INSS Insight No. 139

We have recently been witness to a new US initiative launched by the Obama administration for dialogue with Russia that affects both the bilateral and global levels. The American proposal, which generated several top level meetings, including with presidents and foreign ministers, was apparently submitted to the Russian side as a comprehensive "package deal." If it materializes, this arrangement will yield a positive change in relations between Russia and the West and stands to have considerable implications for the international system, with an emphasis on the Middle East.

According to the previous policy, which was driven by superpower aspirations, Russia aimed to induce a confrontation in the international arena on three levels:

Church member taking photos beaten, building damaged.

NAIROBI, Kenya, November 11 (Compass Direct News) - About 40 Muslim extremists with machetes and clubs tried to break into a Sunday worship service outside Uganda's capital city of Kampala on Nov. 1, leaving a member of the congregation with several injuries and damaging the church building.

Eyewitnesses said the extremist mob tried to storm into World Possessor's Church International in Namasuba at 11 a.m. as the church worshipped.

"The church members were taken by a big surprise, as this happened during worship time," said Pastor Henry Zaake.

As exposed by Reuters, al Qaeda recently called on followers to carry out attacks in (and on) the West. In its online magazine Sada al-Malahem the terrorist group specifically encouraged Islamists to create homemade bombs with materials that already exist in their "mother's kitchen." The magazine article suggests that the bombs should be detonated "in airports in Crusader Western countries, which take part in the war against Muslims, or on their aircraft, housing complexes or their subways..."

The funeral of British suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer was held in absentia in his family's ancestral village, near Lahore, Pakistan. Thousands of people attended, as they did again the following day when a qul ceremony was held for Tanweer. During qul, the Koran is recited to speed the deceased's journey to paradise, though in Tanweer's case this was hardly necessary. Being a shahid (martyr), he is deemed to have gone straight to paradise. The 22-year-old from Leeds, whose bomb at Aldgate station killed seven people, was hailed by the crowd as 'a hero of Islam'.