"The World Islamic Front's Declaration to Wage Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders," which first appeared in al-Quds al-'Arabi on February 23, 1998. Note the strong religious appeal. A few excerpts:
Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book (Koran), controls the clouds, defeats factionalism and says in His Book: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them -- seize them, besiege them and be ready to ambush them" (9:5). And prayers and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad bin 'Abdullah, who said: "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped -- Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my commandments."
Never since Allah made the Arabian Peninsula flat, created its desert and encircled it with seas has it been stormed by any force like the Crusader hordes which have spread in it like locusts, consuming its wealth and polluting its fertility. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims in unison -- as if fighting over a plate of food! In face of this critical situation and lack of support, we are all obliged to discuss current events, as well as reach an agreement on how (best) to settle the matter.
[...]
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, His Messenger and the Muslims.
Ulema throughout Islamic history are unanimously agreed that the Jihad is an individual duty whenever the enemy tears into the lands of the Muslims. This was related by Imam bin Qudama in al-Mughni; Imam al-Kisa'i in al-Bada'i; al-Qurtubi in his commentary; and the Sheik of Islam (Ibn Taymiyya) in his chronicles, where he states: "As for defensive warfare, this is the greatest way to defend sanctity and religion. This is an obligation consensually agreed to (by the Ulema). After faith, there is nothing more sacred than repulsing the enemy who attacks religion and life."
On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we hereby issue the following decree to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country -- this until the Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem) and the Holy Mosque (Mecca) are liberated from their grip, and until their armies withdraw from all the lands of Islam, defeated, shattered and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the Word of the Most High -- "(F)ight the pagans all together as they fight you all together" (9:36) and the Word of the Most High, "Fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and (all) religion belongs to Allah" (8:39).
And the Most High said: "And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and on behalf of those oppressed men, women and children who cry out, Lord! Rescue us from this town and its oppressors. Give us from Your Presence some protecting friend! Give us from Your Presence some defender!" (4:75).
By Allah's leave we call upon every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and seize their money wherever and whenever they find them.
We also call on Muslim Ulema, leaders, youths and soldiers to launch the raid on the Devil's army -- the Americans -- and whoever allies with them from the supporters of Satan, to rout those behind them so that they may learn (a lesson).
Allah Most High said: "O you who have believed! Respond to Allah and the Messenger whenever He calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah comes between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom you shall (all) be gathered" (8:24).
Allah Most High said: "O you who have believed! What is the matter with you? When you are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, you cling so heavily to the earth! Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, in comparison to the Hereafter. Unless you go forth (and fight), He will punish you with a grievous torment, and put others in your place. But He you cannot harm in the least; for Allah has power over all things" (9: 38-39).
Allah Most High said: "So do not lose heart, nor fall into despair. Have faith and you shall triumph" (3:139).
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Hezbollah Uses Mass-Kill Rockets
Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Iranian Built Katyusha MLRS
"You won't see this kind of weapon in the arsenal of any civilized country," the deputy head of the police bomb disposal unit said. "Certainly not with Israel or the United States."
HAIFA, Israel -- The rockets Hezbollah is raining down on Haifa and much of northern Israel are distinctly different from the Soviet-built katyushas of earlier wars, Israeli officials say.
Instead of standard military fragmentation warheads – deadly enough – Hezbollah's rockets are packed with thousands of tiny ball-bearings, which burst out from the warhead in every direction like so many bullets.
"This kind of rocket gives no one a chance," Haifa police chief, Commander Nir Meriash, said today.
Haifa is Israel's third-largest city, and since the rocket attacks began on July 12, nearly half its roughly 270,000 population has fled for safety to Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel.
More than 1,200 rockets have hit northern Israel over the past thirteen days, killing 17 civilians and wounding another 410, according to the Israeli police.
Another 609 people have been treated for shock and minor injuries and released, said regional police commander, Maj. Gen. Ronen Dan. At least 60 of the Hezbollah rockets have slammed into Haifa over the past two weeks. Most of them have been 220 mm Katyusha-type rockets, made in Syria. Each rocket carries 40,000 deadly ball bearings, packed into a warhead with 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of high explosives.
In addition, around a half-dozen of the larger FAJR-3 rockets have hit the Haifa area, including a deadly strike on July 16 that killed eight railway workers in a train maintenance depot.
Iranian Built FAJR-3 MLRS
The FAJR rockets, made in Iran, carry a 110 pound warhead. But what made the July 16 strike so deadly were the tiny ball bearings packed inside.
"Haifa has never been attacked like this," Meriash said. "These attacks are meant to kill civilians."
Even as Haifa police tried to attend to the wounded and clear the scene of any unexploded ordnance, three more rockets struck elsewhere in the city.
Although the rockets are relatively small, they have smashed through the tile roofs and the soft cinderblock walls of apartment houses and other dwellings, killing and wounding people on several floors.
When they explode out in the open, anyone within a fifty meter radius will be seriously wounded.
"I found a woman lying in the street with one of her legs beside her, detached from her body," Meriash said. That attack occurred last Friday, July 21.
In attacks here just yesterday, one man was killed while driving to work. Another was struck by the deadly ball-bearings while running to reach a shelter after the air raid siren went off. He also died.
Most of these rockets are highly inaccurate, wandering off their aim point by anywhere from two to seven percent over distances up to 75 kilometers (45 miles).
That can mean missing their target by half a mile or more.
But Haifa is an enormous target-rich environment, with a sprawling city center that climbs up a mountain directly across from Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
Vast industrial areas in low-lying areas along the port contain sprawling chemical plants and a refinery. The police have taken special measures to protect those sites, they said.
North of here, closer to the Lebanese border, Hezbollah is using extended-range katyushas known as "Raed" rockets. These also are packed with the deadly ball bearings, and have killed and maimed civilians in dozens of Israeli towns and agricultural settlements along the Mediterranean and in the Galilee.
type81_122mm Raed MLRS firing a salvo
The Chinese-made Raed rockets were supplied to Hezbollah by Iran.
British-born Michael Cardash said his bomb disposal teams had physically handled debris from 444 of those attacks, but has rarely been called upon to disable live munitions.
"These weapons were all made in factories. So they work," he said.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Iranian Built Katyusha MLRS
"You won't see this kind of weapon in the arsenal of any civilized country," the deputy head of the police bomb disposal unit said. "Certainly not with Israel or the United States."
HAIFA, Israel -- The rockets Hezbollah is raining down on Haifa and much of northern Israel are distinctly different from the Soviet-built katyushas of earlier wars, Israeli officials say.
Instead of standard military fragmentation warheads – deadly enough – Hezbollah's rockets are packed with thousands of tiny ball-bearings, which burst out from the warhead in every direction like so many bullets.
"This kind of rocket gives no one a chance," Haifa police chief, Commander Nir Meriash, said today.
Haifa is Israel's third-largest city, and since the rocket attacks began on July 12, nearly half its roughly 270,000 population has fled for safety to Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel.
More than 1,200 rockets have hit northern Israel over the past thirteen days, killing 17 civilians and wounding another 410, according to the Israeli police.
Another 609 people have been treated for shock and minor injuries and released, said regional police commander, Maj. Gen. Ronen Dan. At least 60 of the Hezbollah rockets have slammed into Haifa over the past two weeks. Most of them have been 220 mm Katyusha-type rockets, made in Syria. Each rocket carries 40,000 deadly ball bearings, packed into a warhead with 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of high explosives.
In addition, around a half-dozen of the larger FAJR-3 rockets have hit the Haifa area, including a deadly strike on July 16 that killed eight railway workers in a train maintenance depot.
Iranian Built FAJR-3 MLRS
The FAJR rockets, made in Iran, carry a 110 pound warhead. But what made the July 16 strike so deadly were the tiny ball bearings packed inside.
"Haifa has never been attacked like this," Meriash said. "These attacks are meant to kill civilians."
Even as Haifa police tried to attend to the wounded and clear the scene of any unexploded ordnance, three more rockets struck elsewhere in the city.
Although the rockets are relatively small, they have smashed through the tile roofs and the soft cinderblock walls of apartment houses and other dwellings, killing and wounding people on several floors.
When they explode out in the open, anyone within a fifty meter radius will be seriously wounded.
"I found a woman lying in the street with one of her legs beside her, detached from her body," Meriash said. That attack occurred last Friday, July 21.
In attacks here just yesterday, one man was killed while driving to work. Another was struck by the deadly ball-bearings while running to reach a shelter after the air raid siren went off. He also died.
Most of these rockets are highly inaccurate, wandering off their aim point by anywhere from two to seven percent over distances up to 75 kilometers (45 miles).
That can mean missing their target by half a mile or more.
But Haifa is an enormous target-rich environment, with a sprawling city center that climbs up a mountain directly across from Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
Vast industrial areas in low-lying areas along the port contain sprawling chemical plants and a refinery. The police have taken special measures to protect those sites, they said.
