Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-seven-years--U-S-Britain-covering-continue-war-terror.html#ixzz0hf5EbNEY

Chechnya, War Crimes, death toll 160000 in two Russian Campaigns

MOSCOW: The two military campaigns Russia has conducted in separatist Chechnya have claimed a toll of up to 160,000 persons, a Chechen official said on Monday. "Between 150,000 and 160,000 civilians and military have died or gone missing in the two campaigns," Taus Dzhabrailov, head of Chechnya's interim Parliament, told a press conference in Moscow. He said ethnic Chechnens accounted for only a fourth of the total losses. "Rough estimates show that between 30,000 and 40,000 ethnic Chechens have died in both campaigns," Mr. Dzhabrailov said. According to official figures around 5,000 Russian servicemen were killed during the first war in 1994-1996. Unofficial estimates put the number of Russia's military losses in the second campaign launched in 1999 at 7,700. Vladimir Radyuhin

Refrences The Hindu

Dutch TV show exonerates bin Laden

A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the September 11 attacks.

In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show Devil's Advocate on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled that there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001.

The Netherlands, home to Big Brother creator Endemol, is known for being on the cutting edge of format-based television.

But even for Dutch standards, Devil's Advocate, from Amsterdam production house AVRO, pushes the envelope.

The show features star defence attorney Gerard Spong standing up for some of the world's worst criminals.

In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin Laden's connection to September 11 was a product of "Western propaganda".

The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network Al Qaeda.

The jury did rule, however, that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has misused Islam".

The show is certain to provide further ammunition in the already heated Dutch debate over immigration and the country's large Muslim minority.

The Netherlands saw a sharp rise in anti-immigration and anti-Islamic sentiment after the 2004 murder of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist.

Spong has been at the centre of the debate, supporting legal action against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders.



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Benazir killer responsible for Lahore attack: Pakistan

Director General of Pakistani Rangers General Yaqoob Khan said that Hizratullah, the terrorist captured alive during Monday's attack at the academy, said that he was sent by Baitullah Masood. Pakistani initiated UN investigations are it appears are a political swindle - The killer is known it is not 'foreign' it is within...will the government now take measures to stop the investigation and get the 5m US $ of a very poor nation back. The killer is known to everyone from the day one.

Baitullah Mehsud- is the enemy within!!

The killers are hunting the nation. What a dishonor, the killer who was obvious caught on tape from day one was left to operate and given an advantage of uncertainty for opinionated gains which were minimalistic. Politics cannot be played on dead bodies, that callous display of opportunism overlooked by nearly all and sundry in Pakistan is today consuming the public like a cancer. Heartless assassins removed an icon of democracy and pluralism in Pakistan, however, political expediency took over the better of our conscious, in a sorrowful display of politics over her dead body the nation imploded within. Her killers remain at large in the wilderness.

Mehsud has claimed responsibility for Monday's attack at the police training academy on the outskirts of Lahore. The opportunity to grab them was lost by the present leadership, when she was assassinated the leadership instead of condemning Mehsud politicised the carnage and pointed fingers at government in supremacy. Now in a peculiar turn of events this outrageous politicisation has come to a full turn.

The real culprits who want to subvert Pakistan and make it a 'religious caliphate' were given a clean slate by a bunch of very 'secular imprudent people.' The real murderers can now cherry pick their leaders to eliminate and still get away with all this carnage. We and our 'dillydallying' as a nation are paying a price for ineptitude and power lusty gamesmanship post-BB murder. The political leadership of our country remains inept, futile and totally power hungry with no idea of penalties emerging from dreadful results of political expediency.

