UK Methodist Church Tries to Delegitimatize Israel

A background document released by the Methodist Church of the UK is meant to instruct its readers on "Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on the Land of Israel-Palestine" - and, inter alia, to show how to argue with the Jewish claims for a homeland.

First, it looks at covenantal, Biblical claims:

In the Jewish tradition, robust debate is possible about texts and their meaning. In the rabbinical tradition, every word of a text can be challenged. Multiple meanings are sometimes accepted. In connection with attitudes to the 'land' of Israel, some Jews are also aware that holy texts can be abused. ‘We have a battle for our holy texts' declared Rabbi David Rosen, of Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem, at a session on theologies of the ‘Land' at the Parliament of World's Religions in Barcelona in 2004.

For example, Jews who seek justice for all - Jews and Palestinians - will draw strength from the Covenant with Noah in Genesis (Genesis 9: 8 - 17). It is a Covenant which makes no distinction between nations or races. Other Jewish groups look to ‘later' Covenants, which can be interpreted more exclusively. This intrareligious dialogue within Judaism must not be overlooked.

Anyone with a modicum of understanding about Judaism knows about rabbinic arguments on interpretation of verses.

They also know that such arguments have specific rules and boundaries, as would be the source texts of any legal system. To facilely declare that God's promise to all of mankind not to destroy the world with a flood is somehow more relevant to Israel than specific Biblical promises to the Patriarchs and the children of Israel is more than absurd - especially coming from an organization that should be somewhat familiar with the Bible.

But this is far from the most offensive part of the document.

Anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, is another factor that cannot
be overlooked if Christians are to understand Jewish perspectives on the land of Israel. ‘Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message given at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Centre in west Jerusalem. Its location (on Mount Herzl, a hill which is home both to the tomb of the founding father of the Zionist Movement and the central military cemetery for members of the Israeli Defence Force) and its symbolic layout undergirds this message. A pilgrimage through the exhibition rooms of the Centre, which bring home both the horror of the Holocaust and the vigour of Jewish resistance, brings you out in the open air, overlooking the beauty of Jerusalem. This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre with a group from Britain, I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: ‘The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop.

...It is salutary and necessary for Europeans, and particularly Christians, to realise that they are implicated in this narrative.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center slammed this in the Huffington Post:

One of its authors chastises Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust museum: "'Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message ... This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre ... I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: 'The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop."

Want peace? Decouple Israel from the Holocaust. Curiously, the Methodists' narrative goes beyond Palestinian chutzpah, whose historic revisionism ignores three millennia of continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, and insists that the Allies manufactured the State of Israel to provide a home for survivors of the WWII Holocaust that these Methodists now want Jews to forget.

Want peace? Forget the collective memory of losing a third of your people, including 1.5 million children. For it's the "collective memory of the Holocaust [that] also feeds into an ethos of victimhood." Israelis should also turn the other cheek when rockets rain down on their children's school buses; turn a deaf ear when Palestinian imams promise the faithful a day when the rocks will call out to kill the Jews hiding behind them; turn a blind eye when the "moderate" Palestine Authority names streets for martyrs who murdered Israeli civilians; when one third of that same "moderate" population supports the savage butchering of a sleeping Israeli family in Itamar, including the all-but beheading of a 3-month-old baby.

Forget collective memory. For these religious leaders, only selective memory will set you free:

Take their reference to "Oriental" -- meaning Sephardic -- Jews. These experts must have forgotten the Sephardic Jews of Greece, 87 percent of whom were murdered by the Nazis. Never mind the Jews of the Maghreb were on Hitler's hit-list. These leaders also remembered to forget that it was Christian countries who slammed their gates shut before desperate European Jews, and that millions could have been saved had there been a State of Israel in the 1930s and 40s.

A couple of points beyond what Cooper said specifically about the Sephardim.

One is that there was a massacre of Jews in Iraq - the Farhud - during the Holocaust that was inspired by the infamous, Nazi sympathizing Mufti of Jerusalem. Here is a direct link between Arab anti-semitism and the Holocaust for Sephardic Jews.

But in a broader sense, the outrage that the Methodists feel about how Sephardic Jews are being taught about the Holocaust betrays their own anti-semitism. By mentioning it, the authors indicate that they do not believe that the Jewish people are a nation - the Sephardim, to them, have nothing in common with Jews who lived in some European countries. It is beyond their comprehension that Sephardim might actually care about their fellow Jews on their own, without being indoctrinated by the Zionists!

