• Car bomb explosions in Baghdad kill more than 60

     

    At least 70 people have been killed in a wave of car bombs in Iraq, raising concerns the country may slip back into civil war. NBC's Annabel Roberts and Richard O'Kelly report.

    By Kareem Raheem, Reuters

    BAGHDAD — More than 60 people were killed in a series of car bomb explosions targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday, police and medics said, part of the worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011. 


    The attacks brought the number killed in sectarian clashes in the past week to over 200, and tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached a point where some fear a return to all-out civil conflict. 

    No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. Iraq is home to a number of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, which has previously targeted Shi'ites in a bid to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation. 

    Nine people were killed in one of two car bomb explosions in Basra, a predominantly Shi'ite city 260 miles southeast of Baghdad, police and medics said. 

    "I was on duty when a powerful blast shook the ground," said a police officer near the site of that attack in the Hayaniya neighborhood. 

    "The blast hit a group of day laborers gathering near a sandwich kiosk," he added, describing corpses littering the ground. "One of the dead bodies was still grabbing a blood-soaked sandwich in his hand." 

    Five other people were killed in a second blast inside a bus terminal in Saad Square, also in Basra, police and medics said. 

    In Baghdad, at least 30 people were killed in car bomb explosions in Kamaliya, Ilaam, Diyala Bridge, al-Shurta, Shula, Zaafaraniya and Sadr City - all areas with a high concentration of Shi'ites. 

    A parked car bomb also exploded in the mainly Shi'ite district of Shaab in northern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 26 others, police and hospital sources said. 

    In a separate incident, police said a parked car blew up near a bus carrying Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims from Iran near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, killing five Iranian pilgrims and two Iraqis who were traveling to the Shi'ite holy city of Samarra. 

    CORPSES FOUND 

     In the western province of Anbar, the bodies of 14 people kidnapped on Saturday, including six policemen, were found dumped in the desert with bullet wounds to the head and chest, police and security sources said. 

    When Sunni-Shi'ite bloodshed was at its height in 2006-07, Anbar was in the grip of al Qaeda's Iraqi wing, which has regained strength in recent months. 

    In 2007, Anbar's Sunni tribes banded together with U.S. troops and helped subdue al Qaeda. Known as the "Sahwa" or Awakening militia, they are now on the government payroll and are often targeted by Sunni militants as punishment for co-operating with the Shi'ite-led government. 

    Three Sahwa members were killed in a car bomb explosion as they collected their salaries in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, police said. 

    Iraq's delicate intercommunal fabric is under increasing strain from the conflict in neighboring Syria, which has drawn Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims from across the region into a proxy war. 

    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's main regional ally is Shi'ite Iran, while the rebels fighting to overthrow him are supported by Sunni Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 

    Iraq says it takes no sides in the conflict, but leaders in Tehran and Baghdad fear Assad's demise would make way for a hostile Sunni Islamist government in Syria, weakening Shi'ite influence in the Middle East.

    The prospect of a shift in the sectarian balance of power has emboldened Iraq's Sunni minority, embittered by Shi'ite dominance since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by U.S.-led forces in 2003. 

    Thousands of Sunnis began staging street protests last December against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whom they accuse of marginalizing their sect. 

    A raid by the Iraqi army on a protest camp in the town of Hawija last month ignited a bout of violence that left more than 700 people dead in April, according to a U.N. count, the highest monthly toll in almost five years. 

    At the height of sectarian violence in 2006-07, the monthly death toll sometimes topped 3,000.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • A saint-making record is also a diplomatic headache for Pope Francis

    Franco Origlia / Getty Images Contributor

    Pope Francis waves to the crowd as he leaves at the end of the Holy Mass and Canonization Ceremony at St. Peter's Square. Sunday.

    Editor's note: This story includes a correction.

    By Claudio Lavanga, Correspondent, NBC News

    ROME -- Pope Francis canonized more than 800 Catholics in Saint Peter’s Square Sunday – the largest number to be elevated to sainthood at once in the history of the Catholic Church.

    The choice of some of the new saints was also striking, touching on the already-fragile relationship between Christianity and Islam.

    The new saints included hundreds of laymen from the southern Italian port town of Otranto who were slain in the 15th century by the invading Ottoman Turkish army after they refused to convert to Islam.

    In 1480, after conquering Constantinople – modern day Istanbul - the Ottoman Sultan Mohammed II planned to invade Rome, and Otranto became his army’s port of entrance into Italy.

    The local population fought back in a week-long siege, putting up a brave but hopeless resistance. When Ottoman soldiers finally overrun the town, they were ordered to kill every man over the age of 15 who refused to convert to Islam.

