WASHINGTON — Two American teenage boys unable to leave the radical madrassa where they've been studying for the past four years in Karachi, Pakistan, should be released in the next week, a Texas congressman told FOX News on Tuesday.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, along with Democratic Reps. Gene Green and Henry Cuellar, also of Texas, called on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to help get the boys released from the school.

"That is our hope, if the madrassas will let them go. The passports have been tendered over to the government at this time, and it's a question of the madrassas releasing these two American children and letting them come home," McCaul said.

The boys, identified as Noor Elahi Khan, 17, and Mahboob Elahi Khan, 16, are from the Atlanta area; their parents are Pakistani.

Noor and Mahboob were born in the U.S. and lived there until being sent to Karachi several years ago by their father.

A family member said that the boys were sent to Pakistan to learn to memorize the Koran, which the family believed would enable the entire clan to gain entry to heaven. A congressional source told FOX News that the family has decided that it wants the boys back, but their father is very reticent to speak because he is afraid it will reflect negatively on Islam and would be viewed dimly, a situation that the family wants to avoid because the boys are still in Pakistan.

2 U.S. Teens Held at Madrassa The story of the three boys became known after a documentary filmmaker went to the madrassa and filmed the boys' alleged radicalization. The filmmaker went to McCaul to tell him his concerns about the boys.

The three congressmen flew to Pakistan last week to discuss military affairs with Pakistani officials. On their way to meet with Musharraf, McCaul told the others about the American boys who were studying at a madrassa, or Islamic religious school, called the Jamia Binoria Institute. Green and Cuellar were unaware of the teens' plight.

In their July 4 meeting with Musharraf, the Pakistani president assured McCaul that the teens would be let go, as did the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, saying they could be sent home as early as this week.

Musharraf told the congressional delegation that he has been trying to close this particular madrassa, according to Green.

"There's been a concern about madrassas who teach people how to hate America," said the congressman.

"The madrassas is holding these children in there against their will," said McCaul. "But I know President Musharraf and he has a policy to exclude all foreigners from the madrassas including Americans. Obviously, this policy is not being effectuated."

Within hours of the lawmakers' meeting with Musharraf, Pakistan's new civilian government announced that it would continue with his madrassas' reform policy, which includes expulsion of foreign students, registration with the federal government, control of funding and standardization of the curriculum, according a McCaul press release on his negotiations.

McCaul told FOX News that Pakistan has 20,000 madrassas, and he knows of at least 80 Americans studying in them.

Green said it isn't uncommon for lawmakers to get involved in "domestic disputes" between family members in different countries, though in many of those cases, one parent is in the United States and the other is in Mexico. The fact that this situation deals with parents from Pakistan "makes it a little more complicated," said Green.

"Sharia law is a little different," he said. "It may give preference to the father."

A Justice Department source told FOX News that Pakistan has revoked the teens' visas, and officials there say they want to send the boys back to the United States.

(IsraelNN.com) An Israeli-Arab terrorist group calling itself the "Free Galilee Brigades" (FGB) claimed responsibility for the deadly bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last week. In an interview with a London-based Arabic daily this weekend, a purported leader of the group claimed that FGB committed several other terrorist murders, threatened more attacks to come, and added that they are holding a female IDF soldier hostage.

In an interview conducted by way of third-party email, a journalist for the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi posed a series of questions to someone claiming to be the commander of the FGB. In his replies, the The FGB spokesperson hinted that they are holding Dana Bennet.

An unidentified terrorist claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and murders of IDF soldier Oleg Shaichat in July 2003 and of Michael Ronkin in August 2007, as well as for the shooting attack that killed eight students in the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in March of this year. The group also claimed that a man who was shot dead while carrying out an attack in Jerusalem's Old City in 2007 was the perpetrator of the Ronkin murder.

In the interview, appearing in the Al-Quds Al-Arabi weekend edition, the FGB spokesperson hinted that they are holding Dana Bennet, 17, who was reported missing in August 2003. The group made a similar announcement in 2005. Asked why Israel has thus far refused to acknowledge the FGB's claims that they are holding a hostage, the spokesperson said, "because it is causing considerable embarrassment to them."

In fact, Israel has thus far refused to officially acknowledge the Free Galilee Brigades in any way. Many security sources saying the group may not exist in any operative sense; rather, it pops up to claim credit for certain "lone wolf"-type attacks in order to contribute to a general sense of growing terror among Israel's Jewish citizens. Its claimed affiliation with Hizbullah, these sources say, can be seen as a way to artificially boost the FGB's credibility.

