Islamism

 I came to the "capital of the world" for a panel at Columbia University on a new and highly interesting book: "The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions." Penned by the prominent academic Michael Walzer, it is a book that explains how the secular parties that founded most post-colonial states were soon challenged and even defeated by a religious revival.

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a journalist to five years in jail for insulting the kingdom's rulers and "inciting public opinion" on Twitter, Amnesty International said. 

Amnesty described the sentencing of Alaa Brinji on March 24 as "a clear violation of international law" and said it showed intolerance of the right to peaceful expression. 

A court in Skopje has sentenced six radical Islamist recruiters and fighters to jail terms of between 5-1/2 to 7 years, Macedonian news agency MIA reported on Friday.

The six entered a plea bargain with the prosecutors.

It would be unthinkable if the storms of the ruling ideology that is a bizarre blend of neo-Ottomanism, Islamism and nationalism should not conquer academia as it conquered other walks of life; political, cultural and social. 

Two days after the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium that killed over 31 people and injured hundreds, the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/Daesh) released a propaganda video calling on its ‘brothers’ to ‘rise up and for jihad’.

Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam is now willing to be extradited to France, his lawyer has said.

The news, reported by AFP came after Abdeslam had been insisting he would fight the extradition request.

Abdeslam was captured in a special operation in Brussels last week. Some sources suggest  the deadly attacks in Brussels on Tuesday are linked to his arrest.

According to Associated Press news agency, the Islamic State (ISI) or Daesh has trained at least 400 ‘fighters’ to launch waves of deadly attacks in Europe. Associated Press cites officials who revealed that the extreme islamist organisation has semi-independent cells spreading across Europe.

Bulgarian politicians and experts have taken a hard line on the Islamist terror attacks in Brussels, which killed 34 people on Tuesday, blaming them on failed policies of multiculturalism.

Belgian newspaper DH reports that the third bombing suspect who fled the airport on Monday, Najim Laachraoui, has been arrested in Anderlecht.

The man shown at the photo below standing next to the two arrested attackers and wearing a hat is Nazim Lachraoui. The Belgian authorities arrested him on

Wednesday morning at a pizza restaurant, after launching a manhunt.

The prime surviving suspect in the Paris attacks may have been plotting more operations with the help of a weapons cache and a network of associates, Belgium's Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on March 20.