Even more so, they warn that Israel's Holocaust "narrative" is a direct challenge to them, as it implicates European Christians for standing by and letting millions of Jews get slaughtered. Which just happens to be true.

The point, of course, was to give the Methodists ammunition to argue against both Biblical and Holocaust arguments to justify a Jewish state.

Moreover, their recounting of Muslim narratives shows no skepticism. For example, it quotes the Koran as saying that Mohammed's night journey was to Jerusalem - even though the location of that journey is in a hadith, not the Koran.

This is a sickening document, and one that needs to be exposed.

UPDATE: The document was taken down...so you can find it here.
Elder of Ziyon

UK - It's Our Money

Last Friday, I took the above picture at the rally against corruption in Midan Tahrir. The man in the middle is holding a sign that says "UK, it's our money" to protest at slowness of recovery of the Mubaraks' (and others) assets in Britain. The money has probably already left Albion, but British Ambassador Dominic Asquith says that the Egyptian government has yet to provide the proof that the money was illegally acquired that British law requires.
The Arabist

The Guardian Obsessed by Israel

You all knew that London's al-Guardian is obsessed with Israel (the headline is from May 24, 2010), but now it's been proven empirically.

A Guardian blogger has compiled a ranking of countries based on the tags appended to the bottom of each post.

Of the 40,000 or so pieces of content we published this year tagged with one (and in 3,500 cases both) of these tags, 22,500 or so were tagged UK news and 21,000 World news.
Carl in Jerusalem

UK: Terrorists Planned Christmas Bombings

They are at war with us. They mean to destroy us. It is what is commanded of them. Destroy us. Without humanity. Without remorse. Without apology. And yet we can't stop apologizing and pretending that there is no war, that we are no under attack every day, and that our lives have not been turned upside down, inside out, and irrevocably altered by Islamic jiahd.

UK: Nine arrested jihadists planned Christmas bombings of London Stock Exchange, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey Jihadwatch

Merry Christmas, kuffar. More on this story. "Christmas bomb plot: nine men remanded over plan to 'blow up Big Ben and Westminster Abbey,'" by Caroline Gammell in the Telegraph, December 27 (thanks to David):

Nine alleged terrorists plotted a Christmas bombing campaign targeting sites that included the London Stock Exchange and Big Ben, a court heard.

They are alleged to have carried out reconnaissance missions before deciding on their possible targets.

Police were said to have found a list of six sites, including the full postal address of the Stock Exchange, Boris Johnson's London mayoral office and the US embassy.

Defendants were seen studying the tower of Big Ben, before inspecting Westminster Abbey, the London Eye and the Church of Scientology.

Al-Qaeda inspired books and leaflets, including instructions on making a pipe bomb, were also uncovered during the counter-terrorism operation....

The defendants, aged 19 to 28, were charged on Sunday with conspiracy to cause an explosion and conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism, having been arrested during early-morning raids in Cardiff, London and Stoke-on-Trent on Dec 20....

Among the details were the addresses of the Dean of St Paul's Chapter House and of two rabbis at separate synagogues.

A reconnaissance trip is alleged to have been made from Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall to Westminster Bridge where Big Ben was studied intently....

Police searches are said to have uncovered two issues of the al Qaeda extremist magazine Inspire, which is published in English in Yemen and is aimed at a Western audience. An article in issue one was entitled "How to make a pipe bomb in the kitchen of your mom", while issue two included "What to expect in jihad" and "Tips for our brothers in the US".

Other allegedly extremist material found was entitled 39 Ways which said it was intended to help people "serve and participate in jihad".

Anwar Al-Awlaki, the extremist Yemeni preacher whose teachings support and encourage violent jihad against the West, is alleged to be the inspiration for the plot, the court heard. Between Oct 1 and Dec 20, the men are alleged to have downloaded information from the internet, discussed acts of terrorism and tested explosives while "unlawfully and maliciously" conspiring to "endanger life or cause serious injury" with one or more explosions....

Twelve Held After Anti-terrorism Sweep

A teenage boy is among 12 people arrested as part of a major anti-terrorism operation in the UK.