    More than 800 resisted, locking themselves up into the town’s Cathedral. Their ringleader, local shoemaker Antonio Primaldo, was first to be beheaded. According  to local legend, his headless body remained standing until the last of his fellow townspeople was killed.

    Since then, Primaldo and his townsfolk, who chose to die rather than betray their Catholic faith, have been hailed as martyrs. Their bones and skulls – proudly on display behind glass walls in the Cathedral of Otranto – are well-known Catholic relics and a popular pilgrimage destination.

    But the choice to highlight their sacrifice may put a strain on the already fragile relationship between the Catholic Church and Islam.

    Ever since his election, Pope Francis has called for greater dialogue between Christianity and other religions, in particular Islam. And so far, he has acted on that promise. He washed the feet of a young Muslim woman jailed in a juvenile prison on Holy Thursday, and reached out to the many “Muslim brothers and sisters” during his first Good Friday procession.

    So why risk creating yet another inter-faith row with a celebration which some in the Muslim world may be seen as a provocation?

    The answer is that it wasn’t Pope Francis’ choice in the first place. The decision to canonize the hundreds of Otranto martyrs was rubber-stamped by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, on Feb. 11 - the same day he announced his resignation.

    Slideshow: The election of Pope Francis

    /

    Cardinals from around the world gathered in the Vatican to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

    Launch slideshow

    It was a departing act of a pontiff that had become concerned about the mounting discrimination suffered by Christian minorities living in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab spring.

    Pope Francis shares his predecessor’s concern. “By venerating the martyrs of Otranto” he said at Sunday’s canonization mass, “We ask God to protect the many Christians who in these times, and in many parts of the world, are still victims of violence”.

    The Vatican’s relationship with Islam took a nosedive in 2006 when Benedict – now the Pope Emeritus - enraged Muslims by quoting the 14th-century byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiogolos, who said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

    It was an uncomfortable parting gift for his successor, who now faces an uphill struggle to rekindle ties with Islam.

    Related: 

  • Five Egyptians killed in clashes between Christians, Muslims

    Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

    People walk in front of a burnt house belonging to a Muslim after clashes between Muslims and Christians in Khusus, El-Kalubia governorate, about 25 km (16 miles) northeast of Cairo, April 6, 2013.

    By Ulf Laessing and Omar Fahmy, Reuters

    Five Egyptians were killed and eight wounded in clashes between Christians and Muslims in a town near Cairo, security sources said on Saturday, in the latest sectarian violence in the most populous Arab state.

    Christian-Muslim confrontations have increased in Muslim-majority Egypt since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 gave freer rein to hardline Islamists repressed under his rule.


    Four Christians and one Muslim were killed when members of both communities started shooting at each other in Khusus outside the Egyptian capital, the sources said.

    State news agency MENA put the death toll at four.

    The violence broke out late on Friday when a group of Christian children were drawing on a wall of a Muslim religious institute, the security sources said. No more details were immediately available.

    MENA quoted a Christian official as saying unidentified assailants had attacked a local church during the clashes and set parts of it on fire. Police had stepped up security at the church after Muslim youths began gathering in the area.

    The town was quiet on Saturday with a heavy security presence, a security source said. Some 15 police cars were patrolling the streets. Police detained 15 people.

    President Mohamed Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader elected in June, has promised to protect the rights of Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people.

    "The sectarian riots which happened in Khusus are unacceptable and grave," Saad al-Katatni, the head of the Brotherhood's political party, said on his Facebook website. "There are some who want to set Egypt ablaze and create crises."

    Sectarian tensions have often flared into violence, particularly in rural areas where rivalries between clans or families sometimes add to friction. Love affairs between Muslims and Christians have also sparked clashed in the past.

    Since Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising, Christians have complained of several attacks on churches by radical Islamists, incidents that have sharpened longstanding Christian complaints about being sidelined in the workplace and in law.

    As an example, they point to rules that make it harder to obtain official permission to build a church than a mosque.

    Last month, a court sentenced a Muslim to death for killing two people in a dispute with Christians in a southern town.

    Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

    The mother of Mohamed Mahmoud holds his clothes and cries after he was killed during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Khusus, El-Kalubia governorate, about 25 km (16 miles) northeast of Cairo, April 6, 2013.

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  • Obama visits a Bethlehem in midst of change, Islamization

    Ammar Awad / Reuters

    Christian worshipers visit the Church of the Nativity, revered as the site of Jesus' birth, in the Bethlehem on March 14. Despite the city's importance to Christianity, practitioners are a small minority there.