I wrote at the time that for sake of record one should note that politicising an ideologically stimulated slaughter will bring great damage to Pakistan. Baitullah today has been accused by the Pakistanis as the brain behind the Lahore incident and now pointed as BB killer. The nation lost a great change to channel the combined hatred of nation to eliminate Al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban, the message of Qatil league - Mush nexus divided a conspiracy prone nation in 90/10% divide where 90% believed that it was government agencies, it created a rift with the Army and golden opportunity to unleash full force of government behind the killers of BB was lost to political gamesmanship and point scoring. Political Islam pre-occupation with global enforcement of the Shariah law and establishment of a global capihate on a papal style has been a wish that has never died amngst the faithful. From 'Wahabbi elements to Ayatolahs and to the secular Turks' in one form or the other the dream is alive. Taliban has driven this dream relentlessly with blood, horror and killings.

I owe this article to the soul of BB; the shameless accusation of her death through a nonexistent bullet that was never the case (Scotland Yard report), and the crime scene being washed by overeager foolish police diluted the emphasis on the main culprit and effectively put Pakistanis on a collision course with their own selves. Scandalous politicising of her remembrance is the ultimate human and moral low with which some of these present leaders who played with her demise will have to live with. If not their own conscience that should prick them daily, I am sure history will not forgive them. Read More here



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U.S. "war on terror" seriously damages human rights

GENEVA, (Xinhua): The so-called "war on terror" launched by the United States following the 9/11 terror attacks has resulted in serious damage to the world's respect for human rights, according to a report released on Monday.

The United States "has adopted measures to counter terrorism that are inconsistent with established principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law," said the report, which was released by an independent panel of eminent jurists.

The report illustrated the consequences of notorious counter-terrorism practices such as torture, disappearances, arbitrary and secret detention as well as unfair trials.

It warned that excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures adopted by the United States were having influence on other countries and causing them to follow suit.

"It was particularly disturbing to learn in many hearings that governments in other parts of the world are relativizing or justifying their own wrongdoing by comparisons with the United States," the report said.

The panel of jurists has based its report "Assessing Damage, Urging Action" on three years of investigations, which included 16hearings covering more than 40 countries in all regions of the world.

"In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures ..." said Arthur Chaskalson, chair of the panel and former chief justice of South Africa.

"The result is a serious threat to the integrity of the international human rights legal framework," Chasklalson said.

The eight-member panel, which was established by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), called for a concerted international effort to take remedial measures and restore long-standing international norms for human rights.

It particularly urged the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama to take a leading role in restoring respect for human rights and international humanitarian law.

"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years," said Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who now leads the ICJ.

"If we fail to act now, the damage to international law risks becoming permanent," she added.

The report called for the rejection of the "war on terror" paradigm and for a full repudiation of the policies grounded in it.

It emphasized that criminal justice systems, not secret intelligence, should be at the heart of the legal response to terrorism.





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Terrorized by 'War on Terror' How a three-word mantra has undermined America

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'
How a three-word mantra has undermined America

by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. . . .

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. . . .

Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. . . .

The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust. . . .

Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.

In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States internationally. . . .

Full Article



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Islam is a religion of fundamentalist and extremist

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Mumbai killers to be denied a muslim burial

Published Date: 01 December 2008
A MUSLIM graveyard today refused to bury nine of the gunmen who terrorized Mumbai.
The men were not true followers of the Islamic faith, according to the influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the 7.5-acre Badakabrastan graveyard in central Mumbai.

"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a trustee. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."

Ten gunmen laid siege to India's financial capital. One was captured and the rest killed.

The bodies of the nine now lie in a morgue awaiting last rites, while the lone surviving militant is in police custody.

Normally, unclaimed bodies thought to be Muslims are given to the nearest Muslim graveyard for burial after three days, leaving police unsure what to do now.

More on this here

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Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden

Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden
One of al-Qaeda's founding leaders, Dr Fadl, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin Laden, blaming him for "every drop" of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq.


Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.

But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda's ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West.

Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. "Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl.

The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. "Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?" asks Dr Fadl. "That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11."

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Video about the towers and sept 11

This video was passed to me and I wanted to share with all the readers. Please give your opinions.



