— Austrian Times and other media report:
— “A banned radical Islamic organisation has sent a threatening letter to Social Democratic (SPÖ) Women’s Minister Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek after she called for a ban on burkas, according to the Österreich newspaper.”
— “The newspaper reported today (Weds) that the Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation based in Lebanon had sent it a three-page email after Christmas in which it condemned the minister’s remarks last week and threatened her using the sentence from the Koran: ‘And know that Allah is strong in punishment.’ ”
— “Hizb ut-Tahrir – which experts say is the first transnational organisation dominated by Palestinians calling for a caliphate or world-wide Islamic state – is considered dangerous and was banned in 2003 in Germany for its support of violence.”
— “A spokesperson for Heinisch-Hosek said her ministry had been in contact with the Office for Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism and was taking the matter very seriously.”
— Gainesville Sun reports: “Detention officer fired for alleged KKK membership”
— “According to the Sheriff’s Office, the termination of Wayne Kerschner came after an internal investigation in which Kerschner said he had been a formal member of the organization since 2008 and became interested in it through his wife, Shanda Lynn Kerschner.”
— ” ‘It was jarring to find out that someone in our agency was involved with an insidious organization,’ Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell said Wednesday. ‘Termination was warranted. I want the action to send a message that this is offensive behavior and is not acceptable at all.’ ”
— “Kerschner is quoted in an internal affairs report as describing the KKK as ‘faith-based, it is more of a religion-based organization, more of a political-based organization, that their hopes are to increase membership to further the political goals of the group, to look out for the white race ….’ ”
— Miami Herald reports: “Kerschner reportedly told investigators that the KKK was a faith-based group and said he believed in the organization’s ideology.”
— AP reports: “Florida jail fires officer for being KKK member – He defended group as a faith-based organization”
— “A county jailer in Florida has been fired after telling investigators he was an officer of the Ku Klux Klan.”
— “An internal affairs report by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office says Detention Officer Wayne Kerschner defended the KKK as a faith-based organization.”
— “Kerschner told investigators that he blogged on a KKK Web site, attended a rally in Tennessee and paid dues to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He said his wife was also a member.”
— “Kerschner was fired Wednesday for violating a department ban on subversive or terrorist organizations. He had worked four years at the jail in Gainesville. A phone number for Kerschner could not be found Thursday.”
— “The investigation started after a tip from a sheriff’s deputy working on an FBI investigation.”
— The Tennessee-based white supremacist hate group, United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, claims “Our ideology is simple, self preservation and the advancement of the White Christian America”
— The hate group calls for “segregation of the races [or tribes ] as they were referred to in the Bible,” attacks and slurs Black Americans
— Tennessee-based white supremacist group seeks members “to play an active part in the preservation of the White race”… praising Robert E. Lee, attacking “race mixing” and “mongrelizing of the races,” attacking “queers,” and call the KKK a “white Christian resistance”
— The hate group’s motto is “Ku Klux Klan, bring hope to the white race!”
Alucha County Jail in Gainesville, Florida where Ku Klux Klan Member Wayne Kerschner Worked (Photo Alucha County Sheriff's Office)
We urge those who hate their fellow human beings through racial and religious extremism to drop the hate from their heart, accept our shared universal human rights, and rejoin the brotherhood of humanity.
— AP/CBS: “Men were Cooperating with Government Authorities in South-Central Afghanistan”
— “Police say militants have beheaded six Afghans for cooperating with government authorities.”
— “Juma Gul Hamit, police chief of Uruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan, says the men were beheaded Thursday near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot.”
— “Hamit defended the victims, saying they were not involved in any anti-government activities.”
— Voice of America reports: “Taliban militants are taking credit for separate attacks that killed eight Americans and one Afghan inside a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, as well as four Canadian soldiers and a journalist in the south.”
— “The Taliban said the suicide attack in eastern Khost province Wednesday was carried out by a man wearing an Afghan national army officer’s uniform. He was able to detonate an explosive vest near the base’s gym.”
— New York Daily News reports: “The attack marks the worst loss of life for the U.S. in Afghanistan since October.”
— “The Taliban also took responsibility for a roadside bomb that left four Canadian soldiers and a journalist in their unit dead. Both attacks occurred Wednesday.”
— “Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attacker at the CIA base in Khost Province was a ‘well-dressed’ officer in the Afghan army.”
— ” ‘This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the (CIA staff) were busy gaining information about the mujahedin,’ he said, using the Arabic word for a military force of warriors engaged in a jihad.”
— BBC: Afghanistan: CIA workers killed by ‘Afghan soldier’
— FOX News reports: “It was unclear how the bomber at U.S. Forward Operating Base Chapman at the edge of Khost city was able to circumvent security. Khost is the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.”
— “But an Afghan official in Khost said the U.S. has hired about 200 Afghans to help with security at the base. They are usually deployed on the outer ring of its walls, although some work inside, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.”
— Haaretz reports: “Settler teen arrested over West Bank mosque arson”
— “Israel Police on Thursday arrested a settler teen suspected of involvement in the torching of a West Bank mosque three weeks ago.”
— “The teen, whose parents and grandfather were killed in Palestinian terror attacks, was arrested at the Tapuah Junction in the West Bank.”
— “The vandalism at the mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf drew harsh rebuke from Israeli leaders, among them politicians and clergy. During the attack, the vandals torched books of the Koran and prayer carpets, and scrawled Nazi slogans in Hebrew across the walls.”
— “Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger visited the mosque following the attack to express his condemnation.”
— “‘I came here to expression my revulsion at this wretched act of burning a place holy to the Muslim people,” Metzger told the residents after he was escorted into the village under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian police. “This is how the Holocaust began, the tragedy of the Jewish people of Europe.’ ”
— “A delegation of West Bank settlers, led by renowned peacemaker Rabbi Menachem Froman, brought copies of the Koran to the village to replace those lost in the fire.”
NYT: "On Friday, Palestinians inspected the damage done to a mosque that was set on fire in the West Bank village of Yasuf." (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