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    JERUSALEM — Bethlehem was a late addition to President Barack Obama’s schedule in Israel and the West Bank, and it focuses attention on another of the region’s appellations: the Holy Land.

    The Church of the Nativity on Manger Square may be close to the Christian president’s heart, even while he has taken great care to talk of the common bonds that unite the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

    Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP, file

    Palestinian Muslims take part in Friday noon prayers in Manger Square, outside the Church of Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus.

    But as throughout his trip, what Obama does not see in the town may tell more than what he does. Bethlehem is a mirror of the region, where rapid and relentless change threatens Christians themselves. 

    The American leader will be warmly welcomed officially, but on the streets the story is different. Bethlehem has been seething ever since it was announced that Obama would visit. Palestinian political activists were furious when the municipality removed a statue in Manger Square that showed Palestine without Israel and fought contractors to keep it in place. 

    Obama posters have been defaced, American flags burned and activists set up a protest tent on the edge of town to show how Israel can build homes there but Palestinians can’t.

    What Obama will not be able to avoid on the 10-minute drive from Jerusalem is the wall, more than 20 feet high, that cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem.  As he is driven through the gate into Bethlehem — a gigantic roadblock cut into the concrete security barrier —and past the walls he will read the graffiti cursing Israel and calling for a Palestinian state. 

    Religion and politics here are sometimes indistinguishable.

    Although Bethlehem is probably the most famous Christian place-name, celebrated in hymn and prayer, today it is no longer a Christian town. In 1950, 80 percent of the population was Christian. Today, 80 percent is Muslim. There are far more mosques than churches.

    The image that best describes this is just on the other side of Manger Square from the Church of the Nativity, venerated by Christians as the site where Jesus was born. The main mosque, the Mosque of Omar, stands there, the muezzin’s call to prayer echoes across the rooftops, competing with the peel of the bells from the church across the square.   

    President Barack Obama on Thursday urged the Israeli people to put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians and recognize their "right to self-determination, their right to justice." NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    So many of the faithful answer its call that at the week’s main prayers, Friday midday, they don’t all fit in the mosque and flow out into Manger Square, covering part of it.

    The cause is partly a higher birth rate among Muslims than Christians, according to figures from the Palestinian and Israeli statistics bureaus. Figures from the agencies show that Muslim women in the West Bank were likely to have 3.8 children during their lifetimes, compared with 2.1 for Israeli Christians. Also it is partly because Christians seek a better life far away from the turbulent struggle between Jews and Arabs for control of their land. Although many Christians say this is their struggle too, the proportion of people emigrating is much higher among Christians than Muslims or Jews. Only about 2 percent of the region's population today is Christian.

    Obama’s visit though will not focus attention solely on the birthplace of Jesus but on the plight of Christians across the whole Middle East. 

    A report last year by the British think tank Civitas said that Christianity was at risk of being wiped out in the biblical heartland because of "Islamic oppression" and estimated that up to two-thirds of Christians had emigrated or been killed in the past century. They continue to be particularly persecuted in predominantly Muslim countries, not only in the Middle East but worldwide, according to the study.

    Obama is on a mission to help bring peace to the Holy Land and may indeed find a moment of personal peace and prayer in the Grotto of the Nativity beneath the stone floor of the church. If he has any time to reflect at all, it must be that peace here is still a distant dream worth pursuing.

    Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List,""Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

    Related:

    'Not welcome': Disappointment greets Obama on West Bank visit

    'People turned on Christians': Persecuted Iraqi minority reflects on life after Saddam

    On the Brink: Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm on visit

  • Dozens killed in twin bombings on Pakistan billiards hall

    Naseer Ahmed / Reuters

    A paramilitary soldier reacts as he asks civilian to leave the scene of a bomb explosion in Quetta on Thursday.

    By Mujib Ahmed and Andrew Mach, NBC News

    Updated 7 p.m. ET: The death toll from twin bombings on a billiards hall Thursday in southwest Pakistan rose to 81, with at least 120 more injured, according to a senior police official.

    Police officer Hamid Shakeel said the bombs went off about 10 minutes apart, The Associated Press reported, with the second blast causing the building to collapse. Several nearby shops, homes and offices were also damaged.


    Lashkar e Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim militant organization aligned with al-Qaida, took responsibility for the attack. 

    Many of the dead and wounded were Shiite Muslims, officials said; police officers, journalists and rescue workers who responded to the initial explosion were also among the dead, the AP reported.

    The Associated Press interviewed Ghulam Abbas, a Shiite who lives some 150 yards from the pool hall. He said he was at home with his family during the first blast, and was thinking about going to the scene when the second bomb went off.