North of here, closer to the Lebanese border, Hezbollah is using extended-range katyushas known as "Raed" rockets. These also are packed with the deadly ball bearings, and have killed and maimed civilians in dozens of Israeli towns and agricultural settlements along the Mediterranean and in the Galilee.
type81_122mm Raed MLRS firing a salvo
The Chinese-made Raed rockets were supplied to Hezbollah by Iran.
British-born Michael Cardash said his bomb disposal teams had physically handled debris from 444 of those attacks, but has rarely been called upon to disable live munitions.
"These weapons were all made in factories. So they work," he said.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Dear Muslims: What is It that You Don’t Understand?
A very clear-minded open letter to the Muslims of the world that want to wage war on the rest of us.
From www.amilimani.com
We, the non-Muslims—the infidels, heathens, unbelievers, apostates, enemies of Allah, najis (soiled), as you prefer to call us—would like to know what is it that you don’t understand and what is it that makes you behave so badly toward us? You blame us for your problems and believe if we embrace Islam and help establish the Islamic ummah, the earth would be cleansed of us, transformed to paradise, and all your problems disappear?
Respectfully, we disagree. We believe that you and your system of belief are at the core of your problems; that you need to critically examine the facts, rather than conveniently blame others for your ills. Keep in mind that beliefs and ideas make people human, that beliefs are roadmaps of life. To the extent that the roadmap is rational and enlightened, the path of life is illumined, pitfalls are avoided and obstacles are removed. The terrain of life has greatly changed since the roadmap of Islam was given to the wondering primitives of Arabian Peninsula.
The twenty first century presents great challenges and opportunities that demand new ways of thinking and behaving. The doctrine of Islam may have been appropriate for the desert dwellers of some 1400 years ago, the people you yourselves stigmatize as “The Ignorant.” It is dysfunctional today to say the least. As a matter of fact, Islam went astray from the very beginning and inflicted a great deal of suffering on both its followers as well as those who resisted its advance.
Early on, Prophet Muhammad explicitly said, “There is no compulsion in religion.” He further confirmed that admonition, “For you, your religion; and for me, my religion.” Why is it that as soon as you gathered enough power, you violated those exhortations and set out to force your belief and way of life on others at the point of the sword? You further conveniently ignored your own teaching by unsheathing your sword at “the people of the book”—Jews and Christians. You spared them death only if they converted or consented to pay you backbreaking religious taxes of jizya.
Your cruel successful subjugation of the people of the Arabian Peninsula whetted your appetite for further conquests. You ventured into the civilized world—to Persia, the Levant, Spain, and eventually to the gates of Vienna. Cruelty and terror were your instruments of policy—weapons you liberally use today whenever and wherever you are able.
Contempt and hostility toward non-Muslims living under your rule as well as those outside of your domain have characterized your attitude and behavior throughout the history. Isn’t it enough? Is it not now the time to stand back and take a good look at what is the root cause of this pathological state of affairs?
Life is precious. It is to be protected, nurtured and celebrated. Mankind is moving, perhaps at a glacier pace, toward reconciliation, ever-expanding inclusiveness without any group or ideology imposing itself on others. Any attempt against this trend of unity in diversity is doomed to failure, as exemplified by the demise of fascism and communism.
Your charter, the Quran, in some parts, preaches discrimination, death and imposition of its dogma on everyone. The political system of Islam, just like fascism and communism, is a dysfunctional ideology that needs to be abandoned. Humanity has matured considerably since the time of Muhammad. In order to continue its forward march, mankind must follow a roadmap appropriate for its age and state of development. It is foolish to insist that a book written over 1400 years ago must serve as the one and only guide for humanity.
Progress thrives in a marketplace of free ideas, where beliefs and viewpoints, not people, clash. It is through the unimpeded clash of ideas that the best decisions and actions are reached. Political Islam is anathema to this invaluable principle. By forcing itself on any and all people it could, Islam violated this vital principle and it aims to continue to do so to this day. Islam’s inflexible and intolerant dogmatism is at the heart of Islamic world’s stagnation and backwardness. It is evident that staying put, so to speak, does not allow going forward. It is not the non-Muslim world, the convenient scapegoat, but Islam itself which is the culprit for your chronic ills.
The non-Muslims of the twenty first century treasure freedom in all its forms and are not going to lend their necks passively to the yoke of blind obedience and imitation.
Is the present argument too difficult to understand? Is it too threatening to the security of your mindset to concede its validity? Please have the courage and take that fateful step. Inhale the life-nurturing fragrance of freedom. Islam is a slaveholder. It feels that it owns you; it condemns you as apostate to be beheaded if you dare to leave its chains. The non-Muslims, by contrast, respect you as a free human and support your inalienable right to believe whatever you want to believe—even if it is a non-belief. If you still wish to wrap yourself in your suffocating security blanket—Islam—please keep it to yourself and refrain from forcing it on others.
From www.amilimani.com
We, the non-Muslims—the infidels, heathens, unbelievers, apostates, enemies of Allah, najis (soiled), as you prefer to call us—would like to know what is it that you don’t understand and what is it that makes you behave so badly toward us? You blame us for your problems and believe if we embrace Islam and help establish the Islamic ummah, the earth would be cleansed of us, transformed to paradise, and all your problems disappear?
Respectfully, we disagree. We believe that you and your system of belief are at the core of your problems; that you need to critically examine the facts, rather than conveniently blame others for your ills. Keep in mind that beliefs and ideas make people human, that beliefs are roadmaps of life. To the extent that the roadmap is rational and enlightened, the path of life is illumined, pitfalls are avoided and obstacles are removed. The terrain of life has greatly changed since the roadmap of Islam was given to the wondering primitives of Arabian Peninsula.
The twenty first century presents great challenges and opportunities that demand new ways of thinking and behaving. The doctrine of Islam may have been appropriate for the desert dwellers of some 1400 years ago, the people you yourselves stigmatize as “The Ignorant.” It is dysfunctional today to say the least. As a matter of fact, Islam went astray from the very beginning and inflicted a great deal of suffering on both its followers as well as those who resisted its advance.
Early on, Prophet Muhammad explicitly said, “There is no compulsion in religion.” He further confirmed that admonition, “For you, your religion; and for me, my religion.” Why is it that as soon as you gathered enough power, you violated those exhortations and set out to force your belief and way of life on others at the point of the sword? You further conveniently ignored your own teaching by unsheathing your sword at “the people of the book”—Jews and Christians. You spared them death only if they converted or consented to pay you backbreaking religious taxes of jizya.
Your cruel successful subjugation of the people of the Arabian Peninsula whetted your appetite for further conquests. You ventured into the civilized world—to Persia, the Levant, Spain, and eventually to the gates of Vienna. Cruelty and terror were your instruments of policy—weapons you liberally use today whenever and wherever you are able.
Contempt and hostility toward non-Muslims living under your rule as well as those outside of your domain have characterized your attitude and behavior throughout the history. Isn’t it enough? Is it not now the time to stand back and take a good look at what is the root cause of this pathological state of affairs?
Life is precious. It is to be protected, nurtured and celebrated. Mankind is moving, perhaps at a glacier pace, toward reconciliation, ever-expanding inclusiveness without any group or ideology imposing itself on others. Any attempt against this trend of unity in diversity is doomed to failure, as exemplified by the demise of fascism and communism.
Your charter, the Quran, in some parts, preaches discrimination, death and imposition of its dogma on everyone. The political system of Islam, just like fascism and communism, is a dysfunctional ideology that needs to be abandoned. Humanity has matured considerably since the time of Muhammad. In order to continue its forward march, mankind must follow a roadmap appropriate for its age and state of development. It is foolish to insist that a book written over 1400 years ago must serve as the one and only guide for humanity.
Progress thrives in a marketplace of free ideas, where beliefs and viewpoints, not people, clash. It is through the unimpeded clash of ideas that the best decisions and actions are reached. Political Islam is anathema to this invaluable principle. By forcing itself on any and all people it could, Islam violated this vital principle and it aims to continue to do so to this day. Islam’s inflexible and intolerant dogmatism is at the heart of Islamic world’s stagnation and backwardness. It is evident that staying put, so to speak, does not allow going forward. It is not the non-Muslim world, the convenient scapegoat, but Islam itself which is the culprit for your chronic ills.
The non-Muslims of the twenty first century treasure freedom in all its forms and are not going to lend their necks passively to the yoke of blind obedience and imitation.
Is the present argument too difficult to understand? Is it too threatening to the security of your mindset to concede its validity? Please have the courage and take that fateful step. Inhale the life-nurturing fragrance of freedom. Islam is a slaveholder. It feels that it owns you; it condemns you as apostate to be beheaded if you dare to leave its chains. The non-Muslims, by contrast, respect you as a free human and support your inalienable right to believe whatever you want to believe—even if it is a non-belief. If you still wish to wrap yourself in your suffocating security blanket—Islam—please keep it to yourself and refrain from forcing it on others.
THE PACT OF UMAR (The Dhimma)
The "Pact of Umar" reflects the general teaching of Islam concerning non-Muslims, and accordingly, millions of Christians continue to live as second class citizens in Islamic countries.