The suspects - five from Cardiff, four from Stoke-on-Trent and three from London - were detained by unarmed officers at around 5am.

A 17-year-old boy and 11 men aged up to 28 are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism in the UK.

Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates, national lead for counter-terrorism policing, said that with the terrorist threat level in the UK at "severe" the arrests were "absolutely necessary to keep the public safe".

Home Secretary Theresa May said the UK faces "a real and serious threat from terrorism" and thanked the police and security service for keeping the country
safe.

Mr Yates said earlier: "This is a large scale, pre-planned and intelligence-led operation involving several forces.
[...]

The operation is being led by Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne, the senior national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations, and involves police from forces in London, South Wales and Staffordshire.

West Midlands Police said in a statement: "All were arrested at or near their home addresses, with the exception of one suspect from Stoke who was at a domestic property in Birmingham.

"Searches are now being conducted at the home addresses, plus the address in Birmingham and another residence in London.

"The suspects will be held at police stations in central London, the North West and the West Midlands."

The arrests come after intelligence agencies in Europe, Pakistan and the US intercepted a credible Islamic plot to launch raids on European cities, in a similar style to the attacks in Mumbai, India, two years ago.

Sky's security editor Sam Kiley said the arrests are not linked to the Mumbai-style plot but are allegedly part of a separate plot entirely.
Sky News

UK Girl aged 15 Arrested for Koran Burning

Arresting a kid for burning a qur'an? This is the sharia. This is non-Muslims submitting to islam. Who cares if this girl burned a qur'an or a bible or a flag or whatevuh? Seriously, who died and made the qur'an the holy grail? This is nuts.

Mackie opined, "she must have thought she still lived in the Britain of parents and grandparents. She needs to get sharia compliant like the rest of the UK."

UK:Girl, 15, arrested over 'Facebook Koran burning video' BBC

A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English language version of the Koran.

The 15-year-old, who lives in the West Midlands, allegedly posted the video, filmed two weeks ago on her school premises, on Facebook.

The video was reported to the school and subsequently removed, police said.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of making threats. Both have been released on police bail.

It is thought the girl, who lives in the Sandwell Council area, was allegedly filmed setting the booklet alight while other pupils watched.

Two Facebook profiles have also been removed from the site, police added.

It is understood that the group who published that version of the Koran have since been to the school to talk to pupils.

Atlas Shrugs

UK Jewish Groups Join Jihad versus Israel

Updated: ZF joins Israeli embassy and JfJfP in fight against EDL Jewish Chronicle
It's great to see that the Israeli embassy in London and Jews for Justice for Palestinians have made a common cause to fight the English Defence League, an offshoot of the Holocaust-denying BNP which has fooled a few Jews into thinking it is pro-Israel. They have been joined by the Zionist Federation, too. Well done Harvey Rose, you are a bigger mensch than previously thought.

The initiative of the Union of Jewish Students, the campaign is a response to the creation of a "Jewish division" by the extreme right-wing anti-Islamic-fundamentalist group earlier this year, and the EDL's pro-Israel protest outside the Israeli Embassy last month, which was supported by American rabbi Nachum Shifren.

The "Not in our name" group's founding pledge states: "The Jewish community has always been at the forefront of anti-fascism. From Cable Street to defeating the BNP at the ballot box, we have been unafraid to speak out against those who seek to spread fear and hatred in our communities.

"Now our community faces a new threat. The EDL claims to be our allies in the fight against extremism. In reality, they are violent racists with BNP members and Nazi sympathisers among their ranks.

"It is time for the Jewish community to come together as one to expose the EDL as the racist thugs they are."

UJS campaigns director Carly McKenzie said: "We felt this was a prime opportunity to bring the whole community together with one loud voice."

But Roberta Moore, of the EDL's Liebstandarde Jude, is not convinced.

But Roberta Moore, head of the EDL Jewish Division, claimed the campaigners had "betrayed the Jewish community" and challenged them to a filmed public debate. She said: "Let's have it all out in the open once and for all."
"We are not bothered by their futile threats and attempts to silence us. We, and much of the Jewish community, know they lack the courage to address the issues we highlight. They have not been doing their job for a long time, and seem to have not only abandoned but betrayed the Jewish community in general."

