FBI ups reward in case of Mississippi girl burned to death

The FBI has added $25,000 to a reward set up to catch the killer of a teenager who was set on fire last month in a case that rocked a small Mississippi town and drew national attention, authorities confirmed to FoxNews.com.

The federal funds bring to $43,000 the total amount being offered for information leading to the person who killed 19-year-old Jessica Chambers, who was found alive, but badly burned and staggering along the side of a Panola County road on Dec. 6. Investigators remain baffled, but Panola County District Attorney John Champion said he hopes the money might yield more clues in the murder.

"I still have hope that people will do the right thing regardless of monetary benefit, but we can't ignore the fact that money can be a driving force," Champion told FoxNews.com Tuesday. "This is the most frustrating case I’ve ever had to deal with in my 22 years in law enforcement."

"I still have hope that people will do the right thing regardless of monetary benefit, but we can't ignore the fact that money can be a driving force."

- District Attorney John Champion

Chambers, of Panola County, was found shortly after 8 p.m. on Dec. 6 with burns covering more than 98 percent of her body. When emergency responders arrived at the scene, Chambers was walking away from her burning vehicle and able to utter a few words to them about the attack -- though authorities have not said what, if anything, the young woman was able to communicate.

Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby said last month Chambers was doused with a flammable liquid before she was set on fire on a road in Courtland, Miss., a town with a population of 460 people.

Authorities were quick to label her death a homicide, but have yet to identify a prime suspect in the case, despite interviews with more than 100 people, Champion told FoxNews.com. 

Investigators examined surveillance video of Chambers visiting a nearby gas station the night she was killed. The footage shows Chambers walking toward the gas station before being called away by someone out of the camera's view. The video was recorded about 90 minutes before Chambers was found burned alive on a road less than a mile away from the gas station. 

In an interview with FoxNews.com, Ali Alsanai, the gas station's owner, said he saw Chambers when she visited the gas station that night and the two exchanged a few words.

"Just small talk," Alsanai said of the conversation. "I wasn’t really paying attention because I was busy that day." Champion said Alsanai was cleared as a suspect. 

Over the past month, authorities have also been pored over the teen's cellphone records for clues in the case. Chambers' phone was found by investigators at the scene.

"She was the most beautiful and loving and kind girl I've ever known," Chambers' best friend, Alyssa Cotten, told FoxNews.com last month.

"She loved to cheer. She loved softball. She loved her family and her friends. She was just a big bundle of joy," said Cotton. "We have no idea who did this."

The teen's father, Ben Chambers, who works as a mechanic for the Panola County Sheriff's Department, said he hopes his daughter's last words will lead to her killer. 

Anyone with information on the murder is urged to contact the Panola County Sheriff's Office at 662-563-6230.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/

Live: Deadly shooting at Paris HQ of French satirical magazine

Shots have been fired at French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in the heart of Paris Wednesday, with Paris officials reporting at least 10 fatalities. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing multiple masked gunmen. Follow FRANCE 24’s live blog.

Watch Live: http://www.france24.com/en/20150107-live-blog-gun-shots-french-paris-charlie-hebdo-satirical-magazine/#

source: http://www.france24.com/

Pakistan: Couple stoned to death for adultery after Muslim cleric issues fatwa

The advocates of stoning can and do claim that they are simply implementing Islamic law. The caliph Umar, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, maintained that the punishment of stoning for adultery (this story doesn’t specify the method of punishment, but the outcome of the punishment is the same in any case) was originally in the Qur’an:

‘Umar said, “I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,” and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession.” Sufyan added, “I have memorized this narration in this way.” ‘Umar added, “Surely Allah’s Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.” (Bukhari, vol. 8, bk. 82, no. 816)

“Allah’s Apostle” is, of course, Muhammad, who did indeed carry out stonings. Here is the hadith in which he challenges the rabbis about stoning, and in which there is amidst the barbarism and brutality a final act of love and compassion:

The Jews came to Allah’s Apostle and told him that a man and a woman from amongst them had committed illegal sexual intercourse. Allah’s Apostle said to them, “What do you find in the Torah (old Testament) about the legal punishment of Ar-Rajm (stoning)?” They replied, (But) we announce their crime and lash them.” Abdullah bin Salam said, “You are telling a lie; Torah contains the order of Rajm.” They brought and opened the Torah and one of them solaced his hand on the Verse of Rajm and read the verses preceding and following it. Abdullah bin Salam said to him, “Lift your hand.” When he lifted his hand, the Verse of Rajm was written there. They said, “Muhammad has told the truth; the Torah has the Verse of Rajm. The Prophet then gave the order that both of them should be stoned to death. (‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar said, “I saw the man leaning over the woman to shelter her from the stones.” (Bukhari, vol. 4, bk. 56, no. 829)