    "The second blast was a deafening one, and I fell down," he told the AP. "I could hear cries and minutes later I saw ambulances taking the injured to the hospital."

    The pool hall assault in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, was the third terrorist attack of the day in Pakistan.

    Earlier, a bomb targeting paramilitary soldiers in a commercial area in Quetta killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 others, Shakeel said, the AP reported.

    Elsewhere in Pakistan, a bomb in a crowded Sunni mosque in the northwest city of Mingora killed 22 people and wounded more than 70, said senior police officer Akhtar Hayyat, the AP reported. 

    It was one of the country's deadliest days in recent years.

    The Pakistani government's failure to crack down on the killings of the country's Shiite were criticized by Human Rights Watch, which said more than 400 Shiites were killed in targeted attacks in Pakistan in 2012.

    "2012 was the bloodiest year for Pakistan's Shia community in living memory and if this latest attack is any indication, 2013 has started on an even more dismal note," Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, told the AP. 

    "As Shia community members continue to be slaughtered in cold blood, the callousness and indifference of authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies," Hasan said. "Pakistan's tolerance for religious extremists is not just destroying lives and alienating entire communities, it is destroying Pakistani society across the board."

  • French Muslims join opposition to same-sex marriage

    Thibault Camus / AP

    Young people in Paris march against same-sex marriage during a Nov. 18 protest organized by the fundamentalist Christian group Civitas Institute. French Muslims are joining the opposition.

    By Tom Heneghan, Reuters

    PARIS — French Muslims have begun joining a mostly Catholic-led movement against same-sex marriage, widening opposition to the reform that the Socialist-led government is set to write into the law by June.

    Fifty Muslim activists issued an open letter on Monday urging fellow Muslims to join a major Paris protest against the law on Sunday. That followed a similar appeal last Saturday by the influential Union of French Islamic Organizations, or UOIF.

    Leaders of almost all main faiths in France have spoken out against the law but not called on their followers to march in Sunday's demonstration to avoid giving the opposition campaign an overly religious tone.

    Gay-marriage opponents take to streets in France

    President Francois Hollande and his government clashed with the Catholic Church last weekend, telling Catholic schools not to discuss the law with their pupils and urging state education officials to report anti-gay discussions at Catholic schools.


    "We will protest on January 13 by joining a pluralist campaign to preserve the traditional framework of marriage," the Muslim activists' letter said. "We invite all French Muslims to turn out in large numbers."

    The UOIF statement also urged Muslims to join the "March for All", the Paris protest against the reform the government has dubbed "Marriage for All".

    "This bill, if it passes, will disrupt family and social structures and civil law dangerously and irreparably," it said.

    The Muslim activist letter was signed by intellectuals, business leaders and leaders of several grassroots Muslim groups. It accused the government of using the marriage issue "to mask its ineffectiveness in the fight against unemployment".

    More stories from Europe

    France's 5-million-strong Muslim minority is Europe's biggest and Islam is the second largest faith after Catholicism.

    The government has a comfortable majority in parliament to pass the bill. Opinion polls show almost 60 percent of the French support same-sex marriage but less that half want to let gay couples adopt children, which is part of the reform.

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  • Rohingyas crowd IDP camps in Myanmar after sectarian violence

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A Rohingya girl carries water to her tent at an IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 24, 2012.

    Paula Bronstein, Getty Images — In Myanmar an estimated 111,000 people were displaced by sectarian violence in June and October. The violence affected mostly the ethnic Rohingya people who now live in crowded IDP camps racially segregated from the Rakhine Buddhists in order to maintain stability. Around 89 lives were lost during a week of violence in October, the worst in decades. As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, according to the United Nations.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Images made available to NBC News on Nov. 27

    Kyaw Tin examines a woman named Mumtaz at a government-run medical clinic on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25. Mumtaz was later taken to a local hospital.

    A pregnant woman suffers from labor pains as foreign medical teams try to assist Rohingya in need at a makeshift medical clinic on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

    A worker builds new housing aimed at offering the Rohingya an alternative to tented IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

    Aaisha sits with her 11-month-old baby Bibi at an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 23.

    Rohingya pray inside a makeshift mosque during Friday prayer at an IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 23.

    Gulzar looks out from her tent at a crowded IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

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  • Fears for thousands after 'near total destruction' of Myanmar city's Muslim quarter

    Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

    A girl joins others collecting pieces of metal from the rubble in a neighborhood in Pauktaw township that was burned in recent violence October 27, 2012.