This is beyond. Nazis are frank with their message. Positively vocal. Neo's and oldo's. Hitler's Mein Kampf and Osama's fatwa on America are pretty clear documents. No need to search for itty bitty clues. Hitler would be turning over in his grave if there were a "Jewish division" in the Wehrmacht. I mean, really.

Nazis do not carry Jewish flags. Nazis do not hang with, march for, and defend Jews. This is crackpot thinking, and nazis are the last war.
Atlas Shrugs

Somali Gangs Ran Sex Ring in UK

Somali Gangs Ran Sex Ring in 3 U.S. States - Atlas Shrugs
'Sexual predators': Gang of Asian [Muslim] men weep as they are jailed for total of 32 years for abusing white girls as young as 12 yrs old.............By Paul Sims.

A gang of Asian [Muslim] 'sexual predators' were jailed yesterday for abusing white girls as young as 12.

The five men preyed on their victims over several months and threatened them with violence if they refused their advances.

One of the men branded his victim a 'white bitch' when she resisted, while a second smirked: 'I've used you and abused you.'

The men, all British-born Pakistanis, attacked the four girls in play areas, parks and in the back of their cars, Sheffield Crown Court heard. They gave them gifts and introduced them to their friends. The girls were abused so frequently that after many months it 'became a way of life'.

The girls, who were being monitored by social services, were eventually rescued by police and removed from their homes amid growing concerns for their safety. Two of the men wept in the dock yesterday as they were jailed. Judge Peter Kelson QC told them: 'I've listened to the backdrop of some of you sobbing -- I have to say your weeping cuts no ice with me at all.

Arrested in Yemen: Medical Student and Mom

According to the British (can we still use that term without being called "racist"?) Prime Minister, one of the bombs found in yesterday's Islamic attack on the West was designed to blow up the aircraft. The leftwing media is pulling the "Yemen is poverty stricken" meme out of its nonsensical narrative box. But an arrest made today was of a well-to-do, educated female Muslim and her mom. It's a family affair.

I do not believe this helps the Dems in Tuesday's election. They are jihad enablers (Obama being the worst of them all). His GITMO releases are in leadership in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. That includes some Saudi muslims who were detained at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay – including the group’s deputy leader, Said al-Shihri.

Bomb was designed to explode on cargo plane - UK PM

Prime Minister David Cameron says the device in a package sent from Yemen and found on a US-bound cargo plane was designed to go off on the aircraft.

But Mr Cameron said investigators could not yet be certain about when the device, intercepted at East Midlands Airport, was supposed to explode.

A second device containing explosives was found on a cargo plane in Dubai. The US suspects al-Qaeda involvement.

In Yemen, police have arrested a woman suspected of posting the packages.

She was detained in the capital, Sanaa, after being traced through a telephone number she had left with a cargo company, officials said.

The unnamed young woman, described as a medical student and the daughter of a petroleum engineer, was arrested along with her mother on the outskirts of the city, a security official told AFP news agency.

[..]

US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, John Brennan, has phoned Mr Saleh to offer US help in fighting al-Qaeda, the White House said.
Atlas Shrugs

Geller Front Page Interview on Sharia Gain in UK

FP: Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to discuss with your accurate prediction about a London borough becoming an Islamic republic.

What’s going on?

Geller: Thanks Jamie.

As I predicted at my website Atlas Shrugs, a vile Islamic supremacist, Lutfur Rahman, has been elected executive mayor of the London borough of Tower Hamlets. And he has accomplished this through massive voter fraud — isn’t this always how they get their way?

FP: It appears to be the case, yes.

Tower Hamlets is the poorest borough in all of Great Britain, yes?

Geller: Yes, Jamie, it is. Nonetheless, as Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlet council, Rahman will have control of over a billion-dollar budget.

And remember, Rahman is an Islamic supremacist with links to jihadist groups. Mind you, Jamie, he was previously dropped from the Labour Party because of these troubling ties. He was elected as an independent. The Telegraph’s superb investigative journalist Andrew Gilligan has outlined what he calls Rahman’s “deeply problematic two years as council leader until he was removed from that post six months ago.” Gilligan explains that after Rahman

“secured the leadership with the help of the IFE, millions of pounds were channeled to front organizations of the IFE, a man with close links to the IFE was appointed as assistant chief executive of the council despite being unqualified for the position and the secular, white chief executive was forced out. Various efforts were made to ‘Islamicize’ the borough. Extremist literature was stocked in Tower Hamlets’ public libraries.”

