Things I noticed in Kenya in 1987 are now more than history or local colour. Giles Foden writes in more detail this article in The Sunday Times about his novels and how he came to write them.

Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland, saw the beginnings of the Islamist takeover of the Somali coast in the 1990s. Last week’s American raids were long overdue, he says.

The east African coast — from Kismayo in southern Somalia down to Beira in Mozambique — is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Palm trees wave on glittering beaches, lapped by waves full of parrot fish and lobster. Deeper inland there’s dark green, virgin bush, studded with frangipani, spice plants and outcrops of rock. Offshore, islands such as Zanzibar, the Comoros and Lamu are — at least on the surface — paradisal idylls.

They seem like the kind of place you might go on holiday. Many tourists do go to them, especially to Zanzibar and to Kenya’s Indian Ocean resorts, Mombasa and Malindi. If anything, the danger seems to be that of coastlines everywhere: too many hotels. But what if, as happened to a friend of mine, you saw a dhow pass by with a flag bearing the image of Osama Bin Laden? You’d be seeing the key to the hidden world of this area, one I’ve become fascinated by as a novelist and journalist.

I visited a friend in Nairobi in 1987. She and her husband had lived there long enough to give me a deeper idea of the structure of the country than I would have got on a package holiday.  I was aware of the centuries of Arab influence on the coast, and on the streets of Malindi saw women in tribal dress and kangas which didn’t always cover everything walking yards away from women in bui-bui which is similar to an abaya. Little did I know that such contrast would be a common sight on the streets of my own ancestral homeland in east London less than 15 years later.  What I didn’t realise until I got talking to people as I wandered round (the safer bits) of Nairobi was how much the Islamic influence was increasing. A new, Saudi funded, mosque here. A clinic funded from the Gulf States there. There had been a clinic sponsored by the Aga Khan for some years, the Sikh temple ran a rest centre and feeding station for the homeless and there were the usual Christian missions, of course, but there was an air of purposefulness about these new Islamic ventures.

Most of my early life was spent in central Africa — including Uganda, where I wrote The Last King of Scotland — but latterly I’ve tended more to these alluring destinations on the coast. Not just for pleasure: this coastline has over the past decade become an Al-Qaeda haven. The Somali littoral, most acutely, has been a focus for terrorist activity. In this context came last week’s US airstrikes, led by AC-130 gunships, against targets in southern Somalia.

. . . my novel Zanzibar. The writing of that book was my introduction to the link between Al-Qaeda and this coastline. It took me completely by surprise. The year was 1998, long before the name Osama Bin Laden was on everybody’s lips. I was on an unrelated journalistic assignment on Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, when Al-Qaeda detonated two vehicle bombs at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, the Tanzanian capital: 224 people were killed.

I didn’t know it was the beginning of the war on terror, but I knew it was something important. My immediate suspicion that the bombers had used the porous, mysterious east African coast as a springboard for the attacks proved correct. I had just finished my novel when, three years later, 9/11 happened.

It seems an odd conjunction, tropical paradise and murderous fundamentalism, but hardline Islam has long had a foothold in these coves and islands. On Zanzibar in the colonial period, revolts by Shirazi (Arab-African) Muslims were suppressed by massive use of British military force. There has also been a long history of conflict between African mainlanders and political and religious Islamic activists of Arab extraction — a phenomenon with roots in the slave trade and the long history of Arab influence on the coast, which can be seen architecturally in the mosques and palaces up and down the littoral and in the dhows that still ply its waters.

At its height in the 1700s the Zanzibar empire under the Sultanate of Oman stretched from Cape (Ras) Asir in Somalia to the Ruvuma river at Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. Inland it penetrated to the shores of the great lakes. The sultan also held sway over southeastern Arabia. It was said, proverbially: “When you play flute at Zanzibar, all Africans as far as the lakes (Tanganyika, Malawi and Victoria) dance.” The legacy of this is millions of Muslims in coastal and central Africa. Impoverished, with nothing to lose, they could include many potential converts to Al-Qaeda.

Having said that the Church of England is increasing in strength in Africa South of the Sahara with heartening vigour.

What we are seeing now may effectively be the opening up of a third front in the war on terror or the beginning of the end for Al-Qaeda in Africa. It is a real threat. Those who mock this latest expansion of the axis of evil are right to point out the risks but wrong to underestimate the crucial geopolitical status of the region.

Read it all, as someone else often says.

You may recall my writing previously about the British National Party. That I am too familiar with their racist roots and racist core. That their recent attempts to shake off that old image and sanitise their aims do not convince me.  But that their being the only political party to opening show that they recognise the threat posed by Islamic expansion, to correctly name that threat as dhimmitude, and other aspects of their current policy has succeeded in attracting people who can see nt other alternative party for their vote.

This article in the Sunday Times is about one such. Simone Clarke is a ballerina with the English National Ballet, whose partner is Chinese of Cuban birth, and who is thus the mother of a mixed race child. She joined the BNP because “a lot of it went over my head, but some of the things they mentioned were things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes”.  Which is why a lot of people find them seductive. And I submit that Hugh’s arguments why Le Pen is not the right answer for France have merit as to why the BNP are not the best answer for the UK.