    By Reuters

    SITTWE, Myanmar - A human rights group expressed concern for the safety of thousands of Muslims on Saturday after revealing satellite images of a once-thriving coastal community reduced to ashes during a week of violence in western Myanmar.

    The images released by the New York-based Human Rights Watch show "near total destruction" of a predominantly Rohingya Muslim part of Kyaukpyu, one of several areas in Rakhine state where battles between Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists threaten to derail the former Burma's fragile democratic transition.


    More than 811 buildings and houseboats were razed in Kyaukpyu on Oct. 24, forcing many Rohingya to flee north by sea toward the state capital Sittwe, Human Rights Watch said.

    "Burma's [Myanmar’s] government urgently needs to provide security for the Rohingya in Arakan (Rakhine) State, who are under vicious attack," Phil Robertson, the group's deputy Asia director, said.

    There were widespread unconfirmed reports of boatloads of Rohingyas trying to cross the sea border to neighboring Bangladesh, which has denied them refugee status since 1992.

    No food, no water
    Rohingyas in dozens of packed boats with no food or water that have fled Kyaukpyu -- an industrial zone important to China -- and other recent hotspots were seeking access on Friday to overcrowded refugee camps around the state capital Sittwe, according to four Rohingya refugee sources.

    Some boats were blocked by security forces from reaching the shore and few Rohingyas managed to reach the camps, the sources said by telephone.

    A crew from Britain's Channel 4 News gains access to resettlement camps set-up for around 60,000 members of the Muslim minority group months after deadly clashes with local Buddhists forced them from their homes.

    Wan-lark foundation, an organization that has been assisting Rakhine Buddhist refugees, said no clashes in the state had been reported to them since Friday night, but dead bodies of Rakhines had been found.

    "Around 6pm last night in Kyawtyaw, the bodies of 16 Rakhines were found in the sea. They had died during the attacks on Thursday. We're looking for more bodies," representative Tun Mein Thein said on Saturday.

    The chaos suggests the reformist government is struggling to contain historic ethnic and religious tensions suppressed during nearly a half century of military rule that ended last year.

    Myanmar government ends direct media censorship

    A Rakhine government spokesman put the death toll at 112 as of Friday. But within hours state media revised it to 67 killed from Oct. 21 to 25, with 95 wounded and nearly 3,000 houses destroyed.

    The death toll could be far higher, said Human Rights Watch, citing "allegations from witnesses fleeing scenes of carnage and the government's well-documented history of underestimating figures that might lead to criticism of the state."

    The clashes come just five months after communal unrest killed more than 80 people and displaced at least 75,000 in the same region.

    Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

    Hla Hla Myint, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head in recent violence, rests in a bed at a hospital in Kyuktaw township, Myanmar, Thursday.

    'Ethnic cleansing'
    A boat carrying 120 Muslims from Kyaukpyu was intercepted by Rakhines, who killed the men and raped the women, the advocacy group Burmese Rohingya Organisation U.K. claimed in a statement. This report could not be verified, Reuters said.

    "Ethnic cleansing is happening under the noses of the international community and they are doing nothing," said Tun Khin, the group's president. "We have confirmed reports that hundreds of people have been killed and the government must be aware of that."

    Ease sanctions on Myanmar, Democracy leader Suu Kyi says on US tour

    Kyaukpyu is crucial to China's most strategic investment in Myanmar: Twin pipelines that will carry oil and natural gas through the town on the Bay of Bengal to China's energy-hungry western provinces.

    The United Nations has warned that Myanmar's fledgling democracy could be "irreparably damaged" by the violence.

    Rohingyas are officially stateless. Buddhist-majority Myanmar's government regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and not as one of the country's 135 official ethnic groups, and denies them citizenship.

    But many of those expelled from Kyaukpyu are not Rohingya but Muslims from the officially recognized Kaman minority, said Chris Lewa, director of the Rohingya advocacy group, Arakan Project. "It's not just anti-Rohingya violence anymore, it's anti-Muslim," she said.

    It was unclear what set off the latest arson and killing that started on Sunday. In June, tension flared after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims, but there was no obvious spark this time.

    Rights groups such as Amnesty International have called on Myanmar to amend or repeal a 1982 citizenship law to end the Rohingyas' stateless condition.

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  • Millions make a crowded (sometimes dangerous) journey home for Eid al-Fitr

    Andrew Biraj / Reuters

    Passengers sit on top of an overcrowded train as it heads for Jamalpur from Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Aug. 16, 2012.

    As Ramadan comes to a close, millions of Muslim city dwellers will head to their home villages to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends a month of fasting. Overcrowded trains & ferries can sometimes make the trip a perilous one.

