Muslim Extremists

Pakistani security forces Sunday detained about 40 religious extremists in Islamabad, where two policemen were being held hostage in a mosque by hard-line clerics and students. Inside the compound of the Laal Masjid, or Red Mosque, the cleric leading the student movement issued defiant statements from a loudspeaker, while his followers waved wooden sticks from the walls and rooftops.

LONDON - Three men accused of plotting what would have been the biggest terrorist attack in Britain since the 2005 London transit bombings were found guilty on terrorism charges Thursday. The trio, British Muslims from the central English city of Birmingham, were accused of planning to set off up to eight bombs in backpacks in crowded places as part of a suicide rampage. Although no date or target was set for the attack, authorities who secretly recorded conversations between the men arrested them in September 2011 out of concern that they posed an imminent threat.

Government forces have captured 13 members of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group and killed one in a clash in the southern Philippines, a top official said. National Security Advisor Roilo Golez said 178 members of the Abu Sayyaf have been captured since the military launched an offensive against the guerrillas after they abducted 20 people, including three Americans, from a resort May 27. The group claims to have killed one of the Americans. Col.

JACOBABAD, Pakistan — Rachna Kumari, 16, was shopping for dresses in this city's dust-choked bazaar when it happened. The man who her family says abducted her was not a street thug. He was a police officer. Nor was he a stranger. Rachna's family knew and trusted him. He guarded the Hindu temple run by her father, an important duty in a society where Hindus are often terrorized by Muslim extremists, and he had helped Rachna cram for her ninth-grade final exams. After she disappeared from the market, he did not demand a ransom.

Suspected Muslim extremists opened fire Sunday on a bus carrying four British tourists in southern Egypt, killing one and wounding the others and the Egyptian driver, security officials said. John Byers of London was the seventh foreign tourist to be killed since extremists began a violent campaign 2 1/2 years ago to overthrow Egypt's secular government and impose strict Islamic rule. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the militant Gamaa al Islamiya was suspected.

Egyptian police shot and killed two Muslim extremists Saturday and arrested six others as suspects in the assassination of parliamentary Speaker Rifaat Mahgoub two weeks ago, authorities said. Three police officers were wounded in a gun battle before detaining members of an Muslim group said to be the outlawed Jihad (Holy War). Two fellow extremists were killed in another gun battle in Cairo later in the day. A third extremist and a police officer were wounded in that clash.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak survived an assassination attempt Monday when gunmen ambushed his motorcade as he arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a summit of African leaders. Although his car was pocked with gunshots, Mubarak, 67, was unhurt. He immediately returned home, where, at an airport news conference, he calmly recounted the machine-gun battle that raged around his bulletproof limousine. "Suddenly I found a blue van blocking the road and somebody jumped to the ground.

Egypt severed its remaining diplomatic ties with Iran on Thursday because of what authorities said were Iranian links to Muslim extremist groups plotting to assassinate Egyptian officials. A Foreign Ministry announcement said the two diplomats at the Iranian interests section in Cairo are being expelled for activities incompatible with diplomatic norms. It said the lone Egyptian diplomat in Cairo's diplomatic interests section in Tehran is being recalled.

Four gunmen be lieved to be Muslim extremists seized a Paris-bound French jet filled with holiday travelers Saturday and killed two of them, Algeria's Interior minister said. The leader of the hijackers was identified as Abdul Abdallah Yahia of the Armed Islamic Group, Algeria's most violent and radical fundamentalist group.

A blind sheik who heads the radical Islamic organization believed responsible for the assassination last month of the Speaker of Egypt's Parliament was mistakenly granted a visa to travel to New York in an apparent attempt to raise money from American Muslim groups shortly before the killing, according to Egyptian security sources.

Beauty and the bush Re " Don't be fooled by its beauty ," July 24 Thanks for the report on the poodle-dog bush. Unfortunately, it came about three weeks too late for me. I was eager to go hiking in the Angeles National Forest on my favorite trails after the highway reopened. That day, I noticed some beautiful plants and even took pictures to show my family. I had no idea the colorful plants were poisonous, and because they had grown so tall along the trails, I brushed them back with my arms and legs as I went by. I hiked to the Vetter Mountain lookout, where I happened to meet a ranger on duty.

