(Fox News) : A 25-year-old man described as an Islamic extremist was arrested in an alleged plot to attack crowded areas in the Tampa, Fla., area with a car bomb, assault rifle and other explosives, authorities said Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Sami Osmakac, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the former Yugoslavia, was arrested Saturday night.

Osmakac, from Pinellas County, allegedly told an undercover agent that “We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?’” according to a federal complaint.

Weird how it almost always seems to be Muslims willing to kill in the name of their god and prophet.

The Jawa Report has much more, including videos. Also, Jihad Watch.

(UK Telegraph) At least one person was killed and up to 25 others wounded Tuesday when up to four grenades exploded outside the main courthouse in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.

The attack took place around noon on Saint-Lambert square, home to the town’s courthouse and located near a busy Christmas market, Belga news agency said.

A two-year-old child is reportedly fighting for life in hospital.

One of two or more assailants threw stun grenades into the courthouse while another was hurled at a bus shelter, RTL-TV1 said.

Shots were fired across the square by gunmen posted on the rooftop of a bakery shop, with further shots heard later from across town.

Police cordoned off the square and gave chase to the assailants, one of whom was reportedly killed. The gunmen are thought to be hiding in Liege cathedral.

And the possible reason behind this? (Update: The Telegraph has yanked this out of their story without noting why. It’s still showing in the Washington Post story, though. I have a screencap of it now)

The Karachi Post in Pakistan claimed that the attack was linked to a sentence in an honour killing case. It said the parents of Sadia Sheikh were sentenced on Monday when there had been a bomb alert in the court.

Which religion teaches about “honor killings”? Sadia Sheikh was a Muslim. Her parents were hardcores. And she was killed because she was living in Belgium and refused an arranged marriage.

Update: From the UK Telegraph: 15.43 Prosecutor Daniele Reynders said the gunman, Nordine Amrani, was among the four dead, along with a 15-year-old who died instantly, and a 17-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman who died later in hospital.

From Jihad Watch we learn: One of the attackers was named Nordine Amrani. (Thanks to Robert for the link.) This is a Muslim name. Nordine = nur deen, light of the religion, and Amrani is related to Imran, the father of Moses according to the Qur’an (cf. sura 3, “The Family of Imran,” ahl-e-Imran).

(CNN) Authorities have arrested a man they claim was plotting to detonate pipe bombs in and around New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday night.

The intended targets of Jose Pimentel, 27, were U.S. military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. postal facilities and police in New York and Bayonne, New Jersey, according to Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The suspect was described by Bloomberg as an “al Qaeda sympathizer,” though he is not believed to have ever worked with or received training from anyone in that terrorist organization.

That’s weird, since the Paper Of Record doesn’t bother mentioning the Islamist connection. I wonder why?

The police commissioner identified the suspect as a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric who rose to become a top figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Pimental allegedly tried to contact al-Awlaki directly, but never got a response. (snip)

“He was a reader of al Qaeda’s slick online magazine Inspire — and inspire him it did,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said. “His stated desire to attack our servicemen and women … could have come from an al Qaeda playbook.”

He’s described as a “lone wolf”, and he probably was. But, he was certainly inspired by the more hardcore elements of the Religion of Peace. One of these days, the so-called moderate Muslims are going to have to choose whether they take their religion back, or continue on the road they are currently traveling.

(MSNBC) PARIS —The headquarters of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were gutted on Wednesday by what its editor said was a firebomb, after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammed on its cover.

This week’s edition shows a cartoon of Mohammed and a speech bubble with the words: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.” It has the headline “Charia Hebdo,” in a reference to Muslim sharia law, and says Mohammed guest-edited the issue.

Charlie Hebdo’s website on Wednesday appeared to have been hacked and showed images of a mosque with the message “no god but allah.”

Islam: we burn things over cartoons.

(UK Telegraph) Washington is ready to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and now regards his involvement as crucial to the prospects for peace in Afghanistan, Hillary Clinton has said.

Her comments been taken as a significant shift in American policy from moves to divide the Taliban-led insurgency and isolate Mullah Omar, the man who sheltered Osama bin Laden as he plotted the September 11 attacks, to an acknowledgement of his leadership.

Let’s not forget that Mullah Omar has a $10 million bounty on his head via the….same US State Department that Clinton heads.

I wrote this for posting this morning. Not long after we find out the Taliban launched a suicide attack that killed 13 American military members.

