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Police believe they had been in contact over the internet with people linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and had been planning attacks in France.

the researcher, whom it did not identify, was working for an outside institute and had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism.

the project’s mission is to spread the culture of human rights in an atmosphere of brotherhood, tolerance and forgiveness. It also aims to enable both government and nongovernmental sectors to effectively implement relevant policies in line with Islamic values and international treaties and agreements. The project aims to introduce regulations, laws and procedures in the Kingdom that protect human rights.

It will organize workshops, activities and campaigns, and publish a magazine about human rights. The HRC will also work with the educational sector to introduce human rights in school curriculums.

"All the Taliban," declares William Martinez, a 24-year-old barber at Le Moustache, a hair salon across the street.

"There are two types of people who use the mosque," she says, matter-of-factly. "The Arabs and the Iranians."

Many here refer to all Muslims or Middle Easterners as Turks, and seem to know next to nothing about their religious beliefs. "They pray to the god of the moon so they only gather at night," says Ms. Melendez.

Iran has organized its own blogging competition, called "The Face of '89," in reference to the Persian calendar year 1389, which just ended on March 20. However, the rules of the competition stated that blogs that are blocked within the country - typically those that criticize the Iranian government - are not eligible to participate

While Iran's opposition and Green Movement has received a lot of attention for its speaking out against the government on blogs and other types of social media, conservative, Islamic and nationalistic blogs remain a prominent force on the Iranian Internet.

he Iranian government has been co-opting many of the online tools that they themselves abhor. In the wake of the June 2009 elections, for example, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, began his own Twitter account in both Persian and English.

"We felt it was important for an Arab country to join and because other Arab countries were not involved militarily, we felt we should," Gen. Mubarak al-Khayanin, the Qatari Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview Sunday at Souda."We are physically small country, but with leadership comes responsibility," he said. "Certain countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt haven't taken leadership for the last three years. So we wanted to step up and express ourselves, and see if others will follow."

The decisions by Qatar and UAE to join the coalition in Libya reflect their strong traditional ties to the United States and their desires to play a more active role internationally.

Qatar's rulers bankrolled the launch of Al Jazeera, arguably the Arab world's most influential news channel and a lightning rod for criticism from the region's autocrats. The network covered the recent Arab uprisings earlier and more extensively than Western news channels, and is renewing its push to get the channel's English-language division onto U.S. cable systems.Qatar has acted as peace broker in Lebanon and Sudan, and has sent humanitarian aid to both Chile and Haiti after earthquakes there in 2010. Qatar's capital, Doha, hosts several branches of American universities and the Middle East headquarters for the U.S. Army's Central Command.Karasik said the Libya intervention is yet another example of Qatar's desire to become "a foreign policy powerhouse."