IRAN ACQUITS SERIAL MURDERERS WHO KILLED IN THE NAME OF ISLAM
By Charles Johnson
While Democrats are holding private talks with Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, back home in Tehran the Iranian Supreme Court has just acquitted a group of sadistic mass murderers—because their victims were involved in “un-Islamic activities,” and deserved to die: Group cleared over Iran murders.
Iran’s Supreme Court has acquitted a group of men charged over a series of gruesome killings in 2002, according to lawyers for the victims’ families.
The vigilantes were not guilty because their victims were involved in un-Islamic activities, the court found. The killers said they believed Islam let them spill the blood of anyone engaged in illicit activities if they issued two warnings to the victims.
The serial killings took place in 2002 in the south-eastern city of Kerman. The case raises serious questions about vigilantes in Iran taking justice into their own hands and undermining the rule of law. Up to 18 people were killed in just one year, but only five of the murders were tried in court.
According to their confessions, the killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Others were suffocated. One man was even buried alive while others had their bodies dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals.
The accused, who were all members of an Islamic paramilitary force, told the court their understanding of the teachings of one Islamic cleric allowed them to kill immoral people if they had ignored two warnings to stop their bad behaviour. But there was no judicial process to determine the guilt of the victims in these cases.
The group even killed a young couple they thought were involved in sex outside marriage, but media reports say the couple were either married or engaged to be married. Sunday, April 15, 2007
UK JOURNALISTS' UNION VOTES TO BOYCOTT ISRAEL
By Charles Johnson
If you had any remaining doubt about the bias and thinly disguised antisemitism of the majority of British journalists, this report settles the matter: Report: UK journalist union votes to boycott Israeli goods.
Britain’s National Union of Journalists has voted at its annual meeting for a boycott of Israeli goods as part of a protest against the Second Lebanon War, the British daily Guardian reported on its Web site Friday evening.
The vote was carried 66 to 54 - a result that met with mixed responses from the NJU delegates present.
The motion came during a series of motions on international affairs and read: “This ADM [annual delegate meeting] calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions and the TUC [Trades Union Congress] to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.”
The motion was originally brought by the union’s South Yorkshire branch in February and was opposed by the Cumberland branch, which said it was too political and was not closely enough related to journalistic matters. After a show of hands twice failed to give a clear result, union scrutineers were called in and the doors to the conference room closed. The vote on the motion was taken after it was split from a larger motion that condemned the “savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel” last year.
This motion, known as Composite B in Order Paper 4, was carried by a large majority and also condemned the “slaughter of civilians by Israeli troops in Gaza and the IDF’s continued attacks inside Lebanon” following what the motion defined Israel’s “defeat” by Hizbullah.
MONTREAL MUSLIMS CHARGED WITH FIREBOMBING JEWISH CENTER
By Charles Johnson
Two Muslims have been charged in Montreal with firebombing a Jewish center and planning to commit armed robberies and kidnapping: Pair denied bail.
Two Montreal men have been accused of a raft of attacks against the city’s Jewish community, including the firebombing of a Snowdon community centre that police are treating as a hate-related crime.
Omar Bulphred, 21, and Azim Ibragimov, 23, appeared briefly in Quebec Court on Friday to be arraigned on charges stemming from incidents that began last fall. Both were denied bail.
Azim Ibragimov, left, and Omar Bulphred face nine charges each stemming from events that began last fall.
The case is due back in court on Monday, at which time a date could be set for a bail hearing. In addition to their alleged roles in a rash of firebombings, the two are accused of conspiring to commit kidnapping and armed robbery. But it’s not known who or what their potential victims were.
Once again, it’s a total mystery where they might have learned such violent, murderous hatred.
The pair were arrested Thursday morning and questioned. The investigation did not turn up links to any terrorist or hate groups, said Constable Christian Emond, of the Montreal police fraud and arson squad.
And the Canadian branch of the Saudi-funded radical Islamic front group calling itself the Council on American Islamic Relations must have decided there was no way to spin this into a play for victimhood, because they’re in damage control mode.
Sarah Elgazzar, of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed dismay the accused are Muslims and hoped that fact wouldn’t increase the animosity between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Montreal.