One of the strangest things about political activists is that they so rarely understand freedom, the very thing they think they are fighting for. Everyone in this country, even a sugar plum fairy, is entitled to freedom of thought and of speech under the law, but there are countless high-minded activists who do not think so. So it was that a group of Unite Against Fascism activists fetched up at the Coliseum in London on Friday afternoon to demonstrate against the fascist fairy, the “BNP ballerina” Simone Clarke.

The principal ballerina is a BNP member,” they cried, before they were removed. “No fascism in the arts.”

What the UAF activists are trying to achieve is to get Clarke sacked. The English National Ballet has resisted very properly; it has refused to comment on its principal dancer’s opinions, saying her views do not represent the ENB’s views, which in any case does not express any political view. The ENB is in a difficult position though, because it receives £6m of public money each year from the Arts Council, and this can and will be used by activists to put pressure on the company to distance itself from Clarke.

Bectu, the broadcasting workers’ union, is making this demand and Lee Jasper, the race relations adviser to the mayor of London, joined this lamentable demonstration, saying: “The protests will continue . . . English National Ballet have got a real fight on their hands.”

Conservatives and reformists are openly challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hard-line nuclear diplomacy _ an unusual agreement across Iran's political spectrum, with many saying his provocative remarks have increasingly isolated their country. --from this news item

This should not distract or be used as an excuse to do nothing. Those who wish nothing to be done include those who, like Lt. Gen. Odom (ret'd.) think that the "only way" to get Iran to disarm is to force Israel to also give up its nuclear weapons, so that Iran "will follow suit," and that tells you all you need to know about Lt. Gen. Odom, ret'd. and his sinister views of Israel and its right to continue to be able to defend itself and to exist.

But there is also the siren-song sung by those who insist that if no measures are taken, then within Iran a better regime will come to power. And so what? Had the Shah acquired nuclear weapons -- and he certainly wanted to -- then the Khomeini regime would have inherited those weapons. And even if the Shah's son were somehow to take over from those now running the Islamic Republic, given the makeup of the population in Iran, who can say that the Shah's son would not be followed by a regime similar to the one now in power?

One has to plan for the future, the long future. No Muslim country can be permitted to acquire weapons of mass destruction or, where a country -- i.e. Pakistan -- has managed to do,, with the collaboration of some Westerners and the criminal negligence of several Western, then all measures must be taken to ensure that that country lacks the ability to deliver that weaponry, and that constant pressure is put on that country to put those weapons, for "permanent safekeeping," into the hands of a powerful, insistent, and if necessary most ferocious non-Muslin power.

It is not only a question of the current regime, but of future regimes in Iran. And it is not only a question of regimes but of groups and groupuscules and individuals who, inspired by their faith, might lay their hands on such weaponry or help other groups to do so. That is the problem.

And that is why those reports of some dissension within the ranks may be of interest, but cannot be allowed to prevent sensible action against that nuclear project itself, however tenuous one may guess or know that a particular unsavory regime is in power.

The existence or possession of the weapons, by a state populated by Muslims, whatever the regime in question, is what must not be forgotten.

This is from TheTelegraph

Islamic extremists are exploiting American air strikes in Somalia to try to recruit British Somalis to their cause.  Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic group whose activities are currently proscribed in Germany, Russia and Pakistan, was last week circulating leaflets in London, accusing the US of state-sponsored terrorism.

The leaflets, some of which were discarded near the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, showed pictures of American soldiers seemingly abusing Iraqi civilians and declared: "The re-invasion of Iraq and the bombing of Somalia: join the protest against Bush's terrorism. [President Bush] has sponsored Ethiopian troops invading Somalia and bombed villages, killing civilians using the excuse of targeting terrorism."

The leaflets have appalled moderate leaders of the 80,000-strong Somali community in Britain. The organisation plans to demonstrate outside the US embassy next Saturday, a day after moderate Somali groups protest there. Dahabo Isse, the founder of Somali Civil Liberties and Human Rights, said: "I am really worried. We don't want to have any relationship with extremist groups in the UK."

It is understood that imams spoke about Somalia during Friday prayers. At Finsbury Park mosque, Ajmal Masroor said he had told worshippers: "Somalia has been occupied by foreign forces and that is a breach of international law. The US is playing the proxy war game and the collateral damage is far too much for anybody to bear. We must become organised, lobbying MPs to stand against this injustice."

In the entrance hall, leaflets advertising Friday's demonstration read: "Stop American massacre against Somali People. Join and show your anger."

The mosque has returned to more moderate management since it escaped the control of Abu Hamza, the hook-handed preacher convicted last year of inciting murder and racial hatred.  However, Mr Masroor said that he feared that extremists would exploit the air strikes. "It serves on a platter exactly what the hatemongers and terrorists want."

Outside the mosque, The Sunday Telegraph found young Somali migrants close to where the Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets were lying. They responded to questions about Somalia with slogans including "F*** the US" and "Kill Bush".

