New Yorkers rally over mosque plan

Hundreds of supporters and opponents of the proposed Islamic cultural centre near the World Trade Centre site in New York have staged rallies, kept apart by police and barricades.

Opponents in downtown Manhattan shouted "Enough is enough" on Sunday as supporters yelled "say no to racist fear".

No violence or arrests were reported.

Uniformed police and rows of barricades kept many in the crowds apart. Police officials said extra forces were deployed.

Opponents of the plan, to build a $100m Islamic centre two blocks from the so-called Ground Zero site where the September 11, 2001 attacks took place, appeared to outnumber supporters.

Singer Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blared over loudspeakers as mosque opponents chanted, "No mosque, no way!"

They say the proposed location is insensitive and fear it will harbour religious extremism.

One sign read: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all the terrorists were Muslim."

Religious freedom

Meanwhile, those who back the centre cited the right to religious freedom and the need to promote tolerance and understanding.

"We don't care what bigots say, religious freedom is here to stay," they chanted in the demonstration.

Ilene Kahn, a retired school teacher, said: "This has become a political tool to preach hatred. The peace-loving Muslims did not attack us."

The dispute has sparked a national debate on religious freedom and American values and is becoming an issue on the campaign trail ahead of the mid-term congressional elections.

Barack Obama, the US president, and Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, have earlier said they support the right of Muslims to build the centre near Ground Zero, while Republicans, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, oppose it.

Others suggest it be moved to a less controversial spot.

Some opponents have taken legal action, seeking to void a ruling that would allow construction to proceed, while some construction workers have launched a Hard Hat Pledge, vowing not to work on the project.

The Cordoba Initiative, the group behind the project, describes it as a Muslim-themed community centre with a view of making it a hub for interfaith interaction, as well as a place for Muslims to bridge some of their faith's own divisions.

Plans for the project include a 13-story building to house an auditorium, swimming pool, meeting rooms as well as the prayer space. The structure is architecturally plain and does not include a minaret, dome or other motifs often associated with mosques.

'US ready to resume Iraq combat'

The top US military commander in Iraq has said that a "complete failure" of Iraqi security forces could result in the US resuming combat operations in the conflict-ridden country.

The last US combat brigade withdrew from Iraq on Thursday, and on August 31 combat operations officially end and the role of the remaining 50,000 American troops switches to one of providing advice and assistance.

General Ray Odierno told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that the ability of the Iraqi police and army to keep a lid on the violence was improving, but refused to rule out a return to US combat missions if things went sour.

"My assessment today is they will be [ready]," he said, speaking from Baghdad.

"I think that they continue to grow. We continue to see development in planning, and in their ability to conduct operations.

"The Iraqi people are resilient. They want this. They want to have a democratic country. They want to be on their own. They want to be moving forward and be a contributor to stability in the Middle East."

Despite the advances in building up Iraq's security apparatus, Odierno conceded there were scenarios where the US military might have to resume combat operations.

"If, for example, you had a complete failure of the (Iraqi) security forces. If you had some political divisions within the political forces that caused them to fracture, but we don't see that happening," he said.

"They have been doing so well for so long now that we really believe that we are beyond that point."

But massive security challenges remain, and the extent of the country's political problems was highlighted this week when the winner of the general election five months ago broke off coalition talks with his main rival.

Thursday's pullout, a major step in the handing back of power to the Iraqi people, came two days after a suicide bomber killed at least 59 people at a Baghdad army recruiting centre in Iraq's deadliest attack this year.

Pullout 'on schedule'

Earlier this month, the country's top military officer warned that American forces may be needed for a further decade.

"If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020," Lieutenant General Babaker Zerbari told AFP news agency.

Barack Obama, the US president, will make a major speech on Iraq next week.

Obama, who was an opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning and made a campaign promise to withdraw US forces as quickly as possible, has insisted the ongoing pullout is on schedule and will not be altered

Under a bilateral security pact all US forces must leave Iraq by the end of 2011, but Odierno said special training units could remain, noting similar security arrangements with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"Potentially we could be there beyond 2011," he said.