“Religiously speaking, Jews and Muslims should be so close,” she said. “Sure, there are differences, and there are problems in other parts of the world, but that doesn’t justify these kinds of attacks. Most Muslims would never even think of doing something like that; it’s horrible.” Saturday, April 14, 2007
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
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DENYING 'HOT PURSUIT' IN WAZIRISTAN
By Ed Morrissey
Pervez Musharraf has unequivocally stated that Pakistan will not allow US forces to operate in Pakistani territory, not in joint patrols or for any other reason. This conflicts with the more blunt assertion from the US, which noted that American forces will follow retreating Taliban and al-Qaeda forces across the Afghanistan border in "hot pursuit" cases (via TMV):
President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected "absolutely and totally" the prospect of a joint US-Pakistan military operation to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan.
"The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it," he told CBS news channel in an interview.
Musharraf hit out at his Afghan counterpart, saying he was "very angry" at criticism of Pakistani progress in fighting cross-border terrorism.
Karzai's reasons for anger at Musharraf seem readily apparent; he wants Pakistan to do more in fighting the terrorists that hide in Pakistan and attack in Afghanistan. Musharraf's anger comes from an accusation that Mullah Omar hides in Pakistan, presumably with the cooperation of Pakistan's intel service, the ISI. While everyone believes that Omar and Osama bin Laden have taken refuge in Pakistan's mountainous border region, the accusation that Pakistan is actively assisting them has less foundation, at least in evidence.
However, the story here is that Musharraf has pushed back against the Bush administration on hot pursuit. The White House had been taken aback by Musharraf's deals with the tribes in Waziristan and see it as a retreat on Pakistan's part. Musharraf has pointed to the deaths of 300 Uzbeks in Wana as proof that he remains committed to fighting al-Qaeda, but he aligned himself with Taliban senior commanders to do it -- and the fight between the Uzbeks and the Pashtuns has almost everything to do with tribal politics and almost nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
If we intend to beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in that region, we will have to conduct hot-pursuit attacks on retreating forces, and we will also have to conduct attacks on their bases if the Pakistanis won't do it themselves. If we can keep it quiet, we could do it without enraging the rest of the Pakistani nation; after all, Waziristan is a remote area with isolated tribes. Discretion here may be better than public pronouncements of our intent. A little denial may not be a bad prescription for success.
PUSHBACK AGAINST PUTIN?
By Ed Morrissey
A funny thing happened on the way to the Tsar-ship. It looks like Vladimir Putin's supposedly enormous popularity in Russia has not kept him from developing a vocal opposition to his increasingly autocratic rule. Yesterday, thousands of Russians rallied against Putin's rule, and police arrested former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov for his role in leading the demonstration:
There were pensioners clutching single roses, students wearing jeans and a young man weaving through Moscow's anarchic traffic on a chopper bike.
Ranged against them were 9,000 riot police wielding truncheons and the might of the Russian state. And yet for one moment yesterday the demonstrators got the better of their opponents. After surging down the Boulevard Ring, the protesters began a defiant chant: 'Russia without Putin: Russia without Putin.' The sun burst on to a freezing Moscow morning. There was, it seemed, a whiff of revolution in the air.
'We don't agree, we don't agree,' the protesters chanted, waving flags and blocking the boulevard. 'This is our city', 'Revolution', 'Down with KGB informers'. A man held up a placard: 'I don't believe in Putin.' Others called for Russia's President to resign and go skiing.
After seven years in which he has restored Kremlin control over most areas of Russian life with scarcely a murmur of protest, Vladimir Putin was yesterday confronted with a genuine popular revolt. About 2,000 opposition demonstrators gathered in Pushkin Square, defying an official ban on their meeting and threats of arrest. It was the largest-ever anti-Putin rally in the Russian capital.
The man who was supposed to lead it, Garry Kasparov - Russia's former world chess champion - was detained as soon as he emerged from his taxi. Driven off to a Moscow court in a police van, he emerged defiant, during a break in proceedings, to tell about a dozen supporters that in its response to the protest 'the régime showed its true colours'. He was later fined 1,000 roubles - the equivalent of about £20 - and freed.