In the immediate wake of the bombing and mass shooting in Norway that left at least 92 people dead Friday, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg declared that it was too early to say whether terrorism was involved. Some interpreted the statement to mean it was unclear whether Muslim extremists were behind the attack. Right-wing websites quickly pointed the finger at "jihadis," and Pamela Geller, publisher of the website Atlas Shrugs and executive director of Stop Islamization of America, wrote on her site: "You can ignore jihad, but you cannot avoid the consequences of ignoring jihad.

The New Year's Day bombing of an Alexandria church that left 25 Christians dead and scores more injured has unleashed a wave of anger among Egypt's minority Copts directed at their government and Muslim countrymen. Though Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rushed to blame "foreign hands," officials hinted at Al Qaeda involvement and hundreds of Muslims joined demonstrations on Monday and Saturday to condemn the attack, the bombing highlighted discontent in the Middle East's largest Christian community over how its members are treated in this country.

A bomb planted on a motorcycle killed five people Monday at a famed Sufi shrine in central Pakistan, the third terrorist attack at one of the country's many such shrines in four months. The latest attack occurred at the Baba Farid shrine in the town of Pakpattan in Punjab province, about 120 miles southwest of the eastern city of Lahore. A crowd had gathered about 6:20 a.m. for early prayers when the bomb exploded, said Shafiq Dogar, a Pakpattan senior administration official. "Two people parked the motorcycle near the eastern gate of the shrine, and the bomb was inside one of two milk cans on the motorcycle," Dogar said.

The terrorists won. It's become something of a joke, that line, overused to the point of banality, a punch line so easy a child can use it. But when Comedy Central decided to bleep mentions of the prophet Muhammad from a recent "South Park" episode because, and only because, an extremist website had made what amounted to death threats against co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the terrorists won. Because that is the point of terrorism —...

Re "Terrorism in India has many faces," Opinion, Nov. 30 Martha Nussbaum writes that we should not single out Muslim extremists for condemnation because ... why? Because there are other inexcusable groups that exhibit similar behaviors? I don't get it. Does Nussbaum not notice that our news sources remain chock full of wars, attacks and insurrections linked to Muslim extremists? To hint that we should not focus on the ever-increasing dangers in the spread of Islamic radicalization because there are other people behaving badly is just plain and reckless foolishness and logic from another universe.

JACOBABAD, Pakistan — Rachna Kumari, 16, was shopping for dresses in this city's dust-choked bazaar when it happened. The man who her family says abducted her was not a street thug. He was a police officer. Nor was he a stranger. Rachna's family knew and trusted him. He guarded the Hindu temple run by her father, an important duty in a society where Hindus are often terrorized by Muslim extremists, and he had helped Rachna cram for her ninth-grade final exams. After she disappeared from the market, he did not demand a ransom.

Muslim extremists raided a Coptic Christian library and tore up books, destroyed tape recordings of hymns and sermons and smashed chairs before police intervened, security sources in Egypt said. Eight people were arrested in the raid, which occurred shortly after noon Muslim prayers when about 15 Muslim extremists stormed the library of a Coptic Christian Society in Assiut, a provincial capital south of Cairo, the sources added.

The Muslim hard-liners arrived just before midnight armed with stones, clubs and flammable liquid. Townspeople cowering in fear heard chants of "Destroy! Destroy!" and watched the mob set ablaze the mosque of an offshoot Islamic sect that the attackers view as heretical. "This time they destroyed our property. If they come back, I'm afraid they will target us," said Rina Nurlinawati, a member of the Ahmadiyah sect who was among witnesses to the burning down of the group's mosque in Sukabumi, a quiet hillside town on Indonesia's main island of Java.

Three militants were sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a failed car bombing in 2002. Judges said the car did not explode as Musharraf's convoy passed in Karachi because a remote control device malfunctioned, according to state prosecutor Naimat Randhawa. The men were from the outlawed Harkat-ul-Mujahedin al-Almi militant group. The court action came as the president said he had ordered troops to shoot anyone trying to disrupt Feb. 18 elections.