The following is a translation of the pact:
The Status of Non-Muslims Under Muslim Rule
We heard from 'Abdul-Rahman Ibn Ghanam [died in year 78 H. 697 AD.] as follows: When Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:
The "Pact of Umar" reflects the general teaching of Islam concerning non-Muslims, and accordingly, millions of Christians continue to live as second class citizens in Islamic countries.
The following is a translation of the pact:
The Status of Non-Muslims Under Muslim Rule
We heard from 'Abdul-Rahman Ibn Ghanam [died in year 78 H. 697 AD.] as follows: When Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:
In the name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of Allah Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:
We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.
We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.
We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.
We shall not teach the Qur'an to our children.
We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.
We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.
We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear.
We shall not adopt their kunyas.(the use of their epithets)
We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.
We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.
We shall not sell fermented drinks.
We shall clip the fronts of our heads.
We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the belts round our waists.
We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. We shall not raise our voices in our churches in any manner offending the honor of the Muslims.
We shall not parade carrying our palm branches [on Palm Sunday] or hold in public our Ba'ooth [Easter Monday's prayer]
We shall not raise our voices at the burial of our dead.
We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.
We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.
We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims.
(When I brought the letter to Umar, he added, "And we shall not strike a Muslim. We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.
If we in any way violate these undertakings for which we ourselves stand surety, we forfeit our covenant [dhimma], and we become liable to the penalties for contumacy and sedition.
Umar Ibn Al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They are: "They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims," and "Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact."
From Al-Turtushi's book, Siraj al-Muluk.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
This Months Islamofacist Centerfold: Hassan Nasrallah
Hezbollah's HHCIC(Head Hand Chopper In Charge) Hassan Nasrallah, has stated previously..."A defeat in Lebanon will end the region's resistance movements, the Palestinian cause and impose Israel's conditions for a settlement," [We should be so lucky...] He also warned..."If Israel is able to defeat the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, God forbid, then the Arab world, governments and peoples will drown in eternal humiliation from which they will have no way out." As if the humiliation of the tens if not Hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered so far this year in the name of "Allah" wasn't enough of an embarrassment.
Considering the fact that Hamas is sorely over-matched in the south, and suing for peace, and Hezbollah is retreating from S. Lebanon, "the resistance"s defeat is a foregone conclusion. So if he cannot win military victories, which is now evident...It becomes an imperative to give the Illusion of "victory". So, the new rhetoric coming from HHCIC Nasrallah is..."I don't want to raise expectations. I never said that the Israelis cannot reach any place in southern Lebanon," ...
But if he and his militants can survive and keep fighting, he will cement his image as the unlikely new hero of Arab nationalism. So, if Hezbollah Flees, That Is A "victory", and unless the Israelis lose there humanity(not likely) and slaughters the "Ebolas" and "Hams" to the last...It is a victory for "the resistance". The winner in all of this of course is Nasrallah who climbs over the pile of dead Lebanese Human Shields and says because you showed mercy, I have won, and the entire Arab World will embrace him as a hero, for causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and billions in damage, possibly toppling the Lebanese government...Does any of this sound familiar? Is it that easy? Kill a few thousand,(Muslims, Infidels...whichever) and you get your picture on a poster? Nasrallah, Mashal-Haniyeh, Araffat, Bin Laden, Nidal, Hussein, Khomeini, Nasser...What do all these people have in common? Method, Motive, Opportunity, Cause and Effect. Behold the Arab Worlds newest Mass-Murdering centerfold Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for Hassan Nasrullah.
Ironically, he looks a lot like a friend of mine, who happens to be a really nice guy...
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Israel's last resort
An Article from the NY Daily News
After withdrawal, Hamas and Hezbollah
have waged endless, ruthless war
Eleven months ago, Israel withdrew from every last inch of the Gaza Strip. They dismantled all military bases, turned over functioning greenhouses that could employ 4,000 people, expelled all 7,500 Israeli settlers at a huge financial and political cost and declared the lines that divide Israel from Gaza to be an international frontier, making Gaza the first independent Palestinian territory ever.
Everyone's expectation was that the Palestinians, so treated, would show the world what they could achieve with freedom. Alas, they have shown all too well. Not one day of peace has followed.
The pattern was set on the very day of Israel's pullout, when Palestinian forces fired rockets into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. The final straw was the tunneling under the border with Israel, the attack on an Israeli tank and the point-blank murder of two Israeli soldiers and kidnapping of a third.
A few days later, inspired by the rhetorical threats of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah of Lebanon joined Hamas by attacking Israel from the north. They killed eight Israeli soldiers, kidnapped two others and began firing rockets into Israel.
The Palestinians have given the lie to virtually all the scenarios so hopefully envisaged by their friends. They did not construct schools, roads and hospitals; they made no effort to turn Gaza into a thriving state. They elected a radical Islamic Hamas government. They permitted the smuggling of huge quantities of weapons and terrorists while creating new bases for terror. Palestinian society has descended ever more into advanced anarchy.
At first, the Israelis tried nonlethal deterrence - diplomatic warnings, then sonic booms from jets. They failed. It was a sad demonstration of the truth in the metaphor that in the Middle East, the law of wild nature applies: An animal that is perceived as weak invites attack. The Israelis fell back on targeted assassinations against terrorist leadership, despite the unavoidable risk that nonterrorists might be killed since the terrorists - cynically and callously - hide among civilians.
Some suggest Israel should ignore the Hamas and Hezbollah rockets because they are puny and erratic. That's easy to say from an armchair, but every one of the rockets is intended to kill or maim as many Israeli civilians as possible. The Israeli town of Sderot lost 13 people from rocket fire. That city is now living under siege, and now the Palestinians have begun firing longer-range rockets that have reached larger cities.
The last thing Israel wanted to do was get involved again in Gaza, much less in Lebanon, but Hamas and Hezbollah gave them no choice. Who would doubt the U.S. response if rockets were raining from across the Mexican border into neighboring American cities or Canadian forces simultaneously killed and kidnapped Americans on U.S. soil? And who but Israel would be shipping basic foodstuffs, medicines and chlorine containers for purifying drinking water to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
And what about Mahmoud Abbas, the hope of the West? Sadly, what we have witnessed is the failure of Abbas to pressure the Hamas government. He did not meet the commitment he gave to Israeli officials to muster the forces for a house-to-house search to locate the abducted soldier. And he agreed to a version of Hamas' so-called prisoners' document - which reopens the most vital questions about Israel's right to exist and endorses terrorism and violence that should have been eliminated by now.
The Oslo agreement called for an end to terror. The prisoners' document is a manifesto for terror. It calls for continuing violence and for "popular resistance" against the occupation "in all its forms, places and policies," and "by all means," language long recognized as code for legitimizing the murder of Israelis.
Most critically, it advocates the right of return for some 4 million Palestinian refugees, the descendants of the 700,000 Arabs who fled during the 1948 War, primarily at the behest of their own leaders. These refugees are now proposed to be returned to pre-1967 Israel, virtually putting the Jews into a minority in their own country - the very situation that the UN ruled out in deciding the original partition of Palestine.
It is clear again that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute stems not from Israel's unwillingness to compromise but from the nature of its adversary. Most fair-minded observers share the Israeli conclusion that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. The Middle East equation could not be starker or more depressing. It reveals once again that Hamas and the Palestinians, now joined by Hezbollah, their partners in terrorism and murder, both armed and financed by Iran, wish to get rid of Israel.
This will be a "long war" in which victory will be the culmination of a series of unavoidable catastrophes.
Originally published on July 14, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
No offence, imam, but we must call it Islamic terror
I just finished reading this, IMO, it is important to read and understand the implications of it on our society...
OP-ED by Michael Portillo in www.timesonline.co.uk
After the terrorist outrages of July 7, 2005, most Londoners have continued to travel by bus, train and Underground. They are more vigilant, but few seem to experience anxiety about a repeat attack during their journey. That is remarkable because objectively the chances of another massacre must be higher than a year ago.
Last year the bombs were the first shock. The second was to discover that the terrorists were suicide bombers and British. We could have coped with the outrage more easily had the murderers been foreigners, raised in squalor, brainwashed under a theocratic dictatorship and shipped here to massacre people for whom they had no kindred feelings.
It is more plausible that we could defend the country against an exterior threat than defeat one that comes from within. We can hope to monitor comings and goings at our airports and to keep tabs on people who stand out because they are visitors. But the task is almost hopeless if the perpetrators live among us. If four young men who had enjoyed the advantages of life in Britain decide to kill themselves and as many others as possible, then why should there not be 400 or 4,000 more?
Once we understand that, we feel less safe. Also, things have got worse over the past year. Although there has been no anti-Islamic backlash it seems that many British Muslims feel victimised by the authorities’ response to terror. They think they face discrimination when stopped and searched. The bungled police operation in Forest Gate has become an emblem of supposed repression.