Perhaps at some point, if Kasparov succeeds in his efforts to restore democracy and the rule of law in Russia, they will call this the Rose Revolution. Those are the stakes, as Putin tries to finagle his way into an indeterminate term of rule by having his proxies in the Duma amend the constitution for those purposes. His police have arrested anyone who attempts to push back against the slow but certain efforts to return Russia to strongman rule.
Kasparov did not get lonely on the way to jail. Several dozen protestors also got arrested for demonstrating without a permit. Authorities in Moscow refused to give one on the basis that a pro-Putin children's group had booked the square for their own demonstration in favor of the government. One member of the Duma professed astonishment at the crackdown by city police, calling it "anti-constitutional", and an elderly woman said that she had not seen anything similar to this police response even during the Soviet era.
Why such a harsh reaction? The Kremlin has become paranoid about the popular uprisings in Ukraine and in Georgia. They see some vulnerability to the same kind of pro-democracy, pro-Western impulse among Russians, while at the same time working against the radical Islamist impulses in the Caucasus. Instead of allowing normal opposition to express itself in a free and democratic society, the Putin regime has systematically stripped their political environment of any means of rational opposition -- and so they have to arrest everyone who speaks out against their rule.
This heavy-handed response will not go unnoticed. Putin has put himself in an all-or-nothing position, and he will find out shortly whether that gamble worked. Sunday, April 15, 2007
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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IRAQ REPORT
By Bill Roggio
Senior al Qaeda leaders captured in Anbar, Karbala, Baghdad bridge bombed
U.S. and Iraqi forces maintain the pressure on al Qaeda and the insurgency nationwide. Combined U.S. and Iraqi raids inside Baghdad led to 129 captured insurgents and the discovery of two bomb factories over the past 48 hours. Iraqi security forces, with the help of the Anbar Salvation Council, killed Ahmad Hadid, the leader "Islamic State in Fallujah," and Ibrahim Keitan, Al-Qaeda's military coordinator in Al-Anbar. An American military intelligence official tells us Ahmad Hadid is the brother of the notorious Omar Hadid, Abu Musab al Zarqawi's right hand man in Fallujah until he was killed in Novermber of 2004. Thirty-seven al Qaeda were captured in Fallujah, 6 in Amiriya and another 11 were captured along the Euphrates River Valley.
Coalition raids in Taji, Mosul, Baghdad and Amiriya netted 17 al Qaeda, including the "al-Qaeda emir of Rusafa and former vehicle-borne improvised explosive device cell leader." In Basra, British troops killed 8 members of two roadside bomb teams as they were in the process of planting IEDs. On March 11, Iraqi police captured 2 members of a cell thought to be "responsible for planning and building improvised explosive devices containing chlorine."
Al Qaeda has conducted two more high visibility suicide attacks, one in Baghdad and another in the Shia holy city of Karbala. A suicide car bomber murdered 47 Iraqis and wounded scores more just several hundred yards from the Imam Ali mosque in Karbala, while another suicide car bomber destroyed a bridge in Baghdad. The Jadriyah bridge, which crosses the Tigris river, is the second bridge attacked by al Qaeda in Iraq just this week. Ten were killed and fifteen wounded in the Jadriyah bridge bombing.
Under the readership of Abu Ayyub al-Masri Al Qaeda in Iraq is proving agile in its ability to switch targets in Baghdad while continuing to strike at sectarian fault lines outside the capital. Prior to this week, al Qaeda's last major bombing inside Baghdad was in a Shia market on March 29. With security ramping up inside Baghdad, markets appear to have become tougher targets. The attack on the bridges will at the least increase the security, and may force the closure their closure.
As al Qaeda continues its suicide campaign in an attempt to break the Coalition. "Citing 'reliable sources from a number of factions of the Iraqi national resistance, al-Hayat reports that the new coordinating office is aimed at isolating the Islamic State of Iraq and 'all hard-line factions that trade in the blood of Muslims.'" This follows the Islamic Army in Iraq's announcement that it was severing ties with al Qaeda. It should be noted that insurgent groups are fracturing over this issue, with the more extreme elements being absorbed by al Qaeda. Saturday, April 14, 2007
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CBN NEWS ON THE ANBAR SALVATION FRONT
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Last week CBN News terror analyst Erick Stakelbeck and I developed a story on the Anbar Salvation Front, a group that includes a broad mix of Sunnis who are united in their goal of expelling al-Qaeda from Iraq. An excerpt:
The Anbar province has served as a nerve center for al-Qaeda since the early days of the insurgency -- some might call it al-Qaeda Country. It's estimated that more than 8,000 Iraqis have been killed or injured by insurgent attacks in Anbar province. Cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi have long been trouble spots for U.S. troops. The campaign of terror has led to power and influence in the predominantly Sunni region.
