Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

the Belgian police said on Friday that 13 people had been detained in Belgium and two in France after a shootout in which two men believed to be militants were kill

the authorities had conducted searches at a dozen locations where the police had found four weapons normally used by the military, including AK-47 assault rifles,

detainees belonged to the “entourage” of Amedy Coulibaly, one of the three gunmen involved in attacks in and near Paris last week.

Pope Francis on Thursday defended freedom of speech but said there are limits and that "you can't make a toy out of the religions of others."

. He defended freedom of expression as not only a fundamental human right but a duty to speak one's mind for the sake of the common good "without offending."

"It's normal, you cannot provoke," the pope said. "You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity."

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Israel appears to have edited out female world leaders from a photograph of Sunday's anti-terrorism rally in Paris, Israeli media reported.

Israeli site Walla!, however, noted that when ultra-Orthodox paper HaMevaser (The Announcer) ran the iconic photo, female leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo were all of a sudden missing from the scene.

In fact, it's not the first time in recent years that an ultra-Orthodox publication has cut a female leader from a photo in its print. The New York-based paper Di Tzeitung decided in 2011 to erase then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the image showing American leaders during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, The Telegraph noted.

Many Muslims upset by the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper, argue that the issue is not about free speech but about the insult to a religious figure revered by roughly a quarter of the world’s population.

Less clear are the precise origins of the Muslim objection to visual depictions — insulting or otherwise — of the prophet and holy persons of any faith.

That objection, which Islamist militants have cited in justifying their deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris last week, has some roots in the Quran, which discourages image-making as a form of idol worship that demeans God.

GOP offers a lesson on how not to respond to terrorism

About 10 months ago, after terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, killing 11 people, congressional Republicans quickly began looking for ways to blame American leadership

Republican field is dominated by candidates with no meaningful experience in or understanding of foreign affairs, and nearly all of whom continue to think the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was a great idea.

She took the name Umm Jihad, or “Mother of Jihad.” Home alone as her husband went out to fight, she posted toxic tweets under her pseudonym. “Hats off to the mujs in Paris,” she said in one of them, using an abbreviation for “mujahedeen” on the day in 2015 when jihadists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people at the satirical magazine.She also urged others to join the terror organization. “There are soooo many Aussies and Brits here but where are the Americans, wake up u cowards,” she posted.And she used her account to help incite attacks in the West, including in the United States. “Americans wake up!” she wrote on March 15, 2015. “You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them.”

By the time Ms. Polman arrived in the caliphate, its crimes were well documented, including beheading journalists, enslaving and systematically raping women from the Yazidi minority and burning prisoners alive. Both she and Ms. Muthana were evasive when asked about that brutality.

In her telling, Ms. Muthana began to pull away from the terrorist group in her second year in the caliphate. She was married to a second fighter and was pregnant. Anemic from an iron deficiency, she spent much of her time in bed.“I started having doubts,” she said in an account that The Times could not verify. “I was pregnant. Very emotional, because I missed my family,” she said. “I thought — what am I doing?

MARSEILLE, France — Once again, terrorism strikes France — and once again, terrorism is exposing the country’s dangerous contradictions.

First there was the murder of Samuel Paty, a history teacher who was decapitated near Paris on Oct. 16 by a young Chechen man after Mr. Paty showed students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a class about freedom of expression.

In addition to security and counterterrorism measures, the French government responded to Mr. Paty’s killing by vigorously reaffirming the right of free speech — including the right to satirize and blaspheme — as well as the central role of France’s version of secularism, known as laïcité, in all state institutions, especially public schools.

Many countries, especially in the democratic West, champion freedom of expression and allow publications that lampoon Islam’s prophet.

So why is France singled out for protests and calls for boycotts across the Muslim world, and so often the target of deadly violence from the extremist margins?

brutal colonial past, staunch secular policies and tough-talking president who is seen as insensitive toward the Muslim faith