Even peace-loving Muslim spokesmen feel obliged to give credence to the perception that their community is being unfairly harassed. It causes some young Muslim men to withdraw further from a British society claimed to be hostile. At best that surrounds the terrorists with a penumbra of disaffected Muslims who may not condemn their crimes or denounce their murderous plots. At worst it enlarges the pool from which new bombers can be recruited.
It is there that Al-Qaeda has scored its greatest success. More significant for the long term than the bombs is the impact that terror has in dividing the groups that make up our society, and in increasing the appeal of militancy to those who can be duped into seeing themselves as repressed.
Muslim complaints about being victimised are perversely directed. Muslims are victims of the bombers, not of the state or the police. It is the terrorists who make Muslims potential objects of suspicion and fear because the bombers murder in the name of Islam. Muslims have every right to be outraged, but their fury should focus on the men of violence. The police action in Forest Gate was cack-handed and the shooting of one of the “suspects” was indefensible. But given the profile of the terrorists, Muslims are bound to be more affected. By analogy, when police are looking for a rapist they interview males without anyone believing them to be institutional men haters.
There are those who in the interests of community relations denounce linking the word Islamic to “violence” or “extremism”. They object that we did not call the IRA “Catholic terrorists”, nor do we speak of “Christian extremism” or link Christian fundamentalism to violence.
There are good reasons for that. Although the IRA is rooted in the Catholic community, its aims are political and secular. Although there certainly are Christian extremists today, just now they are not murdering people in the name of purifying the world. By contrast, across the globe human beings are being slaughtered in large numbers by Muslims quoting from the Koran and vowing death to infidels, including other Muslim sects. Their objectives are political and religious.
So to try to condemn the expression “Islamic violence” is a dangerous attempt at censorship that would hamper our understanding of the threat we face. The term is certainly offensive to Muslims, but the offence is caused by the bombers, not by those who describe the process.
Last week Tony Blair caused a furore by calling on Muslims to do more to control, denounce or deliver up the men who preach and practise violence. Some Muslim spokesmen said that was a divisive remark that stigmatised Muslims instead of recognising that the problem was one for British society as a whole.
The prime minister’s exhortation was valid. The bombers are not casualties of British society. Shehzad Tanweer, the Aldgate murderer, was only 22 yet left £121,000 after tax. The bombers’ grievances cannot be bought off with more money for schools or a new youth centre. They were corrupted, I assume, by theoreticians of annihilation from within their community. Their training was probably perfected in an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan.
Abdur-Raheem Green is an imam who believes that he preached to some of the 7/7 murderers and hopes that nothing he said encouraged them. When asked last week whether he would turn over to the authorities young men who were moving towards terrorism, his answer was ambiguous. He argued that it would be better for him to dissuade them rather than denounce them because that would risk creating further alienation. That is not the response that Blair, speaking for most Britons, is seeking.
There is another disagreeable ambiguity when some spokesmen link terror to British foreign policy. Anas Altikriti, the director of the Islam Expo (now taking place at Alexandra Palace in north London), wrote last week: “We will not stand for our country and people being terrorised nor will we stand for our government terrorising any other peoples.” That is presumably a reference to Iraq and Afghanistan. What does “will not stand for” mean?
Even Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a brave opponent of the fundamentalists who argues that the Koran does not authorise violence, calls on Britain to reappraise its foreign policy. In many Muslim minds, apparently, terrorism in Britain has to be understood (even if not condoned) as a reaction to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The chronology undermines that argument. The allied invasion of Afghanistan was a response to the terrorist murder of nearly 3,000 civilians in New York and Washington. No serious figure denies that Al-Qaeda organised the crime from its bases in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Iraq is a more controversial case. It has become a mess. But relatively few Iraqis died when we invaded and overthrew their genocidal dictator. The vast majority of Muslims who have been killed since have been murdered by other Muslims — by Al-Qaeda, by Sunni and Shi’ite extremists or by Saddam Hussein loyalists. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq and a Sunni, urged death to Shi’ites whom he described as poisonous snakes and atheists. Al-Qaeda is determined to destroy the West, but in the short term most of its victims will be Muslims in any place where it can topple their government to replace it with a regime as repressive and homicidal as the Taliban’s was.
Many British people object to Blair’s foreign policy. But only Muslim suicide bombers claim it as a justification for murder. In Tanweer’s videotape released last week he links his crime to Afghanistan and Iraq. But just in case anyone is tempted to think that Britain could avoid terrorism by withdrawing from those countries, Tanweer also calls on us to end our military and financial links with America and Israel. The United States was attacked in 2001 not because it had invaded another country (except to save Muslim lives in Bosnia), but because it is rampantly secular and supports Israel’s right to exist.
If the drifting apart of the Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Britain has increased the danger of terror, it follows that reconciliation and integration would make us safer. I do not mean what I write here to exacerbate the divisions in any way. Rather I believe that we can move closer if we are more honest about what is happening. Mayhem is being unleashed globally in the name of Islam. There is no point denying it, especially since most of those butchered have been Muslim. The British state is not the problem but part of the solution. A tolerant society can survive only if it bands together to suppress intolerance because we are all victims of that intolerance.
Every Briton must join in that effort, no ifs, no buts and no excuses.
OP-ED by Michael Portillo in www.timesonline.co.uk
After the terrorist outrages of July 7, 2005, most Londoners have continued to travel by bus, train and Underground. They are more vigilant, but few seem to experience anxiety about a repeat attack during their journey. That is remarkable because objectively the chances of another massacre must be higher than a year ago.
Last year the bombs were the first shock. The second was to discover that the terrorists were suicide bombers and British. We could have coped with the outrage more easily had the murderers been foreigners, raised in squalor, brainwashed under a theocratic dictatorship and shipped here to massacre people for whom they had no kindred feelings.
It is more plausible that we could defend the country against an exterior threat than defeat one that comes from within. We can hope to monitor comings and goings at our airports and to keep tabs on people who stand out because they are visitors. But the task is almost hopeless if the perpetrators live among us. If four young men who had enjoyed the advantages of life in Britain decide to kill themselves and as many others as possible, then why should there not be 400 or 4,000 more?
Once we understand that, we feel less safe. Also, things have got worse over the past year. Although there has been no anti-Islamic backlash it seems that many British Muslims feel victimised by the authorities’ response to terror. They think they face discrimination when stopped and searched. The bungled police operation in Forest Gate has become an emblem of supposed repression.
Even peace-loving Muslim spokesmen feel obliged to give credence to the perception that their community is being unfairly harassed. It causes some young Muslim men to withdraw further from a British society claimed to be hostile. At best that surrounds the terrorists with a penumbra of disaffected Muslims who may not condemn their crimes or denounce their murderous plots. At worst it enlarges the pool from which new bombers can be recruited.
It is there that Al-Qaeda has scored its greatest success. More significant for the long term than the bombs is the impact that terror has in dividing the groups that make up our society, and in increasing the appeal of militancy to those who can be duped into seeing themselves as repressed.
Muslim complaints about being victimised are perversely directed. Muslims are victims of the bombers, not of the state or the police. It is the terrorists who make Muslims potential objects of suspicion and fear because the bombers murder in the name of Islam. Muslims have every right to be outraged, but their fury should focus on the men of violence. The police action in Forest Gate was cack-handed and the shooting of one of the “suspects” was indefensible. But given the profile of the terrorists, Muslims are bound to be more affected. By analogy, when police are looking for a rapist they interview males without anyone believing them to be institutional men haters.
There are those who in the interests of community relations denounce linking the word Islamic to “violence” or “extremism”. They object that we did not call the IRA “Catholic terrorists”, nor do we speak of “Christian extremism” or link Christian fundamentalism to violence.
There are good reasons for that. Although the IRA is rooted in the Catholic community, its aims are political and secular. Although there certainly are Christian extremists today, just now they are not murdering people in the name of purifying the world. By contrast, across the globe human beings are being slaughtered in large numbers by Muslims quoting from the Koran and vowing death to infidels, including other Muslim sects. Their objectives are political and religious.
So to try to condemn the expression “Islamic violence” is a dangerous attempt at censorship that would hamper our understanding of the threat we face. The term is certainly offensive to Muslims, but the offence is caused by the bombers, not by those who describe the process.
Last week Tony Blair caused a furore by calling on Muslims to do more to control, denounce or deliver up the men who preach and practise violence. Some Muslim spokesmen said that was a divisive remark that stigmatised Muslims instead of recognising that the problem was one for British society as a whole.
The prime minister’s exhortation was valid. The bombers are not casualties of British society. Shehzad Tanweer, the Aldgate murderer, was only 22 yet left £121,000 after tax. The bombers’ grievances cannot be bought off with more money for schools or a new youth centre. They were corrupted, I assume, by theoreticians of annihilation from within their community. Their training was probably perfected in an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan.
Abdur-Raheem Green is an imam who believes that he preached to some of the 7/7 murderers and hopes that nothing he said encouraged them. When asked last week whether he would turn over to the authorities young men who were moving towards terrorism, his answer was ambiguous. He argued that it would be better for him to dissuade them rather than denounce them because that would risk creating further alienation. That is not the response that Blair, speaking for most Britons, is seeking.
