Stabbed Cabbie: “I Never Feel This Hopeless and Insecure Before”
Michael Enright faces hate crimes charges, including attempted murder, after allegedly stabbing taxi driver Ahmed Sharif in Manhattan on Tuesday evening. Before the attack, Enright asked Sharif where he is from and whether he is Muslim, and then started ridiculing Ramadan, The New York Times reports Sharif as saying. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before,” Sharif said in a statement quoted by The Wall Street Journal. Enright, a student at the School of Visual Arts, spent several weeks in Afghanistan this spring while working on a film about a Marine company. He has also volunteered at Intersections International, which works to promote interfaith understanding. Police believe that he was drunk at the time of the attack. On Monday, the day before the stabbing, the local police precinct stepped up patrols in front of the proposed location of Park51, the community center and mosque planned to be built two blocks from Ground Zero, but the NYPD has not connected the attack to the ongoing controversy, the Journal reports.
Park51 Reaction Abroad and at Home
The New York Times and Mark Lynch at Foreign Policy separately gauge the reaction to the Park51 controversy around the world. The Times finds that “the one constant expressed, regardless of geography” is that people see the debate as reinforcing the views they already held about the U.S. Lynch finds that the debate has not yet received much attention on extremist Web forums, but that “[w]here the anti-mosque movement and escalating anti-Islam rhetoric is really resonating is with the Arab mainstream — that vast middle ground which had hoped that the election of Barack Obama would mark a real change from the Bush administration but have grown increasingly disappointed.”
Irshad Manji, in The Wall Street Journal, argues that before expressing an opinion on the debate, people should ask questions such as whether the prayer spaces at Park51 will be open to other faiths, whether there will be separate areas of the swimming pool for men and women, and whether Salman Rushdie will be invited to speak. “If Park51 gets built, thanks to its provocative location the nation will scrutinize what takes place inside. Americans have the opportunity right now to be clear about the civic values expected from any Islam practiced at the site,” she says. At The American Prospect, Adam Serwer argues that the U.S. would benefit from having more mosques, which could both counter radical ideology and increase understanding of Islam among people of other faiths.
Forty different organizations, including Jewish, Christian, and Muslim groups and family members of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, have formed a coalition to support the Park51 plan. The organization, called New York Neighbors for American Values, was created after representatives of the different groups “spontaneously called each other, because we had the feeling that something very negative was happening,” according to Susan Lerner of Common Cause, the AP reports. Los Angeles Times, AP, Reuters.
Defused Bomb, Missile Shown to Jury
The trial of four men accused of attempting to bomb two Bronx synagogues and planning to attack an Air National Guard base continued yesterday. FBI agent Robert Fuller, testifying for the government, showed the jury one of three defused bombs and a deactivated Stinger missile that the FBI had given the defendants. Fuller also testified that the FBI paid informant Shaheed Hussain $96,000 over more than three years for “services” and expenses. Hussain’s role is central to the case, as the defendants have argued that they were entrapped. Hussain, who has served as an informant in other cases as well, was part of an investigation that lasted almost a year. Daily News, Bloomberg Businessweek.
Little Concern Over New WikiLeaks Release
The latest government document published by WikiLeaks does not seem to have drawn much concern. Yesterday, the site posted a secret CIA “Red Cell” memo that analyzes the potential consequences if the U.S. were to be seen around the world as a country that exports terrorism. The Los Angeles Times quotes the CIA Web site as describing the Red Cell as a group established to “produce memos intended to provoke thought rather than to provide authoritative assessment.” The document published yesterday “contains no new revelations, startling or otherwise,” the Times says, while the Washington Post says that “[a]s WikiLeaks disclosures go, this paper pales in comparison to the organization’s recent releases.” Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wired‘s Threat Level blog.
Suspected Gas Attack on Girls’ School in Afghanistan
A girls’ school in Afghanistan may have been attacked with poison gas yesterday. Reports of the number of people affected vary, with CNN’s Afghanistan Crossroads blog reporting that 59 students and 14 teachers were taken to a hospital but were “fairing better” later. CNN quotes a spokesman for Afghanistan’s education ministry as saying that this is the ninth poison attack on schoolgirls in the country. The Guardian reports ministry officials as saying that “five similar cases had been dealt with in Kabul this year alone and eleven more around the country,” but that in the previous cases experts took blood samples and were not convinced that poison was present. The Guardian further reports that “mass hysteria” could be an element, and that “the large number of attacks against schools reported in the Afghan media could exacerbate the problem of fretful students believing they have been poisoned.” CNN’s Afghanistan Crossroads blog, Guardian, AP.
Afghan Official Accused of Corruption and Released by Karzai May Be Being Paid by CIA
U.S. and Afghan officials say that an Afghan official who was arrested last month on corruption charges but released by President Hamid Karzai hours later is being paid by the CIA “and appears to have been on the payroll for many years,” The New York Times reports. The Times reports officials as saying that Mohammed Zia Salehi may have been released because of his knowledge of corruption within the Afghan government. “If you want intelligence in a war zone, you’re not going to get it from Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins,” said one U.S. official.
News stories compiled by the staff of the Center on Law and Security
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