Even the monkeys practiced stoning, according to another hadith:

During the pre-lslamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys. They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse. I too, stoned it along with them. (Bukhari, vol. 5, bk. 58, no. 188)

Muhammad’s example is, of course, normative for Islamic behavior, since “verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day, and remembereth Allah much” (Qur’an 33:21).

“Couple stoned to death in Loralai village,” by Saleem Shahid for Dawn, February 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

QUETTA: A man and a woman were stoned to death in a village in Loralai district on Sunday after a cleric issued a fatwa against them, sources said.

A Levies Force official, Abdul Latif Jogezai, said the incident took place in Manzkai village early in the morning. “The people of the village stoned to death the man and the woman who were not married to each other. Rather, they were married to other people,” he said. He said the two were killed on suspicion of having illicit relations. No funeral prayers were offered for them.

The slain man, Daraz Khan, was buried in Katoti area and the woman in her village.

After hearing about the incident, personnel of the Levies Force reached Manzkai village and arrested the cleric who had issued the fatwa and six of the men who stoned the couple to death, Mr Jogezai said.

He said a case had been registered against the people of the village. Most of the residents fled from the village to avoid arrest, he added.

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Nigeria: Jihad mass murder death toll at Christian village reaches 106

The unimaginable horror of this is compounded by the world’s indifference. The few who dare to call attention to jihad attacks like this one are vilified, mocked, shunned, ridiculed, and defamed, even as such attacks multiply and the body count mounts ever higher. Right now Western governments have apparently decided that jihad attacks like this one can’t happen in their countries, and so don’t matter, and that when they take place in faraway lands such as Nigeria, they need not disturb the comforting fictions about Islam’s jihad doctrine that form the cornerstone of so much of their domestic and foreign policy.

An update on this story. “Over 100 killed in Islamist attack in northern Nigeria,” from AFP, February 16:

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) – Suspected Boko Haram Islamists killed more than 100 people in an attack on a village in Nigeria, a local senator said on Sunday.

The attackers stormed the village in Nigeria’s restive northeastern Borno state on Saturday, slaughtering scores of civilians and sending many others fleeing.

“A hundred and six people, including an old woman, have been killed by the attackers, suspected to be Boko Haram gunmen,” senator Ali Ndume told AFP.

“Sixty of the dead have been buried while the rest are awaiting burial,” he said, adding the attacks in the area were becoming “deadlier and more frequent by the day.”

The raid took place on Saturday in the mostly Christian village of Izghe in Borno, which has been under emergency rule since May last year in a bid to stop an Islamist rebellion that has claimed thousands of lives since 2009.

A local farmer who escaped by scaling the fence of his house and crawling on his belly for 40 minutes said the attackers had gone door-to-door looking for those hiding in their houses.

“The attackers came around 9:30 pm (20.30 GMT) in six trucks and some motorcycles. They were dressed in military uniform,” Barnabas Idi said. “They asked men to assemble at a place, and began hacking and slaughtering them.”

There were no security forces in the town at the time of the attack, he said.

The head of the local government in the area, Maina Ularamu, earlier told AFP: “From the latest information I have gathered, more than 60 people have been killed.”

“We suspect that the gunmen were members of Boko Haram. They have taken over the village,” said Ularamu.

“They looted businesses and food stores and loaded all their spoils into vehicles owned by residents and fled into the bush,” he added.

The official was speaking from Abuja and said he was preparing to return to Maiduguri, the state capital, to deal with the fallout of the attack.

Hundreds of villagers in Borno had already fled to Maiduguri after Boko Haram militants last week killed 43 people in two separate attacks.

The militant sect has said it is fighting to create a strict Islamic state in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.

The southern half of the oil-rich country, Africa’s most populous, is mainly Christian.

Gunmen also attacked a fishing village on Lake Chad on Saturday, killing an unspecified number of residents.

A survivor said several people had drowned in the lake while trying to escape the gunmen.

Military spokesman Mohammed Dole confirmed the attack but declined to comment further saying the area fell under the jurisdiction of a multinational task force comprising troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad.

