(...)  In the Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn, a gay maverick, popularised the argument that Muslim immigrants were promoting values inimical to Dutch traditions. When he was murdered in 2002, his political movement all but collapsed. But some of his arguments found a new advocate in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a female Somali immigrant and former Muslim who is now a liberal member of parliament. She urges the Dutch to insist forcefully on the superiority of western liberal values. Ms Hirsi Ali was threatened, along with Mr Van Gogh, after they made a film together that attacked Islamic fundamentalists' treatment of women.    -End item

Of course Mr van Gogh can no longer attack Islamic fundamentalists (in film not by violence) because he was brutally murdered by a Moroccan Islamist in early Nov 2004. Furthermore, radical Islamists didn't just spring-up out of thin air, they have been and continue to be cultivated in mosques. The 'mosque factor' was summed up nicely in Michael Leeden's Nov 10, 2004 article in National Review:

(...)  The killing of Theo van Gogh is a textbook case of what happens when a tolerant but confused society takes political correctness to its illogical extreme. For Mohammed B. did not choose terrorism all by himself. He was indoctrinated and recruited in a mosque where he was pumped full of the Wahabbi doctrine "predominant in Saudi Arabia." The murder of van Gogh was an instant replay of the many murders carried out by Zarqawi and his followers in Iraq, extolled by fanatical Muslim Imams. As Allam reminds us, not all mosques are fundamentalist, extremist, or terrorist, but all the fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists got that way in mosques.        -End item

So clamping down on Islamic cleric's vitriolic encouragement of anti-tolerance and violence toward non-Muslims and moderate Muslims isn't an option for Europe or the U.S., and the number one place to start is in the mosques. Let's hear it from the NYT (finally):

- New York Times LONDON, Jan. 24 via Drudge
In nightly sermons broadcast on the Internet, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, a 46-year-old Syrian-born cleric, has urged young Muslim men all over the world to support the Iraq insurgency on the front line of "the global jihad," investigators say.

He struck a similarly defiant tone this month at a rally attended by 500 people at a central London meeting hall, where a giant screen behind him showed images of the World Trade Center falling. "Allah akbar!" - "God is great" - some audience members shouted at the images.

After eavesdropping for months on his nightly praise of the Sept. 11 hijackers and of suicide bombings, Scotland Yard said last week that it was investigating Sheik Omar, the leader of Al Muhajiroun, Britain's largest Muslim group, and officials are exploring whether they can deport him. "We're fed up with him," said a senior British official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He needs to be stopped, or he needs to go."

The more aggressive approach toward Sheik Omar is part of an increasing effort to monitor and restrict militant imams in Britain and across Europe. Authorities have stepped up surveillance of militant mosques in several countries, including Germany and France. French officials deported an imam this month after officials said he was inspiring men to join the jihad.    Continue reading..