There is another disagreeable ambiguity when some spokesmen link terror to British foreign policy. Anas Altikriti, the director of the Islam Expo (now taking place at Alexandra Palace in north London), wrote last week: “We will not stand for our country and people being terrorised nor will we stand for our government terrorising any other peoples.” That is presumably a reference to Iraq and Afghanistan. What does “will not stand for” mean?
Even Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a brave opponent of the fundamentalists who argues that the Koran does not authorise violence, calls on Britain to reappraise its foreign policy. In many Muslim minds, apparently, terrorism in Britain has to be understood (even if not condoned) as a reaction to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The chronology undermines that argument. The allied invasion of Afghanistan was a response to the terrorist murder of nearly 3,000 civilians in New York and Washington. No serious figure denies that Al-Qaeda organised the crime from its bases in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Iraq is a more controversial case. It has become a mess. But relatively few Iraqis died when we invaded and overthrew their genocidal dictator. The vast majority of Muslims who have been killed since have been murdered by other Muslims — by Al-Qaeda, by Sunni and Shi’ite extremists or by Saddam Hussein loyalists. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq and a Sunni, urged death to Shi’ites whom he described as poisonous snakes and atheists. Al-Qaeda is determined to destroy the West, but in the short term most of its victims will be Muslims in any place where it can topple their government to replace it with a regime as repressive and homicidal as the Taliban’s was.
Many British people object to Blair’s foreign policy. But only Muslim suicide bombers claim it as a justification for murder. In Tanweer’s videotape released last week he links his crime to Afghanistan and Iraq. But just in case anyone is tempted to think that Britain could avoid terrorism by withdrawing from those countries, Tanweer also calls on us to end our military and financial links with America and Israel. The United States was attacked in 2001 not because it had invaded another country (except to save Muslim lives in Bosnia), but because it is rampantly secular and supports Israel’s right to exist.
If the drifting apart of the Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Britain has increased the danger of terror, it follows that reconciliation and integration would make us safer. I do not mean what I write here to exacerbate the divisions in any way. Rather I believe that we can move closer if we are more honest about what is happening. Mayhem is being unleashed globally in the name of Islam. There is no point denying it, especially since most of those butchered have been Muslim. The British state is not the problem but part of the solution. A tolerant society can survive only if it bands together to suppress intolerance because we are all victims of that intolerance.
Every Briton must join in that effort, no ifs, no buts and no excuses.
Monkey See... Monkey Doo-Doo
It's getting to the point where the "Tiny Extremist Minority" is taking up the entire front page of the world's newspapers.
This new developement with Hezbollah Invading Israel and kidnapping Israeli Soldiers is a prime example of what happens when you give in to terrorism. Here's-- the news story
Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah have been a thorn in the side of peace for far too long now, I think it's time that thorn was taken out. Kaled Mashal and Hamas also. This Monkey Crap is just escalation of a war started by Arabs 1400 years ago, and they could'nt care Less about Peace. If Israel didn't exist, it would be Andulus or India, or Swe...Oh, wait, This Monkey Crap is already Happening in those places too. And to use a term coined by my friend Bamapachyderm the ones "Flinging Poo" will Never Stop. We must stand together against these Ghouls and say ENOUGH! The EU will draft a "strong letter" and that's about it. Kofi Anan will "condemn the violent Israelis" and that's about it. We need to stand up now and say Enough of this Monkey Crap. We have seen enough to know this has gone too far. Enough.
This new developement with Hezbollah Invading Israel and kidnapping Israeli Soldiers is a prime example of what happens when you give in to terrorism. Here's-- the news story
Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah have been a thorn in the side of peace for far too long now, I think it's time that thorn was taken out. Kaled Mashal and Hamas also. This Monkey Crap is just escalation of a war started by Arabs 1400 years ago, and they could'nt care Less about Peace. If Israel didn't exist, it would be Andulus or India, or Swe...Oh, wait, This Monkey Crap is already Happening in those places too. And to use a term coined by my friend Bamapachyderm the ones "Flinging Poo" will Never Stop. We must stand together against these Ghouls and say ENOUGH! The EU will draft a "strong letter" and that's about it. Kofi Anan will "condemn the violent Israelis" and that's about it. We need to stand up now and say Enough of this Monkey Crap. We have seen enough to know this has gone too far. Enough.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
TRAINS BOMBED BY TERRORISTS IN BOMBAY, INDIA...DEATHTOLL HIGH
By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer
BOMBAY, India - Seven bombs hit Bombay's commuter rail network during rush hour Tuesday evening, killing at least 200 people and wounding more than 700 in what authorities called a well-coordinated terrorist attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility in the bombings, which came in quick succession — a common tactic employed by Kashmiri militants. The blasts came hours after a series of grenade attacks by Islamic extremists killed eight people in the main city of India's part of Kashmir.
India's major cities were put on high alert. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called an emergency Cabinet meeting and said that "terrorists" were behind the attacks.
Pakistan, India's rival over the disputed territory of Kashmir, quicky condemned the bombings.
Chaos engulfed the crowded rail network in India's financial capital following the blasts that ripped apart densely packed train compartments. Doors and windows were blown off the train cars, and witnesses said body parts were strewn near stations.
Authorities struggled to treat survivors and recover the dead in the wreckage amid heavy monsoon downpours. Survivors clutched bandages to their heads and faces, and some frantically dialed their cell phones. Luggage and debris were spattered with blood.
The chief secretary of Maharashtra state, D.K. Shankaran, said at least 105 people had been killed. Bombay Police Chief A.N. Roy estimated on Indian television that more than 300 were wounded.
Press Trust of India news agency, citing a senior official, said at least 147 people had been killed and 439 injured.
"We are busy in the rescue operation. Our first priority is to rescue the injured people," Roy said.
In Washington, the State Department said it had no information about whether there were any American casualties.
Commuter transit systems have been tempting targets for terrorists in recent years, with bombers killing 191 in Madrid, Spain, in 2004, and 52 in London last year.
A senior Bombay police official, P.S. Pasricha, said the explosions were part of a well-coordinated attack. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, where Bombay is located, said bombs had caused all seven blasts.
It was not immediately clear if suicide bombers were involved or if the explosives were triggered by remote control or timing devices.
Police reportedly carried out raids across the country following the Bombay blasts. One TV station said a suspect was in custody.
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters that authorities had had some information that an attack was coming, "but place and time was not known."
The bombings occurred after the stock markets ended. The commercial capital suffered similar serial blasts in 1993 that included the Bombay Stock Exchange, killing more than 250 people.
Tuesday evening's first explosion hit a train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
India's CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter aboard one train, said a blast struck a first-class compartment as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.
Roy said other blasts targeted trains, railway tracks and platforms. One explosion occurred near an underground subway station.
The Press Trust of India, citing railway officials, said all the blasts had hit first-class cars.
Pranay Prabhakar, the spokesman for the Western Railway, said all train service had been suspended and appealed to the public to stay away from stations in the city of 16 million people — India's principal port on the Arabian Sea.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned upon independence from Britain in 1947, two over Kashmir.
Dozens of militant groups have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, demanding the mostly Muslim region's independence, or its merger with Pakistan.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry late Tuesday strongly condemned the Bombay attacks.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf offered condolences over the loss of life, the Foreign Ministry said, adding: "Terrorism is a bane of our times and it must be condemned, rejected and countered effectively and comprehensively."
New Delhi has accused Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad insists it only offers the rebels diplomatic and moral support.
Accusations of Pakistani involvement in a 2001 attack on India's parliament put the nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of a fourth war. But since then, Pakistan and India embarked on a peace process aimed at resolving their differences, including their conflicting claims to all of Jammu-Kashmir.
In Washington, two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the events were still unfolding said it was too early to know for certain what group was behind the attacks. But both officials said they were likely part of the sectarian violence over Kashmir.
One of the officials said the attacks' coordinated nature and their targeting of trains at peak travel times match the modus operandi of two Islamic extremist groups that have been active in India during the last several years: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, or Army of the Righteous, and Jaish-e-Mohammad, or Army of Mohammed.
The U.S. government has designated both groups as terrorist organizations and considers them affiliates of al-Qaida.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Remembrance Of The Attack On London 7/7/05
07/07/06
One year ago today, Mohammad Sidique Khan,Germaine Lindsay, Shahzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain Suicide Bombed the London public transport system during the morning rush hour. At 8:50AM Khan, Lindsey and Tanweer attacked 3 different London Undergroud trains within one minute of each other. Approximately one hour later at 9:47AM, Hasib Hussain detonated his bomb on a bus in Tavistock Square, completing the Coordinated Suicide Attacks. Fifty-two people were killed in the attacks, including the four bombers, and about 700 injured, making this the deadliest Terror Attack in the UK since the 1988 Islamic Terror Bombing of Pan Am Flt. 103 over Lockerbie Scotland.
