In the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashed referred to the "historic fatwa " issued recently by the senior Saudi Arabian ulema council "which is in practice the most important religious authority in the Islamic world". The fatwa prohibited "targeting public resources, corruption, hijacking planes and blowing up buildings". The significance of the fatwa, according to Al-Rashid, is that it "explicitly prohibits the actions of terrorist groups that claim to be Islamic and who fight in the name of Islam" and that it "deals with international security, not just security in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world". Al-Rashed, however, laments that the fatwa was not given enough publicity. "Without publicity this fatwa remains nothing more than a mere piece of paper... it is in the interests of terrorists and the extremists who support them that this fatwa remains unknown and not receive any publicity," Al-Rashed wrote. Al-Rashed urged the fatwa be promoted by religious figures "who are employed by the state, such as imams, preachers and scholars, and for them to explain and defend it in their mosques and from their minbars ". He also expected that all government publications that might oppose the fatwa be withdrawn, and for all governmental or quasi-governmental funds to stop financing publishing houses, books, seminars and even leaflets that oppose it. "This way the extremist ideology that has invaded Islamic societies can be defeated, and we can return the situation to what it was prior to 1991 when jihad could only be declared by the mufti of a country or the country's institutions," Al-Rashed wrote. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Diana Mukkaled commented on the photo of Faisal Shahzad, an American of Pakistani origin suspected of packing a car with explosives in Times Square in New York. "At first glance, the photo that was aired on TV looked like it was part of a promotional clip," Mukkaled wrote. "In the photo, the young man's appearance, his tanned facial features, his smile and his sunglasses made him look like any other fashionable young man appearing in an advertisement," Mukkaled explained. But in fact, Mukkaled stated, this young man of Kashmiri descent is another model of what is now called Al-Qaeda's third generation. According to Mukkaled, Faisal Shahzad and others who preceded him such as Nidal Malik Hassan, Humam Al-Balawi, Omar Farouk and others have demonstrated the new features of Jihadists being formed via cyberspace. "They are an Islamic generation of 'modernised Jihadism' and cyberspace has allowed them to further exchange expertise, skills, [and information on] killing and dying in an instant," she wrote. According to the information leaked during investigations, Shahzad admitted that he frequently listened to the speeches and lessons of the American sheikh of Yemeni descent, Anwar Al-Awlaki, currently in hiding in Yemen. Al-Awlaki's numerous speeches on YouTube have been downloaded by thousands of visitors, the number of which varies according to the topic of the speech. Despite his appearance and his typical Yemeni features, Al Awlaki's tools of communication are purely Western in terms of his expressions, his approach, and the up-to-date examples he presents when discussing a certain issue, all of which are tinted by Al-Qaeda Islamic ideology, Mukkaled wrote. Al-Awlaki, as perceived by Mukkaled, has somewhat become a model [in his field] and just as popular as Michael Jackson was in his singing career. "Terrorism has become a fashion with its own stars and fans. It is an ever-changing fashion and its stars are also consistently changing. A generation in the West whose characteristics are slightly different from others can now adopt this fad. We are now facing a Western terrorist of Islamic origin," Mukkaled concluded. In the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper Elias Harfoush commented on the controversy that surfaced in the wake of the publication of photographs of Sayeda Warsi, the first Muslim female minister in a British Cabinet, as she entered 10 Downing Street dressed in traditional Pakistani dress, known as the salwar. In "The Salwar enters Downing Street" Harfoush asked about the relationship between the clothing that Muslim women wear to present themselves to the West, and what this clothing says about their assimilation in communities in the West. Harfoush wrote that Warsi's choice of clothing for the first meeting with David Cameron sparked wide-ranging debate about this Pakistani-origin woman's assimilation into British society, even though she has managed to occupy a leading position in its ranks, and her photo was on the front pages of many right-wing British newspapers. The newspapers' prominent featuring of this picture rendered it more important than the meeting of the Cabinet, even though it is a historic event in and of itself, as it is the first coalition government in more than 70 years, Harfoush added. He explained that the debate was not about Warsi's right to be a part of the Cabinet, as she has been in the House of Lords since October 2007, as the first female Muslim there as well. Rather, Harfoush added, it was about the "message" that she wanted to send by wearing Pakistani clothing. However, Harfoush argues that Warsi did not need to declare to all that she is a Muslim and of Pakistani origin. She is well known in the public domain and was a member of the former shadow government, when the Conservatives were in the opposition, after David Cameron chose her to "polish" the image of his party. Moreover, her appearance and name indicate her roots, and did not need any external "make-up" to confirm this. Harfoush argues that most likely Warsi is "a victim of the ongoing debate in all European societies about the meaning of assimilation and the overt aspects that express the degree of assimilation by new immigrants in these societies." The debate questions if there should be a complete break with the clothing that immigrants bring with them to their host country? Or is there a margin of freedom to permit one's own choice? The irony in the case of this woman, Harfoush wrote, is that while her Pakistani dress is being criticised, some Muslims in Britain believe that she has betrayed her religion and principles by joining the Conservatives and entering the government.