    Andrew Biraj / Reuters

    Passengers climb aboard an overcrowded train in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Aug. 16, 2012.

    Abir Abdullah / EPA

    Passengers crowd on to a ferry leaving Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Aug. 16, ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

    Supri / Reuters

    Passengers line up to board a ship, which will take them to their hometowns for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, in Tanjung Priok harbour in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Aug. 13, 2012.

    Enny Nuraheni / Reuters

    People line up to purchase train tickets in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Aug. 16, ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

     

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  • Imam killed after man throws firebomb into mosque in Brussels

    By msnbc.com staff

    An imam died of smoke inhalation Monday evening in Brussels, the Belgian capital, after a man threw a firebomb through the window of a Shiite mosque, the Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported. The mosque was nearly entirely burned down, the Agence France-Presse reported. 

    Worshipers were waiting to pray when someone entered with a bag filled with fuel, an eyewitness told a local state broadcaster, according to the BBC. He then flung the bag into the center of the room.  

    A crowd of about 50 people gathered and firefighters tried to revive the imam, but he died on site. He was 46.

    A suspect was caught not far from the mosque, La Derniere Heure reported. A second person was injured.

    Belgium has about half a million Muslims out of a population of 11 million, Reuters reported. In December, a gunman killed seven people after shooting into a crowd of Christmas shoppers in Liege, in eastern Belgium.

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • With tensions high in Mideast, evangelical Christians tighten embrace of Israel

    Meredith Mandell / Special to msnbc.com

    Scott Johnson, standing in gray sweatshirt, an evangelical Christian from Seymour, Tenn., hosts Israelis at his home.

    By Meredith Mandell, Special to msnbc.com

    Thousands of miles from their home in Seymour, Tenn., Scott and Theresa Johnson host Shabbat dinners in their Jerusalem apartment every Friday night for "lone soldiers" — as the young men and women who travel from foreign countries to serve in the Israeli army are known.

    Typically, 20 or 30 of the soldiers join the Johnsons for a traditional meal and wine and to join in a rousing rendition of "Shalom Aleichem," an old Hebrew song sung to greet the Sabbath day of rest. Scott Johnson leads the song wearing a "kippah" — a traditional Jewish head cover — and standing beneath a painting of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held prisoner in Gaza for five years before being released in October.

    The Johnsons, however, are not Jewish. They are evangelical Christians who live in Israel full-time, operating a U.S.-based 501 c(3) nonprofit, the Servants to Christ Corp.

    Servants to Christ is one of scores of evangelical Christian organizations working in Israel on a variety of charitable missions. And its presence is just one example of the increasingly tight embrace of the Jewish state by both the leadership of American evangelical churches and organizations and their grass-roots supporters.

    Pro-Israel rhetoric — fueled in part by increasing tensions in the Middle East over Iran's nuclear program and the threat it might pose to the Jewish state  — is a staple of many U.S. evangelical leaders' speeches and sermons.

    It has likewise become a popular refrain among GOP presidential candidates looking to shore up their support with the party's conservative religious wing.

    Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, for example, recently made comments calling the Palestinians an "invented people" and has said he would support Israel if it decided to attack Iran.

    Israel asks US for arms that could aid Iran strike

    Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said such staunch support for Israel is fundamental to the evangelical movement.

    "American evangelicals have it in their DNA: God blesses those who bless the Jews and curses whoever curses the Jews," he said.  "We want God to bless America and if America doesn't support Israel we don't have his blessing. It doesn't mean Israel is always right, it doesn't mean we don't remonstrate Israel, but we are going to have their back."

    War for American hearts and minds rages over Islam

    That broad backing for Israel is in part grounded in a widely held evangelical belief that the existence of a Jewish state is a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus.

    Many evangelicals believe that when Jesus returns, it will be to Israel. The purpose of his Second Coming will be to destroy its enemies and return to heaven with his followers in what is variously called the Rapture or the End Times.

    'Islamaphobic'
    Under this interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the Rapture can't happen if there is no Jewish state in the Holy Land.

    But critics — including some within the evangelical movement itself — say that such devout allegiance to Israel is also being driven by a more worldly concern: fear of Islam.

    "We definitely believe they (U.S. evangelical leaders) are Islamaphobic and that is hindering them from having the right approach toward Islam," said Munther Isaac, an instructor at Bethlehem Bible College who describes himself on his blog as a Palestinian evangelical Christian.