Ajmal Masroor is of Bangladeshi origins. He puts himself about a bit around London and the Southeast, and is a bit of a taqyiia merchant, in my opinion.

Oliver Pritchett in The Sunday Telegraph on the subject of MI5 and their e-mail updates on terrorist threat.

If you register with their website, MI5 will send you an email alerting you to the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack, it was announced last week. So, if there is change in the threat level from "severe" to "critical", you will be the first to know. This is all in the cause of transparency, apparently.

I have been giving some thought to how I will respond when the news pings into my inbox. I suppose I'll saunter into the street, whistling casually perhaps, approach a passer-by and say: "My spies tell me we're all doomed."

It would be nice if MI5 sent the occasional text message, such as "Thrt lvl absly ghstly. Run 4 yr life." Or they could slip a one-word note under the door in the middle of the night, reading "Fluid" or "Perplexing". I'd really rather like some alluring woman to sidle up to me in a bar, ask for a light, then murmur "Moderate" across the flame of my Colibri, before disappearing again into the throng.  Obviously, this scenario will have to change when they ban smoking in bars after July 1. When that happens, she will probably shimmy over to me and breathe: "Can you help me? I seem to be having trouble opening my packet of dry-roasted peanuts."

You can see that MI5 has all the right motives in wanting to get us involved, but I think they're tackling it in the wrong way. The big thing these days is being interactive. So the message from MI5 headquarters should say something like: "We think the current terrorist threat level is severe, but we're anxious to hear your views. Email us now or visit our notice board, which is the hollow chestnut tree 153 yards down from the telephone box on the B3094."

The head of MI5 could read out some of the responses on the early evening television news. "Mr Henderson, of Chippenham, says he thinks the terrorism threat level is 'fraught', while Mrs Fitch, of Llandudno says: 'It's all gone pear-shaped.' Mavis of Godalming reckons the correct level is: 'Vaguely disquieting.'

Thank you for those. Keep them coming in."

The public could be asked to help in more practical ways. What about a bit of voluntary surveillance work? We could put in a couple of hours tailing a suspect. You just have to get the hang of reading an open broadsheet newspaper on a crowded pavement on a windy day. You'd probably be asked to provide your own belted raincoat and hat.

I've had many other thoughts like this, but I'm beginning to suspect someone high up in our Secret Services is trying to silence me. I must stop now; I've just heard a creak on the stairs.

The Australian has details of how the British SAS are working with Kenyan, Ethiopean and US forces to track al-Qa'ida terror suspects as they try to flee war-torn Somalia after the crushing defeat of the country's Islamist forces last week.

Saturn by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Caption:

Saturn's B and C rings shine in diffuse, scattered light as the Cassini spacecraft looks on the planet's night side. The southern hemisphere is lit by sunlight reflecting off the rings, while the north shines much more feebly in the dim light that filters through the rings and is scattered on the northern hemisphere.

The fine, innermost rings are seen silhouetted against the southern hemisphere of the planet before partially disappearing into shadow.

The color of the rings appears more golden because of the increased scattering in the rings brought about by the high phase angle and the view being toward rings' the unlit side. Saturn also looks more golden because of the high phase angle here.

Imam Shaheed Satardien is taking a stand against those Muslims in Ireland whom he claims are too sympathetic to Osama bin Laden and the cult of the suicide bomber. At Friday prayers in the sports hall in north-west Dublin, the South African-born former anti-apartheid activist warns his multinational congregation against blaming other religions and the West in general for all Muslims' ills.--from this news item

Robert Briscoe was one thing. So was Chaim Herzog and his more intelligent brother, children of the Grand Rabbi of Ireland. And so was Leopold Bloom. The Muslims now in Ireland, with the exception of this exceptional man and a few others, are quite another. And the Irish press, that has been so consistently vicious in its presentation of the Lesser Jihad against Israel, so devoid of the facts, so indifferent to the context in time and space, has also prevented, by its monomaniacal attacks on Israel, a sensible understanding, or glimmer of one, about the tenets, attitudes, and atmospherics of Islam.

YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist man and shot dead two civilians in southern Thailand on Sunday as an uprising shows no signs of abating.

The head of the 40-year-old farmer was found next to his body and that of his 35-year-old wife at the entrance of their rubber plantation in Yala province, police said.

Both had been shot and a handwritten note next to the bodies said, "We shall kill all Thai Buddhists," they said.

The Thai government surely knows that at this point it can react as strongly as it wishes, and no one in the outside world who might cluck-cluck will utter a cheep. That is, no non-Muslim people or polity. Muslims will be aggrieved and outraged. They are already. They will be whenever non-Muslims insist upon defending themselves. And if the Thai government does not react strongly, things will only get worse and worse. Those millions of signs -- or was it origami doves of peace -- had no effect. Force, however, and the uprooting of Muslims in the south so that they are forced into Malaysia, as a warning to others that the Benes Decree is not just for Czechoslovakia any more, will.