And this election has made matters even worse. The Islamic machine went into overdrive and fraudulently gamed the system.

FP: How did they do that?

Geller: Jamie, Tower Hamlets changed from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year, after a successful campaign spearheading this change was waged by an Islamic supremacist organization known as the Islamic Forum of Europe. According to the local laws, just five percent of the electorate can petition a local council to change the system. So early in 2010, Abjol Miah, a Muslim affiliated with the IFE, started gathering signatures for such a petition – and in Tower Hamlets, which is only one-third Muslim, 99.3% of those who signed Miah’s petition were Muslim.

And a large number of those were fraudulent. Authorities discovered that almost half of the signatures were invalid. Miah turned in whole pages filled with names and addresses that were all written in identical handwriting – on a petition that was supposed to have been signed by thousands of different individuals. Even more unbelievable, as many as 5,000 of the names were of people whose names were not in the electoral registration records at all.

But the dhimmi court allowed it just the same.

Muslim Electronic Voter Fraud in the UK

UK: Massive Voter Fraud to Elect Islamic Extremist with Supremacist, Racist Ties Next Executive Mayor in Control of Billion Dollar Budget

In my New York Times interview here, I repeated what I have said and thought for some time, that the first country that will be Islamic in Europe will be the U.K.

This terrible story just validates my prediction. An Islamic supremacist with fundamentalist links will most likely be elected Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlet council, with control of over a billion dollar budget.

Mind you, he was previously fired for extremist ties. But the Islamic machine went into overdrive and fraudulently gamed the system (shocka!).

Tower Hamlets moved from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the Muslim extremsit group the IFE. IFE's Abu Talha told an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4's Dispatches: "The mayor is going to have a lot more control. That's why we need to get someone, one of our brothers, in there. Which we will do."

The law says that if 5 per cent of the electorate petition a council, it must hold a referendum on changing to a mayoral system.

Earlier this year another prominent IFE activist, Abjol Miah, organised such a petition.

A total of 99.3 per cent of the signatures were Muslim names, in a borough which is only a third Muslim

Council officers found that almost half were "invalid", with entire pages of names and addresses written in the same handwriting and around 5,000 not even appearing on the electoral register.

But the dhimmi court allowed it just the same. Ameroca, pay attention.

Read on. And bear in mind that according to the media and the political elites, the EDL is the problem. The campaign of destruction against the EDL (made up of Jews, Christians, Blacks, Hindus, Sikhs, et al) fighting Islamic supremacism and imperialism would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

Tower Hamlets extremist vote poses Ed Miliband's first big election test Telegraph hat tip Janice

A man with close links to Islamic fundamentalism and the backing of prominent racists could this week be elected as the executive mayor of a council, with almost total control over its £1 billion budget.

Lutfur Rahman was sacked by the Labour Party last month as its candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets amid deep concerns about his links with a Muslim supremacist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), and a number of powerful local businessmen.

Mr Rahman also signed up entire families of "sham" paper Labour members – some of whom do not even support the party – to win nomination as Labour's candidate.

Mr Rahman is now running as an independent and his supporters say he is "hopeful" of victory.

"Things look very good," said one of his major business backers, Shiraj Haque, a millionaire restaurateur.

Labour sources said the contest between Mr Rahman and their new candidate, Helal Abbas, was "extremely close" and would depend on turnout in Thursday's election.

Unlike a conventional leader, a directly-elected mayor has almost complete power over a council's finances and cannot be controlled, checked or sacked by councillors.

Tower Hamlets moved from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the IFE.

In secret filming earlier this year, Abu Talha, an IFE activist, told an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4's Dispatches: "The mayor is going to have a lot more control. That's why we need to get someone, one of our brothers, in there. Which we will do."

The law says that if 5 per cent of the electorate petition a council, it must hold a referendum on changing to a mayoral system.

Earlier this year another prominent IFE activist, Abjol Miah, organised such a petition.

A total of 99.3 per cent of the signatures were Asian names, in a borough which is only a third Asian.

Council officers found that almost half were "invalid", with entire pages of names and addresses written in the same handwriting and around 5,000 not even appearing on the electoral register.

Nonetheless, enough of the signatures were ruled to be valid.