With or without Israeli response, the FGB's stated ransom demands include the release of six Israeli-Arabs imprisoned on terrorist-related offenses. Afterwards, the FGB leader said, they would release a video tape "showing a female soldier talking to the people and Government of Zionism." Following that, they would negotiate the release of a larger number of imprisoned Arabs in exchange for the release of the soldier.

NABLUS, West Bank (AP)AP — Israeli troops stormed the shopping mall in this West Bank city Tuesday and ordered it to close, saying the popular facility is linked to the militant Islamic Hamas.

The overnight move was the latest in a widening crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, even as Israel observes a cease-fire with the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Israel kept a vital Gaza cargo crossing open though Palestinians fired three mortar shells at Israel on Tuesday, in violation of the three-week-old truce.

Hamas condemned the Nablus operation as "provocative." Palestinian witnesses said the troops surrounded the Nablus Mall after midnight, sealing the facility and posting closure orders in shop windows.

"There were dozens of soldiers, lots of jeeps," said Ali Ashur, 28, who owns a cellphone shop. He said he rushed to the scene about 2 a.m. after a security guard alerted him to the raid.

The five-story mall is one of the most popular spots in Nablus, a city of 135,000 that serves as the West Bank's commercial center. It has about 70 shops, including clothing stores, wedding shops and a restaurant.

The Israeli order, signed by an Israeli general who oversees the West Bank, said the building will be closed on Aug. 15, giving shop owners more than a month to move their businesses.

"Anyone found in this center after Aug. 15 will be considered as working on behalf of Hamas and puts himself and his properties in danger," the order said.

Palestinians fired mortar from the Gaza Strip into the western Negev, another violation of the cease-fire with Israel.

Tuesday's attack, which caused no damage, came hours after Israel reopened its border crossings with Gaza in response to a request by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Suleiman also said the reopenings would help with negotiations on kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The crossings had been closed early Tuesday in response to a mortar attack the previous day.

No group claimed responsibility for either attack.

About 15 Kassam rockets and mortar shells have been fired from Gaza since the beginning of the Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas on June 19.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Bush on Tuesday to draw down a portion of the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to reduce crude prices and help motorists who are suffering from the rising cost of gasoline.

The House Republican leadership responded to Pelosi's proposal by noting that she was supporting a supply increase — something the Republicans have rallied behind in the form of increased offshore drilling, which the Democrats oppose.

Pelosi's proposal, contained in a letter to President Bush, comes as Americans continue to face average unleaded gas prices over $4 a gallon. The increases have followed a surge in the price of crude oil on world markets, though crude eased $5 on Tuesday to close at $136 a barrel for the day.

"The severe energy price crisis facing millions of Americans compels strong presidential action to assist consumers and strengthen the economy," Pelosi said in her letter, which asked Bush to "draw down a small portion" of the country's oil reserve.

Pelosi cited historical examples of such moves in times of uncertainty, from the elder President Bush's use of some of the reserve's oil leading up to the first Gulf war to a similar measure by President Clinton in 2000 to address the threat of a home-heating oil crisis.

She also noted that Bush drew down on the reserve in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, and since then the reserve has increased to 702 million barrels, or 97 percent full.

Last month, President Bush called on Congress to repeal the 27-year-old ban on new offshore drilling to address the fuel crisis, a proposal that gained no traction with the Democratic leadership.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said he agrees "more supply is necessary," which is why Republicans "have been arguing for decades in favor of more American energy production."

Pelosi's proposal doesn't go far enough, Boehner said.

"Republicans stand ready to work across the aisle on a real solution to our energy crisis: an all-of-the-above plan that increases production of American energy, encourages conservation and promotes alternative fuels," he said in a written statement.

WASHINGTON — John McCain reaffirmed his commitment to "comprehensive immigration reform" Tuesday, telling a Hispanic group that sealing the border is not enough.

"We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well, and they require no less dedication from us in meeting them," McCain told the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

The presumptive Republican presidential candidate mentioned immigration at the end of a speech devoted mainly to jobs and the economy, the twin themes of his campaign week. He said his package of lower taxes and spending cuts will help small businesses, which he called "the job engine of America."

"There are two million Latino-owned businesses in America," McCain said, describing that as "a number that is growing very rapidly."

Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spoke to the group later Tuesday and said McCain had "abandoned his courageous stance" on comprehensive immigration reform and had even withdrawn support for his own initial legislation on the issue.

Obama and supporters have accused McCain of trying to have it both ways on immigration, talking tough on the border to conservative groups and stressing comprehensive reform to Hispanic audiences.

"We need a president who isn't going to walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular," Obama said.

Both campaigns have targeted Hispanic voters, cutting Spanish language ads in search of support from a group that could make the difference in such key states as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and McCain's home state of Arizona.