"If the government of Iraq requests fielding systems that could help them with external threats."

Assange claims 'smear campaign'

Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, has said the now-dropped charge of rape levelled against him in Sweden was "a smear campaign".

Assange told Al Jazeera on Sunday that while he had been forewarned by Australian intelligence on August 11 to expect a campaign against him, it was unclear who was behind it.

"It is clearly a smear campaign ... the only question is who was involved.

"We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence I would not be willing to make a direct allegation."

Assange said that the accusations were completely untrue and expected all charges to be dropped on Monday, adding that his lawyers were in the process of arranging a meeting with the prosecutors.

He also said that this was just one of many attempts to discredit him.

"This is the first sexual related we've had, but we have seen 14 fabricated
documents, for example, that have appeared in various places about this organisation which have been shown to be clear fakes," he said.

"So there are significant forces pushing to perceive things in a particular way".

'No mistake'

Swedish authorities had initially issued a warrant for Assange's arrest on Friday night, but dropped the warrant and the rape charge the next day.

Eva Finne, the country's chief prosecutor, reviewed the evidence and withdrew the warrant for his arrest,deciding there was "no longer reason to believe" Assange had committed rape, Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for Finne, said.

"You can't call it a mistake because the prosecutor in question has to make a decision based on the information available at the moment of the decision," Rosander told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

Finne's office has not contacted Assange and is not searching for him and will make a decision whether to pursue the molestation charge later this week, Rosander said.

The charges against Assange, which come around a month after Wikileaks incensed the US government by releasing a trove of American military informationabout the war in Afghanistan, quickly spread around the internet.

New document leaks

After the Swedish tabloid Expressen first published reportsthat the arrest warrant had been issued for Assange, Wikileaks responded on Twitter:"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one.

"No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting."

Assange's organisation caused controversy in Julywhen it released 75,000 classified US military reports containing information about the Nato war effort in Afghanistan.

The US government condemned the release of the documents, saying the website had "blood on its hands" for naming people who had helped its military against groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and ordered Wikileaks to return the files.

Assange told Al Jazeera those claims were "an extraordinary thing to hear".

"The Pentagon so far says it not aware of any incident of people coming to harm by what we have released. At the time of the release we took aside 15,000 documents that we believed needed extra careful review and those are the documents we are reviewing and will be released."

According to Assange, the documents will be released within the next two to four weeks.

Two alleged victims

Two women in their twenties made the allegations against Assange, according to Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, reporting from London.

One woman claimed Assange raped her last weekend in Stockholm, while another alleged he molested her on Tuesday in a separate town in Sweden, Brennan said.

"I think it's quite natural that these rumors happen in a very famous case like this, and I'm not surprised at all," Rosander, the prosecutor's spokeswoman, told Al Jazeera.

She said she could not give any details on the allegations.

Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to maintain the advantages it receives from the country's whistle-blowing protection laws. Wikileaks also has many of its servers in Sweden.

Islamic Indonesian Muslims praying in the wrong direction

Indonesia's Muslims learned on Friday they have been praying in the wrong direction, after the country's highest Islamic authority said its directive on the direction of Mecca actually had people facing Africa.

Muslims are supposed to face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during prayer and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict in March stipulating westward was the correct direction from the world's most populous Muslim country.

"But it has been decided that actually the mosques are facing Somalia or Kenya, so we are now suggesting people shift the direction slightly to the north-west," the head of the MUI, Cholil Ridwan, told Reuters. "There's no need to knock down mosques, just shift your direction slightly during prayer."

Ridwan said Muslims need not fear that their prayers have been wasted because they were facing the wrong way.

"Their prayers will still be heard by Allah," he said.

Said Agil Siradj, head of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, told English language newspaper the Jakarta Globe that the confusion showed the MUI issued edicts too fast and that this was a lesson for them.

The MUI has, in the past, issued controversial edicts banning Muslims from chanting during yoga, and from smoking.

Indonesia is a majority Muslim but officially secular country.
Source: Reuters