The Independant has an interesting article published yesterday, that should be read by all. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1162834.ece The most disturbing part of the article IMO was the state of denial of one of the Bombers families..."The Hussains' struggle to accept that Hasib blew up the bus has been compounded by telephone conversations they have had in the past 12 months with conspiracy theorists who claim the London attacks were a "black psy-ops" mission organised by the security services to test London's defences, or to foment anti-Muslim feeling."
Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones in the attacks, and to quote a man I hate..."America feels your pain", because we too have suffered. Now, to add insult to grievous injury, Britain is forced also to contend with conspirists who will go to any length to place doubt in the minds of the victims families, and blame for the attacks on the British Government and Tony Blair. Sound Familiar? This broken record has been skipping over the same track for almost 5 years here in America, and now Britain, the Star of the Sea is also no longer immune to this Conspiracy Theory insanity. I was a physical Eyewitness to 9/11 WTC, I tasted the dust of the Twin Towers in my mouth, I breathed the smoke. It is an Insult to the memories of the dead 1st and foremost and also to our individual intelligence to propagate these Myths and it is my deepest desire to be there at the seminal moment of one of these travesties so that I might intervene. I want to be standing by as a 190lb. 'fly on the wall' as the theory is hatched so that I might understand this lunacy, so that I might help the conspirists overcome their lunacy and see the light of reason, and logic.
Sometimes the badguys really Do wear black hats and talk with funny accents. Sometimes they even Videotape themselves as they explain what they intend to do, as in This Case, The Bombers Confessed Before The Fact On Videotape! I want to be in that coffeeshop or college cafe just once when it starts, so that I may raise my voice and just say NO! Stop It!
07/07/06 America Remembers our Brothers and Sisters in the UK and our Sympathies go out to you.
1.1 Liverpool Street/ Aldgate Circle line train: 7 victims and bomber
1.2 Edgware Road tube station: 6 victims and bomber
1.3 Piccadilly line train (King's Cross St Pancras / Russell Square): 26 victims and bomber
1.4 Tavistock Square bus: 13 victims and bomber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAFu7UuZHo
One year ago today, Mohammad Sidique Khan,Germaine Lindsay, Shahzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain Suicide Bombed the London public transport system during the morning rush hour. At 8:50AM Khan, Lindsey and Tanweer attacked 3 different London Undergroud trains within one minute of each other. Approximately one hour later at 9:47AM, Hasib Hussain detonated his bomb on a bus in Tavistock Square, completing the Coordinated Suicide Attacks. Fifty-two people were killed in the attacks, including the four bombers, and about 700 injured, making this the deadliest Terror Attack in the UK since the 1988 Islamic Terror Bombing of Pan Am Flt. 103 over Lockerbie Scotland.
The Independant has an interesting article published yesterday, that should be read by all. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1162834.ece The most disturbing part of the article IMO was the state of denial of one of the Bombers families..."The Hussains' struggle to accept that Hasib blew up the bus has been compounded by telephone conversations they have had in the past 12 months with conspiracy theorists who claim the London attacks were a "black psy-ops" mission organised by the security services to test London's defences, or to foment anti-Muslim feeling."
Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones in the attacks, and to quote a man I hate..."America feels your pain", because we too have suffered. Now, to add insult to grievous injury, Britain is forced also to contend with conspirists who will go to any length to place doubt in the minds of the victims families, and blame for the attacks on the British Government and Tony Blair. Sound Familiar? This broken record has been skipping over the same track for almost 5 years here in America, and now Britain, the Star of the Sea is also no longer immune to this Conspiracy Theory insanity. I was a physical Eyewitness to 9/11 WTC, I tasted the dust of the Twin Towers in my mouth, I breathed the smoke. It is an Insult to the memories of the dead 1st and foremost and also to our individual intelligence to propagate these Myths and it is my deepest desire to be there at the seminal moment of one of these travesties so that I might intervene. I want to be standing by as a 190lb. 'fly on the wall' as the theory is hatched so that I might understand this lunacy, so that I might help the conspirists overcome their lunacy and see the light of reason, and logic.
Sometimes the badguys really Do wear black hats and talk with funny accents. Sometimes they even Videotape themselves as they explain what they intend to do, as in This Case, The Bombers Confessed Before The Fact On Videotape! I want to be in that coffeeshop or college cafe just once when it starts, so that I may raise my voice and just say NO! Stop It!
07/07/06 America Remembers our Brothers and Sisters in the UK and our Sympathies go out to you.
1.1 Liverpool Street/ Aldgate Circle line train: 7 victims and bomber
1.2 Edgware Road tube station: 6 victims and bomber
1.3 Piccadilly line train (King's Cross St Pancras / Russell Square): 26 victims and bomber
1.4 Tavistock Square bus: 13 victims and bomber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAFu7UuZHo
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Monday, July 03, 2006
Egyptian girl, 10, used as slave in US home
7/1/06
LOS ANGELES:
Two Egyptian nationals have pleaded guilty to enslaving a 10-year-old girl in their California home and forcing her to work 16-hour days as a domestic servant, prosecutors said on Friday.
Abdelnasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim, 45, and his ex-wife Amal Ahmed Ewisabd Motelib, 43, have each pleaded guilty to four felony counts in a United States District Court indictment under a deal with federal prosecutors that calls for sentences of three years in prison.
In the plea agreement, the defendants admitted bringing the girl to the US in 2000 under an arrangement with her parents, confiscating her passport and forcing her to work 16 hours a day for the next two years as a domestic servant.
The girl was required to assist the couple's youngest children in getting ready for school, prepare and serve food, clean the home, do laundry and work in the yard.
She was not allowed to attend school and was told she would be arrested if she was spotted alone outside their home. The couple each admitted slapping the girl at least once to get her to work, the plea agreement said.
"Forcing such a young and vulnerable child into these involuntary working conditions is unconscionable," Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim said.
"The Department of Justice takes this crime seriously and is committed to the vigorous prosecution of anyone who engages in the forced labour and degradation of others."
As part of the plea deal, the defendants were each required to pay the girl more than $US101,000 ($NZ169,377) in restitution.
Behold the Religion Peace and Love!
LOS ANGELES:
Two Egyptian nationals have pleaded guilty to enslaving a 10-year-old girl in their California home and forcing her to work 16-hour days as a domestic servant, prosecutors said on Friday.
Abdelnasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim, 45, and his ex-wife Amal Ahmed Ewisabd Motelib, 43, have each pleaded guilty to four felony counts in a United States District Court indictment under a deal with federal prosecutors that calls for sentences of three years in prison.
In the plea agreement, the defendants admitted bringing the girl to the US in 2000 under an arrangement with her parents, confiscating her passport and forcing her to work 16 hours a day for the next two years as a domestic servant.
The girl was required to assist the couple's youngest children in getting ready for school, prepare and serve food, clean the home, do laundry and work in the yard.
She was not allowed to attend school and was told she would be arrested if she was spotted alone outside their home. The couple each admitted slapping the girl at least once to get her to work, the plea agreement said.
"Forcing such a young and vulnerable child into these involuntary working conditions is unconscionable," Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim said.
"The Department of Justice takes this crime seriously and is committed to the vigorous prosecution of anyone who engages in the forced labour and degradation of others."
As part of the plea deal, the defendants were each required to pay the girl more than $US101,000 ($NZ169,377) in restitution.
Behold the Religion Peace and Love!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Islam’s Lethal Certitude
Religion Alan Caruba
June 27, 2006
Americans and others in the West cannot comprehend why anyone would blow themselves up to kill, as often as not, other Muslims. Even if you were convinced that 72 virgins awaited you in paradise, committing suicide for the purpose of murder is so foreign to the Western mind that it remains, for most, outside the realm of any discussion.
Clearly, though, the West has witnessed and been victimized by a religion and culture for which this is a perfectly acceptable way to wage war and Islam is all about war, the conquering and reduction of an enemy to submission. The very word, Islam, translates as submission.
“Some Crusaders and Zionists, for example, doggedly accuse Islam of being the religion of the sword, claiming that it was spread by the edge of the sword,” wrote Sayyid Qutb in “Basic Principles of the Islamic Worldview” before he was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966 as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“These people forget that Islam, being the last divine path for humanity, has an essential right to establish its own system on earth so that all humanity can enjoy its blessings…Establishing the ‘Islamic system’ to have beneficial sway over all humanity, those who embrace Islam and those who do not, does indeed require Jihad as does the liberty of men to follow their own beliefs.” Qutb is careful to nod in the direction of the Islamic admonition that “there is no compulsion in religion”, but Islam is all about compulsion.
Qutb (1906-1966) was an Egyptian Islamist who wrote extensively about modern civilization and, with absolute certainty, the superiority of an Islamic theocracy to all other faiths and modes of governing on earth. As such, he is widely regarded as the intellectual father of the Islamic revolution that has been in play since the late 1970s and of al Qaeda. His brother, Muhammad Qutb, moved to Saudi Arabia where he became a professor of Islamic Studies and one of his students, an ardent follower of Sayyid Qutb, was Ayman Zawahiri, the mentor of Osama bin Laden.