The two presidential candidates are making a tour of Hispanic organizations. Last month, they spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Next week they address the La Raza national convention.

MOSCOW — Russia will be forced to make a military response if the U.S.-Czech missile defense agreement is ratified, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The statement came hours after U.S. and Czech officials reached an initial agreement on deploying elements of a missile defense system in the Eastern European country.

Russia says the system would severely undermine European security balances by weakening Russia's missile capacity.

If the agreement is ratified, "we will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods," the Foreign Ministry statement said. It did not give specifics of what the response would entail.

In February, then-President Vladimir Putin said Russia could aim missiles toward prospective missile defense sites and deploy missiles in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, if the missile defense plan went forward.

The U.S. has pushed the plan as necessary to prevent missile attacks by rogue nations, pointing to Iran as a particular concern. But Russia dismisses the likelihood of such threats.

Some of the government's top scientists were forced by Vice President Cheney's office to downplay the health dangers of global warming when testifying before Congress, a former senior EPA official said Tuesday.

The White House denies any coverup and the agencies involved say they still got their message across.

Jason Burnett, 31, who resigned last month as the Environmental Protection Agency's associate deputy administrator, refused to name who forced the deletion of health concerns.

The testimony was part of an October Senate hearing on the impact of global warming.

Before the hearing, Cheney's office and the White House's Council on Environmental Quality wanted "any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change" deleted, said Burnett, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama, speaking at a news conference.

More saber-rattling from the peaceful mullahs and their peaceful nuke program. "Iran will 'burn' Tel Aviv and US shipping in Gulf if nuclear programme attacked," by David Byers in the Times Online, July 8 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Iran has said that it would retaliate against any pre-emptive attack on its nuclear facilities by “burning” the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and American shipping in the Persian Gulf.

 
In rhetoric which further raises the temperature in the Islamic Republic's stand-off with the West, an aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, today emphasised that his country would not hesitate to spark off a regional war if any state tried to destroy its programme.

Israel has vowed to deny Iran any atomic technology which gives it bomb-making potential, and last month carried out a military exercise over Greece that was widely interpreted as a coded warning to Iran to halt its programme or face the consequences.

The comments today by Ali Shirazi, Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative to the Revolutionary Guard, will intensify the war of words between Iran and the West and increase fears of military confrontation, which has helped to boost world oil prices to record highs in recent weeks.

“The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," the ISNA news agency quoted Mr Shirazi as saying in a speech to the Revolutionary Guard.

"The Zionist regime is pressuring White House officials to attack Iran. If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and US shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran’s first targets and they will be burned."...

Making the case against Muslim immigration

Georgia Honor Killing Update: "Dad charged with murder in bride's 'honor killing,'" from CNN, July 8 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A Pakistani man is charged with killing his 25-year-old daughter in Georgia because she wanted out of an arranged marriage, police said.

Somber and tearful, Chaudhry Rashid, 54, of Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb, made his first court appearance Tuesday in connection with the death of Sandeela Kanwal.

He was advised through an interpreter of the murder charge, and of his legal rights.

He was arrested early Sunday, after his wife called police at about 2 a.m. She reported that she had been awakened by screaming but couldn't understand the language, a Clayton County police report said. She said she was afraid and left the house to call police.

Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the home, according to the police report.

Rashid's wife told authorities Kanwal recently had been married in Pakistan -- an arranged marriage, she said. The young woman's husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father's home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.

"The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband," the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid's wife. "This was causing a great deal of friction between the victim and her father," so much so that the two had not spoken in two months, the report said.

Police found Rashid sitting behind a vehicle in the driveway, and he seemed "distraught and possibly mournful," the report said. He told police, "My daughter is dead." But when asked how she died, Rashid did not answer -- "he just dropped his head."...

CNN then bravely considers the possibility of whether this is a...you know...a "South Asian" thing:

"My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community," Ajay Nair, associate dean of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, told CNN on Tuesday. "Most South Asian-American families enjoy wonderful relationships within their families."

"I think there's ways that we can rationalize it and make sense of it, particularly in thinking about new immigrant communities in the U.S. and thinking about some of the struggles that they face and the generation gap and the cultural differences that children do face," he said. "I think there are some issues there, but by and large, this isn't a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities."

Domestic violence does indeed cut across all communities. But honor killings are not a "South Asian" problem -- they're an Islamic problem, and CNN's courage somehow falters when it comes to even considering that. Yet nowhere except in Islamic communities is it seen as something that has religious justification. Jordan's Parliament has rejected on Islamic grounds attempts to stiffen sentences for honor killings.

Nair said he believes a "significant human rights campaign" is needed to address such killings....