    Obama accuses GOP critics of 'beating the drums of war' in Mideast

    Isaac is a co-organizer of a five-day conference that began Monday in Bethlehem titled "Christ at the Checkpoint." The goal of the event, which is expected to draw up to 600 people, is "to equip the global church to understand Scripture as it relates to the Palestinian context, and to discuss the theological importance of Peace and Justice in an evangelical context." Among the lectures on the agenda is one titled "Loving the Muslim."

    Isaac, 32, said many evangelicals and politicians who court them often make no distinction between radical Islam and the religion's mainstream: "The more we demonize Islam in our talks, in our books, in our sermons, the more we polarize them … it's like feeding the enemy and empowering the more radical voice, and we shouldn't do that."

    But Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, criticized what he referred to as "replacement theologians" within the evangelical movement who do not see the creation of the state of Israel as an act of divine intervention.

    "Unfortunately, many people in the replacement theology crowd seem to give moral equivalence to Israel and her enemies and we do not see moral equivalence," Land said. 

    He also rejected the notion that “Islamaphobia” plays any role in evangelical support for Israel, ticking off numerous deadly attacks perpetrated by Muslim extremists against Americans and others, including the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    American Muslims come of age in post-9/11 era

    "There is a dangerous cult loose within Islam called Wahhabism, and it's called Jihadism," he said. "It needs to be confronted for what it is and it needs to be defeated. When people are trying to kill you it's not Islamaphobic, it's reality."

    Others are more direct in their criticism of Isaac and other organizers of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference.

    "We think our support for Israel is a positive response from the heart, not out of a diagnosed or supposed phobia," said David Parsons, a spokesman for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, a nonprofit evangelical ministry. He called the Christ at the Checkpoint organizers "misguided" and "dishonest."

    "They've not been honest about why the wall and the checkpoints are there, and they downplay the terrorists' threats to Israel, and they downplay the persecution of Palestinian Christians by their Muslim neighbors," Parsons said.

    Political tumult
    Mistrust of Islam and its adherents within the evangelical movement is well documented.  A survey published last year by the Pew Center Forum on Public Life indicated that 67 percent of more than 2,200 evangelical leaders surveyed expressed an unfavorable view of Islam and that 47 percent considered Islam to be a "major threat" to Christianity.

    But many evangelical Christian Zionists point to the current escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran, which Israel says is trying to develop nuclear weapons, as well as the political tumult and violence in the Middle East arising from the continuing Arab Spring uprisings, as legitimate reasons to be concerned.

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    Rebecca Brimmer, chief executive and president of Bridges for Peace, a Jerusalem-based evangelical group that operates the largest food drive in the country, said: "I don't hate any people or group. But, it's like with (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad saying hateful things — if I quote what Ahmadinejad says, does that mean I am Islamaphobic? Or does it mean I am a realist that says this is what this man is saying and we should pay attention." Ahmadinejad has been quoted as calling for the destruction of Israel.

    That sentiment has spilled over into broader forums.

    Conservative American political commentator Glenn Beck last year organized a gathering of more than 3,000 people in the ancient Israeli city of Ceasaria for what he called a "Restoring Courage" tour intended to highlight concerns that pro-Islamist governments were springing up throughout the Middle East and north Africa in the wake of last year's "Arab Spring" revolts. While Beck is Mormon, the event drew a heavily evangelical crowd and featured evangelical pastor John C. Hagee as a keynote speaker.

    Republicans could give Obama green light on Iran

    Hagee, a Texas minister and the founder of Christians United for Israel, revved up the crowd with these words: "People of Israel, we have come from America and the nations of the world as people of faith. God is with you. Fifty million evangelicals in America are with you. This time in history you are not alone. ... Your enemies are our enemies, and your fight is our fight. We are united, and we will prevail."

    The belief that a military conflict between Israel and Iran is coming explains why many evangelical Christians, like the Johnsons, are also big supporters of the Friends of the IDF (the Israeli Defense Forces, a charitable organization providing assistance to Israeli soldiers.

    Pizza in the trenches
    Scott Johnson, who calls himself an ardent "Christian Zionist," says he is not ashamed to take sides. During the Lebanon war in 2006, the Johnsons took a van and went to Ramban Hospital in Haifa to pick up wounded soldiers and return them to their homes. They also went to the Lebanon border and delivered pizza, falafel and shawarma to Israeli soldiers in the trenches. And on several occasions they have hosted barbecues on their terrace for entire units of the IDF.

    "I believe Islam is a threat to the world. It's a threat to decent, moral human beings. Not 100 percent of them, but the ones in control," Scott Johnson said.

