I guess pulling your troops out of Iraq and taking an anti-American and anti-Israel position doesn't guarantee you safety after all.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/features/article_1273978.php/Spain_fears_Islamists_reclaiming_al-Andalus

Madrid - While the international spotlight is on 29 suspects on trial for the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Spanish police are working behind the scenes to counter a growing threat of new attacks.

Radicals inspired by al-Qaeda have stepped up propaganda and recruitment activities in Spain, a country they claim as a part of the Islamic world because of its Muslim past, according to police experts.

Extremists present in Spain no longer come just from North Africa, but also from Pakistan.

Spain has become one of the main bases for the recruitment of suicide bombers, some of whom are trained at new al-Qaeda bases in Africa's Sahel zone before they are sent to Iraq. ...

Pakistani radicals are active especially in the north-eastern Catalonia region, where police have detected the presence of Asian groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

The JEM has been implicated in the 2005 bombings in the London transport network, while the LET is linked with attacks in India.

Police are investigating whether the Arabs and Pakistanis have contacts with Chechen Muslims, large numbers of whom reportedly arrived in Spain in 2006.

Islamist radicals proselytize at an estimated 10 per cent of Spain's hundreds of unofficial mosques, which operate in garages, basements and the like.

What a wonderful religion that inspires such cruel barbarism in the name of God.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6412453.stm

The Sabian Mandaeans - one of the oldest religious groups in the world - are facing extinction, according to its leaders.

They claim that Islamic extremists in Iraq are trying to wipe them out through forced conversions, rape and murder.

The Mandaeans are pacifists, followers of Adam, Noah and John the Baptist.

They have lived in what is now Iraq since before Islam and Christianity.

More than 80% have been forced to flee the country and now live as refugees in Syria and Jordan.

Even there they do not feel safe - but they say western governments are unwilling to take them in.

There are thought to be fewer than 70,000 of the Sabian Mandaeans spread across the world - only 5,000 are left in Iraq.

Nine-year-old Selwan likes watching cartoons and playing football.

But he is too scared to leave his flat. The other children tease him.

He has burns all down the side of his face and on 20% of his body.

He was kidnapped by Islamic militants who forced him to jump into a bonfire - because he is Mandaean.

Now his family lives in a tiny flat in a slum in Damascus.

I meet Luay. He is too scared to be identified and does not want to use his full name.

He was dragged off the street by armed men and forcibly circumcised - a practice not allowed in the Mandaean religion. ...

Then there is Enhar, raped by a gang of masked men in front of her husband - because she would not wear a veil.

Mazen used to be a prosperous jeweller. Now he lives in a cramped flat, with his wife and children. Water drips through the ceiling.

His legs are peppered with machine-gun wounds, he can barely walk.

Shoaki wears a Manchester United hat and shows me the scars where a gang beat and cut him with a knife - he watched his brother murdered in front of him.