You can say that again, Nair.

Oil prices suddenly slumped Tuesday, July 8, as predicted by DEBKA-Net-Weekly on June 27, under the impact of the secret American-Iranian talks embarked on last month to solve burning issues by diplomatic engagement.

These talks between the US and Iranian delegations, representing President George W. Bush and Iranian supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have yielded ad hoc understandings on controversial issues. One is an agreement not to allow the price of oil to rocket past $150 the barrel.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive Gulf and Iranian sources disclosed that the bilateral negotiations were deliberately masked by the war fever engineered by Washington in the form of a stream of leaks indicating that a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations was imminent.

At the same time, neither nation has sheathed its military option. Those understandings are ad hoc and could well break down in the volatile climate generated by hard-line elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which are dead against deals with Washington.

The last in a string of belligerent statements issued by IRGC chiefs came from Ali Shirazy, senior Navy cleric, who said Tuesday, July 8: If the US attacks Iran, “we will immediately strike back at Tel Aviv. Our first target is Tel Aviv and only then will we attack US shipping in the Persian Gulf; their destruction will represent Iran’s crushing reprisal.”

Behind the saber-rattling, however, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources reported common ground was covered for three key objectives:

1. The American side was willing to refrain from military action against Iran before the end of the Bush presidency in January 2009, but could not promise Israel would not act unilaterally. In a bid to hold Israel’s hand, sources in Washington have been putting out semi-official comments that Israel is short of the intelligence and military capability for striking Iran without help.

2. Iran undertook to open the way for the US military to continue to go from strength to strength in fighting al Qaeda and the Sunni guerrilla insurgents in Iraq, to allow President Bush to claim his Iraq campaign had ended successfully before leaving the White House. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Tehran ordered Iranian intelligence officers working undercover in Iraq to halt attacks on US troops by pro-Iranian militias, including Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army. This has left US and Iraqi government force with free hands for large-scale operations against al Qaeda.

Iranian officers are also sharing useful intelligence on conditions in the field with American commanders.

3. In the background of the secret dialogue is the Bush administration’s ambition to help fellow-Republican Senator John McCain get elected to the White House.

DEBKAfile’s Iran experts comment that the revolutionary regime in Tehran has traditionally preferred a Republican over a Democrat in the White House since the days when its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, helped Ronald Reagan defeat Jimmy Carter.

Some of these understandings are still work in progress, but the oil price ceiling of $150 was definitely agreed and resulted in the sharp fall in prices Tuesday, July 6 by $3.92 a barrel. Some traders attributed it to an ease in geopolitical tensions related to Iran’s nuclear program and a strengthening US dollar. 

DEBKAfile’s sources question the first part of this assessment, finding no real ease in tensions around Iran’s nuclear program.

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008.

The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month. The number of Democrats who give Congress a poor rating remained unchanged. Among Republicans, 8% give Congress good or excellent ratings, up just a point from last month. Sixty-five percent (65%) of GOP voters say Congress is doing a poor job, down a single point from last month.

Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month.

7/6/2008 (Islamabad, Pakistan) - A brutal suicide attack near a market and a police station leaves about two dozen dead and many more maimed and bloodied.

 

7/5/2008 (Mogadishu, Somalia) - A married couple is blown up with four others by a bomb planted by Islamic fundamentalists.

 

7/5/2008 (Mosul, Iraq) - Islamic militants manage to kill three Iraqis in two bombing and shooting attacks.

 

7/5/2008 (Yala, Thailand) - Muslim gunmen open up on a crowd eating breakfast at a tea shop, killing four.

 

7/4/2008 (Kandahar, Afghanistan) - Islamic hardliners are suspected in the assassination of a local official walking home from work.

 

7/4/2008 (Yala, Thailand) - Islamists behead a Buddhist and then set his body on fire. The man's son is seriously injured as well.

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's prime minister said Monday his country wants some type of timetable for a withdrawal of American troops included in the deal the two countries are negotiating.

It was the first time that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has explicitly and publicly called for a withdrawal timetable _ an idea opposed by President Bush.

He offered no details. But his national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press that the government is proposing a timetable conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security.

In Washington, the State Department declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations and said officials in Washington were not yet entirely sure what al-Maliki had said.

"This falls in the category of ongoing negotiations, and I'm not going to talk about every single development, every single development in the negotiations," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Al-Maliki said in a meeting with Arab diplomats in Abu Dhabi that his country also has proposed a short-term interim memorandum of agreement rather than the more formal status of forces agreement the two sides have been negotiating.

The memorandum "now on the table" includes a formula for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, he said. 

"The goal is to end the presence (of foreign troops)," al-Maliki said.