islam news today (11/21/2002)

Today in Islam, on Thursday, November 21, we have for you these top stories
concerning wonderful activities being brought about from our religion of
peace:

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=524&e=6&u=/ap/20021121/ap_w
o_en_po/lebanon_american_killed

SIDON, Lebanon - An American woman who worked as a nurse at a missionary
clinic caring for needy Lebanese and Palestinians was shot to death Thursday
in this southern port city, police said.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=515&e=2&u=/ap/20021121/ap_o
n_re_af/nigeria_miss_world

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Angry mobs stabbed and set fire to bystanders Thursday
in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested Islam's founding prophet
would have approved of the Miss World beauty pageant. At least 50 people
were killed and 200 injured.

The violent demonstrators in the northern city of Kaduna burned churches and
rampaged through the streets until hundreds of soldiers were deployed to
restore calm and enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

"A lot of people died. We don't know yet exactly how many ... more than 50,"
said Emmanuel Ijewere, the president of the Nigerian Red Cross.

Street demonstrations began Wednesday with the burning of an office of
ThisDay newspaper in Kaduna after it published an article questioning Muslim
groups that have condemned the Miss World pageant, to be held Dec. 7 in the
Nigerian capital, Abuja.

...

In Thursday's rioting, more than 50 people were stabbed, bludgeoned or
burned to death and 200 were seriously injured, Ijewere told The Associated
Press.

At least four churches were destroyed, he said.

Many of the bodies were taken by Red Cross workers and other volunteers to
local mortuaries. Many people remained inside homes that were set afire by
the demonstrators, Ijewere said.

Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress said he watched a crowd
stab one young man, then force a tire filled with gasoline around his neck
and burn him alive. Sani said he saw three other bodies elsewhere in the
city.

Alsa Hassan, founder of another human rights group, Alsa Care, said he saw a
commuter being dragged out of his car and beaten to death by protesters.

Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting "Allahu
Akhbar," or "God is great," ignited makeshift street barricades made of
tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city.
Others were heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin."

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http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20021121_557.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant killed 11 people and wounded 49
when he blew himself up on a crowded bus in Jerusalem Thursday in the first
suicide bombing in Israel since the start of a general election campaign.

The bombing provided further evidence that militants were determined to make
their presence felt in the run-up to Israel's Jan. 28 ballot, and raised the
specter of harsh military retaliation.

The explosion ripped through a bus packed with commuters and school children
during morning rush hour. Witnesses said they heard children who had been on
their way to school screaming "Mamma, Mamma" from the wreckage.

Four children were killed.

...

A man driving past when the bus exploded told Israel radio: "I saw people
draped out of windows. Two or three children were screaming inside the bus
and then they climbed out."

Passers-by raced to help the victims, many of them burned, bloodied and
sobbing. Residents of the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood where the bombing
occurred rushed from their houses desperate to learn the fate of their
children.