Former German Defense Minister Confirms CIA Involvement in 9/11: Alex Jones Interviews Andreas Von Buelow terrorism

Von Buelow is the former German Defense Minister and Minister of Technology. Von Buelow went public to say the US government carried out 9/11. His book is one of the bestsellers across Europe.


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Terror in EU overwhelmingly non-Islamic

Although there were no major foiled, failed or executed terrorist attacks in Europe in 2007, Europol still witnessed a sharp increase in both terrorist attacks and arrests on terrorism charges. But only four of the 583 terrorist attacks committed were linked to militant Islam.

Europol's second annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, released last week, found that EU member states had to deal with a 24 percent increase in terrorist attacks, although many were foiled or failed, and arrested 48 percent more terrorist suspects. Eighty-eight percent of these terrorist attacks were linked to separatist groups unrelated to Islamist groups.

"Several member states report that the threat from Islamist terrorism has increased or remains high," said Europol Director Max-Peter Ratzel during the presentation of his report to European Parliament here.

"The threat partly originates from an increasing level of command, control and inspiration on attacks in the EU from Pakistani based al-Qaida linked groups and networks. In 2007, investigations showed EU-nationals who had attended training in Pakistan and later been involved in terrorist offenses in the EU".

Despite the lack of really high-profile attacks on European soil such as the London and Madrid bombings, Ratzel said in the report that "the impact of terrorist attacks became obvious again in 2007 with the murder of two Spanish police officers in France by the Basque separatist terrorist group ETA."

"The overall threat to the member states from terrorism remains serious, as demonstrated by the failed attacks in London and Glasgow and the disrupted plots in Germany and Denmark," Ratzel continued.

Of the 583 successful and otherwise attacks attempted in 2007, 517 were claimed by separatist terrorist groups in Spain and France who tended toward small arson attacks not designed to harm anybody but instead cause material damage. This strategy is exactly opposite to the strategy employed by Islamist terrorists who aim for as much carnage as possible in order to create fear among the public, according to the report.

Yet Islamist terrorist attacks only numbered four during the past year, two of which failed and two of which were foiled. Two occurred in the U.K., one in Denmark and one in Germany.

France made the most Islamist-related arrests with 91, followed by Spain and Italy with 48 and 21 respectively. Throughout 15 member states 201 people were arrested on Islamist terrorism charges. This however does not include those arrested in the U.K., which doesn't distinguish between terrorist causes, although a majority of the 203 terrorism suspects nabbed there last year were thought to have Islamist motives.

Yet Islamist terrorism played second fiddle to separatist terrorism in this regard too, which saw 548 arrests made against its cause. The total number of terrorism arrests across the 15 countries was 1,044, almost double last year's total which Europol ascribes to better police work and more preemptive arrests. Spain contributed heavily by arresting 196 suspects in 2007, up from 28 in 2006. France arrested 315 suspects, up from 188. Yet the number of arrests on Islamist terrorism charges fell from 257 to 201, fueled by a 35 percent drop in France.

One marked role for which arrests increased was the creation of propaganda. Almost all of those arrested on that charge were linked to Islamist terrorism.

Furthermore, 2007 saw 143 terrorism trials, 38 percent of which were Islamist related, in which 418 people, 34 of which were women, were tried and 449 verdicts were read with 331 convictions. Thirty-one percent of Islamist suspects were acquitted.

Belgium, Germany and the U.K. only had verdicts in Islamist terrorism cases. In Italy 44 of 47 verdicts were on Islamist grounds.

The EU's anti-terrorism head Gilles de Kerchove said that "al-Qaida is still and will continue to dominate international terrorism for years to come."

The report was released ahead of new legislation proposed by the European Commission which will set out new guidelines in the fight against terrorism. The Commission will revise the rules established in 2002 and will seek to include public incitement of terrorism, recruiting and training in the EU list of acts of terrorism.

But Dick Marty, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned members of European Parliament that this expansion of the laws will make it easy for governments to demonize certain minorities or oppositions, according to the EU Observer.

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