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Armed police respond to serious incidents at London Bridge and Borough Market – with members of the public urged to reach areas of safety.
Since late yesterday evening [Saturday, 3 June], the Metropolitan Police Service has been responding to incidents in the London Bridge and Borough Market areas of south London. We are treating this as a terrorist incident and a full investigation is already underway, led by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.
[...] Six people have been killed in terror attacks on London Bridge and at Borough Market.
Three male suspects have been shot dead by police.
Canisters seen around the body of at least one of the suspects have been “established to be hoaxes”, police said.
Police believe all of those directly responsible for the attack have been killed.[...] Since March there has been the Westminster attack by Khalid Masood, who mowed down pedestrians near parliament and stabbed a policeman, resulting in six deaths, including his own: and the Manchester bombing two weeks ago that killed 22. And now London again.
[...] An editor in the Sun’s London Bridge Street office says police confirmed that a number of blasts heard [...] were controlled explosions.
Source: The Guardian
An investigation into the foreign funding of extremist Islamist groups may never be published, the Home Office has admitted.
The inquiry commissioned by David Cameron, was launched as part of a deal with the Liberal Democrats in December 2015, in exchange for the party supporting the extension of British airstrikes against Isis into Syria.
But although it was due to be published in the spring of 2016, it has not been completed and may never be made public due to its "sensitive" contents.
It is thought to focus on Saudi Arabia, which the UK recently approved £3.5bn worth of arms export licences to.
Source: The Independent
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @02:40PM (4 children)
The muslim brotherhood are not wahhabis.
This is a summary [reddit.com] from a moderator of /r/geopolitics who has a masters degree in international relations with a focus on terrorism.
Wahhabism
This is a form of Salafism that began in central Arabia (modern-day Saudi Arabia) in the mid-18th century. It is based on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a Sunni preacher who sought to return Islam to its original principles and and rejected many common Muslim practices. The movement around his teachings came to prominence because of an alliance with the Saud family and its leader, Muhammad ibn Saud; Wahhad would give religious legitimacy for Saudi expansionism and political rule, while the Saudis would adopt and support Wahhab's ideology. This pact has held for more than 300 years and today dominates in the Arabian Peninsula.
The reason that you hear often about Wahhabism is because beginning in the 1970s the Saudi government spent billions of its newfound oil wealth on promoting Wahhabism abroad through building and funding schools, mosques, and other institutions. This has resulted in many Muslims around the world adopting more conservative values than what was there prior to the 1970s.
Because Wahhabism is a regional offshoot of Salafism, it holds many of the same ideals. It embraces a puritanical form of Islam. It stresses the oneness of God (tawhid), rejects Islamic legal scholarship that does not conform to narrowly interpretations of the Quran, the sunna, and hadith, and doubt the legitimacy of interpretations that are more accepting of what they see are illegitimate practices like visiting tombs, shrines, and graves or adopting foreign dress. And it is very hostile to Shia Islam, which is views as a heretical sect.
Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is an Islamist organization started in Egypt in 1928 by a man named Hassan al-Banna. As a man living in the city of Ismailia, Banna grew disillusioned by the role of British colonialism in Egypt and the influence that British culture was having on Egypt. He saw Islam as losing its dominance in society and viewed the West as having a corrupting influence. He created the MB as a means of counteracting this trend; it rejected Western political and social models and calls for the application of shariah and the Islamization of society. But it was more than a political organization. The MB also developed an extensive social services program; it created and funded schools, hospitals, welfare funds, and pharmacies. Most of the services were provided to areas and people that received no such services from the government. For many individuals, the social work of the MB is just as important as its political activism.
Today, the MB continues to be the oldest modern Islamist political movement in the Arab World and is also likely the most important. The group has expanded, with branches or offshoots in more than a dozen countries, and its thinkers and leaders have influenced Islamist movements and groups all over the world. Although many of these groups share similar ideals and names, they each operate independently of each other. At times over the past century, different branches engaged in terrorism and violence: Hamas (which grew out of the MB in Palestine), the MB led a bloody revolt in Syria during the 1980s that ended with the tragic siege of Hama, and the MB in Egypt engaged in terrorism for several decades before later renouncing it.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood shares some ideas with Salafists and jihadists, at their core they are very different. The MB today has largely rejected violence and many branches participate peacefully in the political process. Religiously, it accepts human interpretations of the Quran and Islamic texts and less puritanical forms of Islam. And its embraces social service an missionary work as a means of developing grassroots support and generating Islamization from the bottom up.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:16PM (3 children)
So the MB has "largely" (therefore not completely) rejected violence. Whew, that's a relief!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:54PM (2 children)
At least 26% of American christians [gallup.com] think that it is justified for an individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @07:11PM (1 child)
So what about the American agnostics? atheists? buddhists? pastafarians?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @08:23PM
Read the link, the non-religious are represented there too and are less violent than christians, but still more violent than muslims.