    Observers say evangelical support for Israel gained momentum after Israel's Six Day War in 1967 against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Many evangelicals viewed Israel's victory against its Soviet-backed Arab neighbors with admiration, reminiscent of the biblical story of David, the future king of Israel, defeating gigantic Philistine warrior Goliath.

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    In 1980, after the international community condemned Israel for declaring Jerusalem the "eternal and indivisible capital" of the Jewish state and 13 nations shifted their embassies to Tel Aviv, Christian Zionists established the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, to show their support for the Jewish state.

    During the 1980s, the Israeli government began to organize all-expenses-paid "familiarization" tours of the Holy Land for evangelical pastors in an effort to cement such support. Evangelical Christian Mission trips and humanitarian tours continue today, giving the country not only moral support but also a nice economic boost. During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, for example, roughly 5,000 evangelicals visit Israel as part of the Christian celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, and 60 percent of Israel's 2.8 million tourists last year were Christian pilgrims, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

    Historically, some Israelis have been suspicious of Christian groups inside the country, worrying that their aim is to convert Jews to Christianity. But given their staunch political support for Israel in recent years, most Israeli politicians now welcome them.

    "I think why there is there such a strong connection between Jews and Christians, especially at the political level in Israel, is we saw during the (Palestinian uprising) intifada that one by one, the nations of the world were turning against us," said Joshua Reinstein, director of the Israeli Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus. "But Christians stood their ground and stood up next to us." 

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  • Religious slaughtering practices under fire in the Netherlands

    Peter Dejong / AP

    A ritually-slaughtered lamb is delivered at a halal butcher shop on the market in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday Dec. 13.

    By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press

    AMSTERDAM -- Political support for a proposed ban on slaughtering animals without stunning them first appeared to crumble Tuesday as the Dutch senate debated legislation that Muslim and Jewish groups say violates their religious rights.

    The ban — proposed by an animal rights party and widely supported by Dutch voters — passed Parliament's lower house by a 116-30 margin in June, raising an international outcry from religious groups.

    Although senators will not vote until Dec. 20, it appeared from Tuesday's debate that several parties that initially backed the ban in parliament — including the Netherlands' two largest — have changed their mind.

    If the Netherlands does outlaw the slaughtering practices that make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, it will be the second country after New Zealand to do so in recent years. It would join Switzerland, the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, whose bans are mostly traceable to pre-World War II anti-Semitism.

    Speaking first, Labor senator Nico Schrijver said his party now has "many questions" about the bill, including asking why it "so specifically aims its arrows at the rather small number of ritual slaughterers and why not large-scale industrial slaughter, which involves 500 million animals per year?"

    "It seems to me that there may be much more effective, and less far-reaching methods that achieve the same goal" of improving animal welfare, Schrijver said, citing better education for slaughterers and better conditions in slaughterhouses.

    Muslims, mostly immigrants from Turkey and Morocco, represent about a million of the 16 million Dutch population. The once-strong Jewish community numbers around 50,000 after most were deported and killed by the Nazis during World War II.

    In both religions, tradition prescribes that animals' throats be cut swiftly with a razor-sharp knife while they are still conscious, so that they bleed to death quickly.

    Support for the ban comes both from left-leaning voters who see this technique as inhumane, and from social conservatives who see it as foreign and barbaric.

    Outside the debate, Esther Ouwehand of the tiny Party for the Animals, which proposed the ban, said it was unjust to inflict "extra suffering on animals to satisfy religious opinion."

    The ban's most influential backer has been the Netherlands' anti-Islam Freedom Party.

    "Do we want such practices in a civilized country as ours?" asked Freedom senator Marjolein Faber, after describing a worst-case scenario of a panicked animal taking six minutes to lose consciousness after a botched ritual slaughter.

    The Royal Dutch Veterinary Association says it believes slaughtering cattle in particular while still conscious inflicts unnecessary suffering.

    But Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress, said there is "no scientific evidence" that religious slaughter, performed properly, is more painful for animals than stunning.

    He said the law should be voted down in the name of freedom of religion.

    "If this law is passed in a country known for its tolerant and open society, it could result in a very dangerous domino effect that could spread to other parts of Europe," he said.

    Among the two parties in the Netherlands' governing coalition, the Christian Democrats opposed the ban from the beginning out of concern for the rights of religious minorities.

    The pro-business VVD party, the country's largest, also now appears unlikely to support the ban.

    VVD senator Sybe Schaap slammed the bill for "ethical absolutism" and said offering incentives for slaughterhouses to improve their practices would have a more positive effect than a ban.

    The Dutch undersecretary for Economic Affairs Henk Blekers has said the Cabinet will only take a position on the bill after the Senate vote.

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