Boko Haram militants have carried out frequent attacks in both cities and remote areas of the northeast, despite a military operation launched when emergency rule was declared….

Source: Jihadwatch
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Egypt upholds death sentence for 14 Islamic jihadists

These Islamic jihadists are from a group that calls itself Tawheed wal Jihad. Tawheed is the Islamic concept of absolute monotheism, and jihad is the Islamic doctrine of warfare against unbelievers. Yet the one thing that Western analysts routinely discount in their analyses of jihad terrorism is the religious motivation, despite the fact that the jihadists themselves constantly explain themselves in terms of Islam.

“Egypt upholds death sentence for 14 militants,” from Reuters, February 10:

CAIRO – The Egyptian presidency upheld the death penalty for 14 people convicted of attacking police in North Sinai in 2011, signalling the army-backed authorities’ determination to press a campaign against Islamist militants.

The condemned men, all from the Tawheed wal Jihad (“Monotheism and Holy War”) group, were sentenced in 2012 to hang for killing three police officers, an army officer and a civilian in attacks on a police station and a bank in the town of el-Arish in 2011.

Deposed president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood did not sign off on the implementation of the sentences during his one year in office, which ended when the army deposed him after mass protests against his rule.

Mursi’s overthrow has triggered a wave of attacks on the security forces in North Sinai and further west in the towns of cities of the Nile Valley and Delta. The state has declared that it is in a war on terrorism.

Militant groups flourished in North Sinai in 2011, expanding into a security vacuum left by the collapse of state authority after the downfall of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The army is waging a campaign there to reassert state authority. The military has said 16 hardline Islamists were killed in North Sinai air strikes last Friday….

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Iran: Ayatollah tortured and near death for criticizing political Islam

Why we don’t see more genuine Muslim reformers, part 37,950: “Ayatollah Tortured, Near Death, in Iran for Criticizing Political Islam,” by Shadi Paveh for the Gatestone Institute, February 5 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
Ayatollah Hossein-Kazamani Boroujerdi, a senior member of the Shiite Muslim clergy, is presently serving the eighth year of an 11-year sentence handed down to him by the Islamic Republic’s courts for advocating the separation of state and religion inside Iran. He has also spoken against political Islam and its leaders. As a result, during his time in prison, he has been exposed to torture especially reserved for the Islamic Republic’s dissident clergy and political prisoners. Boroujerdi has endured the rape of his spouse in front of other family members. He has been purposely exposed to toxic chemical agents while kept in a small solitary cell. As a result, he now suffers permanent neurological damage, further aggravated by group beatings. Urgent medical attention has been systematically withheld for his long list of ailments, which are mostly a direct result of years of torture and malnutrition.
On September 29, 2013, for example, Ayatollah Boroujerdi suffered a heart attack in prison for which he was refused medical intervention. His condition has reportedly worsened as of January 28, 2014, when he had severe body tremors and was motionless for hours in his cell, where he presently remains with no medical care.
Possibly due to Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s prominence, the regime has apparently chosen not to execute him, but instead to kill him silently in prison. There were two failed attempts on his life by poisoning inside prison in 2012. His mother, detained at the same time, was also poisoned and died as a result. Previously, in November 2011, a prisoner on death row was told by the authorities that if he succeeded in killing Boroujerdi he would be set free. The attempt failed when other prisoners intervened.
To protest the violent crimes of political Islam in the Islamic Republic, Boroujerdi announced via audio tape from prison that: “I am not inclined anymore to wear this frock; this frock has no credit or value in Iran or the international community” and removed his clerical robes.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi descends from a long line of renowned Shiite clergy; both his father and grandfather were staunch opponents of religious leaders in politics. As a result, both of his parents, along with his brother, were killed by the authorities under mysterious circumstances, as is the regime’s custom.
Despite his critical medical condition in prison, he remains defiant and his spirit remains unbreakable: he has stated hopes that his case will serve as a strong indictment of the Islamic Republic’s despotic rule and unspeakable human rights violations.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi has risked losing his life slowly under torture by writing letters from inside prison to then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the United Nations, speaking of the absolute lack of freedom inside Iran, the grotesque human rights violations and the imminent danger of political Islam. Further, he recently urged people of Iran to boycott the so-called elections on June 14, 2013. As a direct result of this statement his tortures recommenced despite his extremely fragile medical condition….

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