(AP) …(transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil) laid out a vision for the post-Gadhafi future with an Islamist tint, saying Islamic Sharia law would be the “basic source” of legislation and existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified. In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing guns in the air, but rather to chant “Allahu Akbar,” or God is Great. He then stepped aside from the podium and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks.

Obviously, liberals will write this off saying it’s no big deal, that there needs to be “diversity” and such. Perhaps some of them should go live in areas that operate under Sharia and see how great it is.

(AP) …(transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil) laid out a vision for the post-Gadhafi future with an Islamist tint, saying Islamic Sharia law would be the “basic source” of legislation and existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified. In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing guns in the air, but rather to chant “Allahu Akbar,” or God is Great. He then stepped aside from the podium and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks.

Obviously, liberals will write this off saying it’s no big deal, that there needs to be “diversity” and such. Perhaps some of them should go live in areas that operate under Sharia and see how great it is.

(ABC News) FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States” tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.

The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.

But, remember, Iran poses no threat to the USA.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was “conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran” by a faction of the government and called it a “flagrant” violation of U.S. and international law.

I’m not a big conspiracy theory person (though they’re fun to bandy about), but one does have to question the timing considering all the trouble Holder is in vis a vis Fast and Furious.

(CBS News) Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical Islamic preacher who rose to the highest level of al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen, has been killed.

Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico, has been linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) attempted bombing of a U.S. passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas day, 2009, and was thought to be a leader of the group.

A U.S. government official confirms to CBS News senior security correspondent David Martin that al-Awlaki was killed. Yemen’s Defense Ministry was first to tell CBS News of the strike, but given previous reports which turned out to be erroneous, the relatively rapid U.S. confirmation is crucial, and bolsters witness accounts that it was a U.S. drone strike that killed the al Qaeda figure.

The Associated Press reported that an unidentified source said the U.S. believes al-Awlaki was killed in a strike by U.S. jets and drones on his convoy.

That is excellent news, and, for a change, we do need to give Mr. Obama some credit for continuing to escalate the global war on Islamic terrorism, er, Operation Overseas Contingency, and going after terrorists in nations across the Eastern hemisphere. I think Obama enjoys seeing bombs dropped.

Of course, this brings out the unhinged liberals

• Guy from New Mexico Executed Without Trial Just sayin’
• Extra judicial killing of a United States Citizen.
• They finally did it If he was killed by the Yemini forces as this report says, those forces were probably either led or directed by the U.S. No trial, no evidence need be presented to execute an American because the Obama administration decreed that he was guilty.

And here’s Glenn Greenwald

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.).  It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its.  The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world.  The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

Interestingly, a stroll through the left-o-sphere finds virtually no mention of this news. Even Excitable Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who made his chops discussing Islamic terrorism, ignores the story. I guess the far left is trying to figure out how to spin this as an Obama and liberal win after so much wailing, hand wringing, and teeth gnashing over Obama’s kill order on al-Awlaki.

More: Oh, my, the loon-atic left is out in force

What we’ve witnessed with Awlaki’s death is the first official assassination based on a citizen practicing his First Amendment rights.

Got that? Preaching violence against US citizens, calling for Jihad, advocating the destruction of the US, and involvement with terrorist activities is now “practicing his 1st Amendment Rights.”

And more: Via The Jawa Report, the strike also got Samir Khan, another home grown Islamist wackjob (or, should that now be, wackedjob?)

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU. Please sign the drill now petition.

The terror group al Qaeda has found itself curiously in agreement with the “Great Satan” — which it calls the U.S. — in issuing a stern message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: stop spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Well, not all of the Great Satan: remember, over half of Democrats think that Bush knew/assisted and did nothing to stop 9/11.

In the latest issue of the al Qaeda English-language magazine “Inspire”, an author appears to take offense to the “ridiculous” theory repeatedly spread by Ahmadinejad that the 9/11 terror attacks were actually carried out by the U.S. government in order to provide a pretext to invade the Middle East.

“The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the U.S. government,” an article reads. “So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?”

Though Iran was the first of the two to use the “Great Satan” as a synonym for the U.S., the author claims that Iran sees itself as a rival for al Qaeda when it comes to anti-Americanism and was jealous of the 9/11 attacks.

Hmm, perhaps that can be applied to US Truthers, as well: they see a rival for anti-Americanism and the destruction of America.