The mayoral referendum was granted and passed in May after an intensive campaign involving the IFE, Mr Haque and others who have now emerged as backers of Mr Rahman.

The literature advocating a "yes" vote in the referendum campaign used an identical logo and typeface to some of Mr Rahman's leaflets in the mayoral campaign.

Defeat in strongly-Labour Tower Hamlets would be a humiliation for the party's new leader, Ed Miliband, in what is his first electoral test. However, it would also raise even more serious concerns about radical Islam's political power in the UK.

According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE – based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets – wants to change the "very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam."
Atlas Shrugs

Muslim Sons Severed Mom's Hands During Honor Killing

Muslim Sons Arrested in Brutal Murder of their Mom "Bloodbath": Isn't This An Honor Killing? UPDATE: Her Hands Were Cut Off

Are we to believe that this was not an honor killing, the way the Times Square car bombing was not Islamic jihad? Or the Fort Hood jihad was not ..........jihad?

We have been told that Mrs Shahzad had been seeing other men and I suppose it is likely that her sons may not of approved of this.

What's important here is not that a vibrant, wonderful woman who was civic-minded and guided other Muslim women was brutally murdered by her sons in an honor killing. What's important here is that we not mention the motive or the religious motivation behind honor killings, so as not to insult or defame Islam. That is what is key. That is what is important. Do not insult Islam. Honor killings are epidemic in the Muslim world (only Gd knows how many girls are buried under the porch in Pakistan), but they are increasingly on the rise in the West (more on that here -- scroll.) But the feminists and the leftists and the Islamic machine scold us, remind us and admonish us to ignore this gender-cide and instead adhere to the sharia. Do not defame Islam.

It is why the Islamic supremacists tried to ban my taxi honor killing campaign here and my bus campaign for Muslims who must live in fear for their lives simply because they wanted to leave Islam.

Sons held after estranged wife who had been seeing other men is stabbed to death at luxury home Daily Mail

Two sons of a wealthy businesswoman were being questioned last night on suspicion of stabbing their mother to death after her marriage broke down and she began seeing other men.

Marriage broke down? They had been separated for several years.

Assia Shahzad, 40, suffered multiple wounds during the bloodbath at the £600,000, six-bedroom family home.

Neighbours and family friends said that she was estranged from her husband and her relationships with other men angered close relatives.

Police were holding her sons Usman, 21, and 16-year-old Suleiman.





The mother of three, who lived with her sons in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, had been separated from her husband, Rashad, 45, for several years.

She was taken to Stoke Mandeville hospital on Saturday night after a relative raised the Assia
alarm and died shortly afterwards, at about 8pm.
[...]

'We have been told that Mrs Shahzad had been seeing other men and I suppose it is likely that her sons may not of approved of this. It might explain the motive, although we do not know.'

Another added: 'Assia was a strong-minded, independent, modern woman. This did not always sit well with some parts of the family.'

Police said they were treating the horrific incident as 'domestic related' rather than an honour killing.

Muslims arriving at the mosque at the end of Mrs Shahzad's road for prayers spoke of their shock yesterday.

Raj Khan, a Buckinghamshire county councillor who grew up with her, said: 'We lived on the same street, went to school together and we were in the same business together.

'We have a good friendship through our fathers, so there's a long history between us.

'I am devastated. I only saw her yesterday.

'It seems like a total nightmare. She seemed okay - she was her normal self and was talking about going for some food.

'It's a devastating time, not only for her family but for the community. She was a very community-spirited lady.

She helped where she could, particularly with Asian [code for Muslim in the UK -- Atlas] women's issues by filling in their forms and advising them.

Once again, a faceless victim. If anyoen comes across a picture of Assia, please send it along. She was a vibrant woman. She's not just another honor killing that no one will speak of.

UPDATE: Much thanks to Denise and Bert for the pic.

UPDATE: Her hands were cut off:

A 21-year-old UK man has been charged with the gruesome stabbing murder of his wealthy mother amid suggestions her death was an "honour killing".

Usman Shahzad and a 16-year-old boy were arrested at the home in Aylesbury, north of London, after the death of his 40-year-old mother Assia, the Guardian reported.
[..]

Reports say Mrs Shahzad's hands were severed in the attack.
[..]

Her uncle said that Mrs Shahzad was well known in Aylesbury and "lived for her kids".