Thus, we can begin to connect the dots of a religion that fosters a certitude and arrogance that the Western mind cannot comprehend. It is necessary to understand, however, that Islam arrived more than 2,500 years after the existence of Judaism, and 700 years after the spread of Christianity. It was the invention of Muhammad, based on his own spotty knowledge of these earlier religions and, like Muhammad, Qutb’s regard for both is one of utter contempt.
“Judaism,” wrote Qutb, “the religion of the Children of Israel, was polluted with pagan concepts as well as racial arrogance.” Well, so much for the first and oldest monotheistic religion. Modern day Muslims are so befuddled by, not only the continued existence of Judaism, but the fact that Jews have reestablished the nation of Israel, they have waged a relentless effort to exterminate Israel’s Jews.
“Christianity was no better than Judaism,” wrote Qutb. “It was even worse.” Hinduism is dismissed in a paragraph or two and Buddhism isn’t even mentioned. Well, so much for tolerance! Despite the superficial effort to reflect some regard for the prophets that preceded Muhammad, Qutb’s view is that “Islam has served as a correction to all the chaos and confusion, to all the deviations and faults into which all the distorted religions and clashing philosophies have blindly fallen, whether before or after the emergence of Islam.”
By Qutb’s standard, anything anyone believes that is not Islamic is just confusion and deviation. The extraordinary thing about Qutb’s belief is that he clearly possessed a keen intellect. Well schooled in Islam, as a youth he moved to Cairo where he received a Western education between 1929 and 1933 before starting a career as a teacher. The turning point, ironically, was a trip Qutb took to the United States from 1948 to 1950 on a scholarship. He received a master’s degree from the Colorado State College of Education.
His contact with the West radicalized Qutb because, as far as anyone can tell, he was not merely an ascetic, but a celibate who found normal human desires and behavior deeply offensive. He never married. Just about everything in those years of American rejuvenation after WWII was an abomination to Qutb who took time to write his first theoretical work of religious exegesis which was published in 1949. Writing about America he pronounced life there as “primitive” and endlessly shocking.
Clearly, he retreated into Islam as a defense against the real world and, in particular, the dynamic world of the West. The Middle East had been in decline for hundreds of years by then after its so-called golden years of conquest and expansion. Driven from Europe by 878 C.E., suffering the Crusades from 1095 to 1291, and fading under the Ottoman Empire, the Muslims of that region were locked in ignorance, poverty, and oppression.
Anything modern, anything secular, including the rise of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leading proponent of Arab nationalism, was an anathema to Qutb. He was not ignorant of the West, but he was utterly contemptuous of it. Despite his having read widely of Western philosophers and, apparently, science and other topics reflecting the long road to modernity made since the Enlightenment, the only truth to be found anywhere, so far as Qutb was concerned, was in the Koran.
“First and foremost,” wrote Qutb, “the verses of the Koran were revealed in order to establish the correct criteria on which God wishes the concepts of humans as well as their life to be based.” Everything that preceded the Koran was the “accumulated debris; beliefs, concepts, philosophies, myths, thoughts, doubts, superstitions, customs and traditions.”
Prior to Islam, humans were “unable to find certitude.”
The one thing Islam does provide to those born into it and to those who convert to Islam is certitude. And with certitude comes the human affliction of an arrogant belief that no other religion or form of government other than that imposed by Islamic law has any right to exist. The punishment for leaving Islam is death. The enemies of Islam are to be beheaded.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you al Qaeda, Wahhabism, and the Islamic revolution that is your obligation to resist for the sake of all mankind.
June 27, 2006
Americans and others in the West cannot comprehend why anyone would blow themselves up to kill, as often as not, other Muslims. Even if you were convinced that 72 virgins awaited you in paradise, committing suicide for the purpose of murder is so foreign to the Western mind that it remains, for most, outside the realm of any discussion.
Clearly, though, the West has witnessed and been victimized by a religion and culture for which this is a perfectly acceptable way to wage war and Islam is all about war, the conquering and reduction of an enemy to submission. The very word, Islam, translates as submission.
“Some Crusaders and Zionists, for example, doggedly accuse Islam of being the religion of the sword, claiming that it was spread by the edge of the sword,” wrote Sayyid Qutb in “Basic Principles of the Islamic Worldview” before he was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966 as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“These people forget that Islam, being the last divine path for humanity, has an essential right to establish its own system on earth so that all humanity can enjoy its blessings…Establishing the ‘Islamic system’ to have beneficial sway over all humanity, those who embrace Islam and those who do not, does indeed require Jihad as does the liberty of men to follow their own beliefs.” Qutb is careful to nod in the direction of the Islamic admonition that “there is no compulsion in religion”, but Islam is all about compulsion.
Qutb (1906-1966) was an Egyptian Islamist who wrote extensively about modern civilization and, with absolute certainty, the superiority of an Islamic theocracy to all other faiths and modes of governing on earth. As such, he is widely regarded as the intellectual father of the Islamic revolution that has been in play since the late 1970s and of al Qaeda. His brother, Muhammad Qutb, moved to Saudi Arabia where he became a professor of Islamic Studies and one of his students, an ardent follower of Sayyid Qutb, was Ayman Zawahiri, the mentor of Osama bin Laden.
Thus, we can begin to connect the dots of a religion that fosters a certitude and arrogance that the Western mind cannot comprehend. It is necessary to understand, however, that Islam arrived more than 2,500 years after the existence of Judaism, and 700 years after the spread of Christianity. It was the invention of Muhammad, based on his own spotty knowledge of these earlier religions and, like Muhammad, Qutb’s regard for both is one of utter contempt.
“Judaism,” wrote Qutb, “the religion of the Children of Israel, was polluted with pagan concepts as well as racial arrogance.” Well, so much for the first and oldest monotheistic religion. Modern day Muslims are so befuddled by, not only the continued existence of Judaism, but the fact that Jews have reestablished the nation of Israel, they have waged a relentless effort to exterminate Israel’s Jews.
“Christianity was no better than Judaism,” wrote Qutb. “It was even worse.” Hinduism is dismissed in a paragraph or two and Buddhism isn’t even mentioned. Well, so much for tolerance! Despite the superficial effort to reflect some regard for the prophets that preceded Muhammad, Qutb’s view is that “Islam has served as a correction to all the chaos and confusion, to all the deviations and faults into which all the distorted religions and clashing philosophies have blindly fallen, whether before or after the emergence of Islam.”
By Qutb’s standard, anything anyone believes that is not Islamic is just confusion and deviation. The extraordinary thing about Qutb’s belief is that he clearly possessed a keen intellect. Well schooled in Islam, as a youth he moved to Cairo where he received a Western education between 1929 and 1933 before starting a career as a teacher. The turning point, ironically, was a trip Qutb took to the United States from 1948 to 1950 on a scholarship. He received a master’s degree from the Colorado State College of Education.
His contact with the West radicalized Qutb because, as far as anyone can tell, he was not merely an ascetic, but a celibate who found normal human desires and behavior deeply offensive. He never married. Just about everything in those years of American rejuvenation after WWII was an abomination to Qutb who took time to write his first theoretical work of religious exegesis which was published in 1949. Writing about America he pronounced life there as “primitive” and endlessly shocking.
Clearly, he retreated into Islam as a defense against the real world and, in particular, the dynamic world of the West. The Middle East had been in decline for hundreds of years by then after its so-called golden years of conquest and expansion. Driven from Europe by 878 C.E., suffering the Crusades from 1095 to 1291, and fading under the Ottoman Empire, the Muslims of that region were locked in ignorance, poverty, and oppression.
Anything modern, anything secular, including the rise of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leading proponent of Arab nationalism, was an anathema to Qutb. He was not ignorant of the West, but he was utterly contemptuous of it. Despite his having read widely of Western philosophers and, apparently, science and other topics reflecting the long road to modernity made since the Enlightenment, the only truth to be found anywhere, so far as Qutb was concerned, was in the Koran.
“First and foremost,” wrote Qutb, “the verses of the Koran were revealed in order to establish the correct criteria on which God wishes the concepts of humans as well as their life to be based.” Everything that preceded the Koran was the “accumulated debris; beliefs, concepts, philosophies, myths, thoughts, doubts, superstitions, customs and traditions.”
Prior to Islam, humans were “unable to find certitude.”
The one thing Islam does provide to those born into it and to those who convert to Islam is certitude. And with certitude comes the human affliction of an arrogant belief that no other religion or form of government other than that imposed by Islamic law has any right to exist. The punishment for leaving Islam is death. The enemies of Islam are to be beheaded.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you al Qaeda, Wahhabism, and the Islamic revolution that is your obligation to resist for the sake of all mankind.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Israeli forces push into Gaza Strip
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships pushed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, stepping up pressure on the Palestinians to secure the release of a kidnapped soldier.
To the sound of heavy gunfire, armored vehicles entered Gaza near the southern town of Rafah less than a year after Israel pulled thousands of soldiers and settlers from the territory following 38 years of occupation.