But many tribal leaders here are tired of living in fear and want to take their home back from al-Qaeda. "They believe that al-Qaeda in Iraq is breaking Iraq apart and turning the Sunni people on each other, and they want to eliminate that," said military analyst Bill Roggio. Roggio says the Anbar Salvation Front includes a broad mix of Sunnis: local tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and even some Islamists. Many are former insurgents that are now working with the U.S. military and Iraqi government.
The Anbar Salvation Front is already a powerful force, and is likely to take on increasing importance in the future. As Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail told CBN, "We're certainly allied with people who fought us, probably less than a year ago. But this is, in the end, how you win insurgencies. How you break them apart and turn the more moderate elements against the more radical elements."
You can read the whole piece and watch the video report here. For more, see Eli Lake's excellent profile of Anbar Salvation Front leader Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi in The New York Sun. Sunday, April 15, 2007
http://counterterrorismblog.org
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WHAT HAPPENED TO 'FOLLOW THE MONEY'?
By Ed Morrissey
It gets disheartening defending the obvious pre-9/11 connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda when the White House seems unmotivated to do so, but Thomas Jocelyn and Andy McCarthy haven't been chased off the story by Senator Carl Levin and the Washington Post. When both asserted that no one had found connections between Saddam and AQ, they both reminded readers to follow the money:
But Levin's story, which was simply repeated without any real investigation by the Post or even the inspector general's office, relies on a false dichotomy. The senator now pretends that the CIA and other intelligence outfits had reached a rock-solid conclusion that there was no noteworthy relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in 2002, but Feith's shop improperly pressed on. The Post summarized the inspector general's report as saying: " the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups."
This is simply revisionist history at its worst.
Although there were certainly disagreements between the CIA and Feith's shop, both argued in 2002 that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, stated the CIA's position quite clearly in an October 7, 2002 letter to then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). Tenet explained, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Iraq and al Qaeda "have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Tenet warned, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." And, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action."
Andy picks up on one very important connection between Iraq and AQ -- money:
Forgetting all of these circumstances, among others, Tom also recalls, as Steve Hayes, myself, and others have for some time, that in 1998, "Ayman al-Zawahiri was in Baghdad ... and collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime." I would add, for context, that this was in the same time frame as bin Laden and Zawahiri's infamous fatwa calling for the murder of Americans — which, if you read it, argues that American actions against Iraq are a big part of the justification. It also came just a few months before al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in east Africa, the Clinton administration bombed a Sudanese phramaceutical factory because intel indicated it was a joint Iraqi/Qaeda chemical weapons venture, and Clinton counter-terror honcho Richard Clarke fretted that "wily old Osama would boogie to Baghdad" — of all places — if the U.S. made things too hot for Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Sure, maybe all this is just a big coincidence. But, given that al Qaeda is a 24/7 terror operation whose main target is the U.S., I've always wondered for what earthly purpose Senator Levin and other connection naysayers figure Saddam Hussein gave Ayman Zawahiri 300K?
The money came to Zawahiri right before the attacks on two American embassies. Sure sounds like Saddam funded, at least indirectly, attacks on American assets that resulted in the death of Americans. Does Carl Levin think that doesn't represent a connection? Sunday, April 15, 2007
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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DAY BY DAY
By Chris Muir
www.daybydaycartoon.com
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HILLARY'S CONUNDRUM
By Ed Morrissey
Hillary Clinton has had a difficult conundrum facing her ever since the beginning of her presidential campaign. Her vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein in October 2002 has the anti-war base revved up to defeat her in favor of a more capitulationist candidate like Barack Obama or John Edwards. She has tried to alternately defend the vote and claim that she was misled as a defense against the activists within her own party. Last night. however, she ran into someone who refused to buy what she's been selling (via Instapundit):
After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war.
Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, "Did you read it?!" Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times.
The woman sat down and Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority." Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq.
In most cases, legislators do not read through the text of bills on which they vote. They hire staffers to research the bills and to give them advice on the meaning of the material. Many of the lazier ones simply defer their judgment to the leadership of their party. For the most part, this makes a great deal of sense, as it would be difficult to keep up with all of the paperwork that Capitol Hill creates, in legislative sessions, committees, subcommittees, and so on.
However, on a straight up-or-down vote on whether to go to war, one would hope that Senators and Representatives would find it interesting enough to get personally involved. And Hillary's explanation here doesn't even pass the laugh test. She claims that she believed the bill to authorize only the return of inspectors to Iraq. Well, perhaps the title of the bill could have given her a clue: "A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq." The text seems equally clear:
The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
Now Hillary defends herself by saying that she never read the bill and, despite the wide coverage of the issue in the press, never knew it would allow Bush to use force against Iraq.
Not even Hillary's defenders can buy that, and it's certainly not convincing anyone else. If she can't figure out the meaning of the plain text of a bill whose title includes "authorize the use of United States Armed Forces", then why should anyone consider her bright enough to run the country? If she's so disinterested in the use of those armed forces that she didn't take the two minutes necessary to read through the brief text of HJ 114, why should anyone put her in the Constitutional role of Commander-in-Chief?
The comments at ABC's Political Radar speak volumes:
Yet another example of the Clinton's inability to answer a direct question...what is "is", etc. Why can't these people answer a direct question? ...
If she thought she was just voting to send inspectors into Iraq, she's far too stupid to be worth my vote. ...
That is like saying but I READ THE FRONT PAGE OF THE CAR MANUAL...it didn't say anything about engines. ...
Mrs. Clinton stated she "was briefed" on the vote. Which would imply she did not read the bill herself. OK. President Bush was briefed on the WMD issue. ...
She voted for War. She thought it would be a cakewalk and she would be percieved as strong. She was wrong.
Hillary is not convincing anyone with this little pas de duh, and what's worse, she's playing into the hands of the activist base by accepting their assumptions about a war she voted to authorize. A straight apology might have worked in the beginning, but it won't at this point. Either she needs to defend the vote honestly, or she needs to flip-flop -- and neither will help her much at this point. Sunday, April 15, 2007
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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OUTED DEMOCRATS
By Gary McCoy
www.caglecartoons.com
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RELIGION OF PEACE STRIKES AGAIN IN CASABLANCA
By Charles Johnson
Two bombers attack U.S. targets in Morocco.
CASABLANCA, Morocco (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed themselves in an attack on U.S. diplomatic offices in Morocco’s commercial hub Casablanca on Saturday in the first such targeted bombings in four years, witnesses said.
Police arrested a third bomber as he tried to flee the scene of the mid-morning attack on the U.S. cultural centre and the nearby U.S. consulate in an upscale district of the port city, where three suicide bombers blew themselves up four days ago.
“He threw down his explosives belt and ran away. Police chased him and caught him,” said the owner of a coffee shop in the neighborhood, who declined to be identified.
They also later arrested the leaders of the armed group to which the two suicide bombers and those responsible for Tuesday’s blasts belonged, a security official said. Saturday, April 14, 2007
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
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NORWAY: ISLAM CRITIC BEATEN UNCONSCIOUS
From Aftenposten in Judeoscope:
Norwegian-Somalian Kadra, who became famous in Norway for exposing imam support of female circumcision, was beaten unconscious on Thursday.
Kadra was attacked and beaten senseless by seven or eight persons of Somali origin, newspaper VG reports.
"I was terrified. While I lay on the pavement they kicked me and screamed that I had trampled on the Koran. Several shouted Allah-o-akbar (God is great) and also recited from the Koran," Kadra told VG.
Kadra linked the attack to recent remarks in VG where she said that the Koran’s views on women needed to be reinterpreted.
Kadra said that the gang of Somali men attacked her around 3 a.m. in downtown Oslo on Thursday. A medical examination found that she had several broken ribs, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. Kadra filed charges and was due to speak with police on Friday. Sunday, April 15, 2007
http://jihadwatch.org
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