Led by bulldozers to clear boobytrap bombs, tanks and armored vehicles with blazing lights deployed near a disused airport just inside the Gaza border.
A leader of Hamas, the governing Palestinian Islamist group, exhorted its fighters to confront the Israelis.
"Fight your enemies, who came to their deaths. Grab your rifles and resist," Nizar Rayan said in a radio message.
Another armed group threatened to kill a Jewish settler it said it had seized in the West Bank.
Israeli aircraft struck at three bridges on key roads in what the army said was an attempt to stop militants moving the captive, Corporal Gilad Shalit. A helicopter attack on a power plant plunged much of Gaza into darkness.
Israel had threatened to launch an offensive into Gaza following the abduction of Shalit in a cross-border raid on Sunday by three factions, including Hamas's armed wing.
The hostage crisis has brought relations between Israel and the Palestinians to their lowest point since Israel quit Gaza last year after holding it since a 1967 war.
TEST FOR OLMERT
It is the biggest test yet for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
He was elected in March on a platform of carrying out a similar withdrawal from parts of the occupied West Bank, another territory Palestinians would like as part of an independent state.
With tension growing on Tuesday, Hamas reached a political deal with the more moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, but rejected any suggestion the plan meant it recognized Israel or had dropped its vow to destroy it.
Israel dismissed the manifesto, penned by Palestinians in its jails, as "double-speak" aimed at lifting a U.S.-led aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority.
Preparing to confront the Israeli forces, Palestinian gunmen fanned out behind barricades and in foxholes. They blocked roads with piles of sand and planted improvised bombs.
The Popular Resistance Committees faction threatened to kill a settler abducted in the West Bank in response to Israel's incursion. Police have not confirmed the kidnapping claim, but are investigating the disappearance of an 18-year-old settler.
Israeli troops have made brief incursions into Gaza in recent weeks, but nothing on the scale of Wednesday's operation, which recalled raids during a Palestinian uprising.
The troops moved into Gaza slowly, however, suggesting that Israel could put on a show of force to try to encourage the militants to give up Shalit without a fight.
"We are trying to make it clear that we will take the necessary steps to ensure his safe return," said Israeli Captain Jacob Dallal. "Much still depends on the Palestinians."
Hoping to head off a major flare-up, Egypt has been trying to broker Shalit's release. So has France, as the 19-year-old conscript has French as well as Israeli citizenship.
But mediators said they were close to calling it quits before the Israeli troops moved into Gaza.
There has been little word on Shalit's fate. Hamas's armed wing offered to release details if Israel frees Palestinian minors and women held in its prisons, but Olmert said such a swap was not up for discussion.
The last time Palestinian militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier was in 1994. He was killed during a rescue attempt.
Responding to Wednesday's incursion, the United States said its ally Israel had a right to defend itself but urged it to ensure that "innocent civilians are not harmed."
Militant groups said Sunday's raid was in response to the killing of 14 Palestinian civilians in Israeli air strikes in Gaza against militants behind cross-border rocket attacks.
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships pushed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, stepping up pressure on the Palestinians to secure the release of a kidnapped soldier.
To the sound of heavy gunfire, armored vehicles entered Gaza near the southern town of Rafah less than a year after Israel pulled thousands of soldiers and settlers from the territory following 38 years of occupation.
Led by bulldozers to clear boobytrap bombs, tanks and armored vehicles with blazing lights deployed near a disused airport just inside the Gaza border.
A leader of Hamas, the governing Palestinian Islamist group, exhorted its fighters to confront the Israelis.
"Fight your enemies, who came to their deaths. Grab your rifles and resist," Nizar Rayan said in a radio message.
Another armed group threatened to kill a Jewish settler it said it had seized in the West Bank.
Israeli aircraft struck at three bridges on key roads in what the army said was an attempt to stop militants moving the captive, Corporal Gilad Shalit. A helicopter attack on a power plant plunged much of Gaza into darkness.
Israel had threatened to launch an offensive into Gaza following the abduction of Shalit in a cross-border raid on Sunday by three factions, including Hamas's armed wing.
The hostage crisis has brought relations between Israel and the Palestinians to their lowest point since Israel quit Gaza last year after holding it since a 1967 war.
TEST FOR OLMERT
It is the biggest test yet for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
He was elected in March on a platform of carrying out a similar withdrawal from parts of the occupied West Bank, another territory Palestinians would like as part of an independent state.
With tension growing on Tuesday, Hamas reached a political deal with the more moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, but rejected any suggestion the plan meant it recognized Israel or had dropped its vow to destroy it.
Israel dismissed the manifesto, penned by Palestinians in its jails, as "double-speak" aimed at lifting a U.S.-led aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority.
Preparing to confront the Israeli forces, Palestinian gunmen fanned out behind barricades and in foxholes. They blocked roads with piles of sand and planted improvised bombs.
The Popular Resistance Committees faction threatened to kill a settler abducted in the West Bank in response to Israel's incursion. Police have not confirmed the kidnapping claim, but are investigating the disappearance of an 18-year-old settler.
Israeli troops have made brief incursions into Gaza in recent weeks, but nothing on the scale of Wednesday's operation, which recalled raids during a Palestinian uprising.
The troops moved into Gaza slowly, however, suggesting that Israel could put on a show of force to try to encourage the militants to give up Shalit without a fight.
"We are trying to make it clear that we will take the necessary steps to ensure his safe return," said Israeli Captain Jacob Dallal. "Much still depends on the Palestinians."
Hoping to head off a major flare-up, Egypt has been trying to broker Shalit's release. So has France, as the 19-year-old conscript has French as well as Israeli citizenship.
But mediators said they were close to calling it quits before the Israeli troops moved into Gaza.
There has been little word on Shalit's fate. Hamas's armed wing offered to release details if Israel frees Palestinian minors and women held in its prisons, but Olmert said such a swap was not up for discussion.
The last time Palestinian militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier was in 1994. He was killed during a rescue attempt.
Responding to Wednesday's incursion, the United States said its ally Israel had a right to defend itself but urged it to ensure that "innocent civilians are not harmed."
Militant groups said Sunday's raid was in response to the killing of 14 Palestinian civilians in Israeli air strikes in Gaza against militants behind cross-border rocket attacks.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Group claims to kill 4 Russians in Iraq
CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Sunday showing the killings of three Russian embassy workers abducted earlier this month in Iraq. A fourth also was said to have been killed.
An accompanying statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization linking seven Murder groups including al-Qaida in Iraq, said all four Russians had been killed. Russia's Foreign Ministry said it had not yet confirmed the hostages' deaths.
The 90-second video, posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs militant messages, showed the beheading of two blindfolded men and the shooting of a third.In the footage, two men clad in black and wearing black ski masks shout "AllahuAkbar!" before beheading the first man. Then one militant appears standing over the decapitated body of a second victim lying in a pool of blood, with the head placed on top of the body.The footage of the beheading victims shows a closed room with white walls. The shooting appears outdoors in what looked like an alley between buildings.
The footage was stamped with the logo of al-Qaida."God's verdict has been carried out on the Russian diplomats ... in revenge for the torture, killing and expulsion of our brothers and sisters by the infidel Russian government," the statement said.
The video begins with a verse from the Quran appearing in white letters on a black screen, and a voice reading "Those who aggress on you, you aggress on them."
One at a time, the four men appear on camera, staring ahead and speaking in Russian. Then the camera cuts to the killings.Footage of the men speaking into the camera is dated June 13, but the footage of the killings is undated.
Four Russian embassy workers were abducted June 3 after an attack on their car in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. A fifth Russian was killed in the incident.
The captives include the embassy's third secretary, Fyodor Zaitsev, and three other staffers: Rinat Agliulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedoseyev.In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had not independently confirmed their deaths.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our embassy in Iraq are using all methods and are continuing work to verify the information," ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said.
Moscow vehemently opposed the U.S.-led military campaign and has continued to keep its distance from Washington on the issue of Iraq. Four Russian workers were killed in ambushes in Iraq in 2004.
On Wednesday, the Mujahedeen Shura Council posted a statement on the Internet saying it had decided to kill the four Russians, prompting one hostage's sister, a Muslim, to make an impassioned plea for their freedom.
"I beg you to pardon them and release them. You are Muslims, and Islam, before anything else, is a religion of peace and justice," Aliya Agliulin, wearing an Islamic headscarf, said on Al-Jazeera television on June 21, according to an Arabic voiceover of her statement.
"I, as a Muslim like all other Muslims in Russia, feel pain for what is happening in Iraq. Please act wisely and think of the feeling of the families of the hostages and their children who are waiting for their return. ... My brother is the lone provider for our family." Videos of beheadings were an early signature of the Iraq insurgency, as well as a grisly trademark of tapes produced by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But such graphic images have become rare in the past year.
The exception was a June 10 video showing militants beheading three Iraqis accused of belonging to a Shiite "death squad." Its posting three days after al-Zarqawi's death in a U.S. airstrike suggested an attempt to show his killing had not weakened militants' resolve.
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