Target Centermass

So many stories, so little time on my accursed dial-up connection.

Man Accused of al-Qaida Link Admits Gun Buy

A Canadian terror suspect confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for al-Qaida to use against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a court filing Monday.

In an affidavit submitted to the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, where Abdullah Khadr appeared at a preliminary hearing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Konrad Shourie said Khadr admitted ties to senior al-Qaida members and confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for them in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Khadr also admitted to a role in an unspecified plot to assassinate Pakistan’s prime minister, Shourie wrote.

Khadr, 24, who entered no plea at the hearing, faces extradition to the United States on charges of possessing, and conspiracy to possess, a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, where the charges were filed. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

Khadr was arrested Saturday. A bail hearing could come as soon as Wednesday.

He is alleged to have bought AK-47 and mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and containers of mine components for al-Qaida. The weapons purchases were made at the request of his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian who was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani Cobra helicopter fired on a house where he was staying with senior al-Qaida operatives, authorities said.

Abdullah Khadr was born in Canada in 1981 and settled with his family in Pakistan in 1997.

The U.S. attorney in Boston said he received military training at a camp in Afghanistan for four months in the mid-1990s. Pakistani intelligence officers picked him up in a car in Islamabad on Oct. 12, 2004, and he was returned to Canada in early December.

Some may ask Abdullah why he deals with terrorists. Well, it’s a family tradition.

All three of Khadr’s brothers have been detained at various times and linked to terrorism.

One brother, 19-year-old Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian detainee at the U.S. camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. He faces trial on charges of murder and attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army medic.

Spain arrests 15 suspects involved in Iraqi insurgency

Spanish police arrested early Monday 15 people suspected of recruiting fighters for Iraqi terrorist groups, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The suspects, arrested in coordinated police raids in several provinces across Spain, were accused of belonging to a group which recruit, train and send fighters for Iraq to fuel the insurgency.

Police also seized a great amount of documents, fake credentials, cash and components for explosive devices in the raids.

According to the statement, eight of the 15 are Moroccans, and the seven others include an Iraqi, a Saudi Arabian, an Egyptian, a Belarussian, a French, a Spaniard and a Ghanaian.

The group, led by a 25-year-old Iraqi who had close contact with al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was well-organized, the statement said.

Police intelligence showed that the suspects themselves had also been engaged in terrorist activities in Iraq and other Islamic countries, but there was no sign they had any plans to launch terrorist attacks in Spain.

This is not a new thing, as Spain has earlier claimed to have cut terrorist pipelines to Iraq. After an earlier Spanish round-up, I blogged the following:

I would like to point out, however, that the success probably is not nearly grand as it sounds — the country is merely treating symptoms of the Islamist movement within its borders, having already run away from the attempt in Iraq to provide an alternative to the Arab world, a possible last ditch to salvage a huge chunk of the world’s population from falling hopelessly into sheer barbarism and madness.

This kind of success, while dramatic and helpful, is fleeting. Al Queda will find other ways to move its jihadists, much as the human nervous system can sometimes find alternate routes when nerve pathways are severed. Unfortunately for Spain and the rest of Europe, other paths already exist and this one will be replaced, thus making it obvious that simply treating local symptoms of radical Islam while ignoring the global disease is not enough.

The Spanish have yet to heed my warning.

Video ‘shows cold-blooded killing of kidnapped US contractor’

A barabaric video believed to show the killing of Ronald Schulz, an American security contractor kidnapped in Iraq two weeks ago, was released on the internet yesterday.

It depicts a man with his hands handcuffed behind his back and blindfolded by an Arab headdress kneeling in an empty, open area of dirt.

A gunman standing two yards behind him then shoots him in the back of the head, toppling the figure to the ground, before his body is then shot repeatedly.

Although the victim cannot be identified, any hope that the former US marine may still be alive appears extinguished by a picture of him alive that appears on a split screen as the footage is aired. His identity card is shown briefly.

The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility for his death.

For those still ignorant of the bloody, cowardly nature of our enemy, the Jawa Report is always a good place to find such videos. As for me, I don’t need them and see no need to host them. Those who are blind will still refuse to see and continue to shriek “Abu Ghraib” as they try to demonize any allegation of atrocities thrown against American soldiers.

‘Dr. Germ,’ Others Released From Iraq Jail

About 24 top former officials in Saddam Hussein’s regime, including a biological weapons expert known as “Dr. Germ,” have been released from jail, while a militant group released a video Monday of what it said was the killing of an American hostage.

[...]

An Iraqi lawyer said the 24 or 25 officials from Saddam’s government were released from jail without charges, and some have already left the country.

“The release was an American-Iraqi decision and in line with an Iraqi government ruling made in December 2004, but hasn’t been enforced until after the elections in an attempt to ease the political pressure in Iraq,” said the lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref.

Among them were Rihab Taha, a British-educated biological weapons expert, who was known as “Dr. Germ” for her role in making bio-weapons in the 1980s, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, known as “Mrs. Anthrax,” a former top Baath Party official and biotech researcher, Aref said.

“Because of security reasons, some of them want to leave the country,” he said. He declined to elaborate, but noted “some have already left Iraq today.”

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, would say only that eight individuals formerly designated as high-value detainees were released Saturday after a board process found they were no longer a security threat and no charges would be filed against them.

It may take years to correctly judge the wisdom of these releases. Because of that, I’ll refrain.

EU May Cut Aid if Hamas Wins at Polls

Europe’s top diplomat warned Sunday the European Union might cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas militants win next month’s parliamentary election, reflecting international alarm over the Islamic group’s strong showing in West Bank local voting.

Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said during a tour of the region that European taxpayers would have a hard time supporting the Palestinian government if it included a party that supports violence and advocates Israel’s destruction.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a similar declaration Friday. The Palestinian Authority counts on foreign aid for half its budget.

[...]

The main challenge facing the Palestinian Authority now is the Jan. 25 election for parliament, where Hamas is fielding legislative candidates for the first time to challenge Fatah, which has ruled Palestinian politics for decades.

Last week, the younger generation of Fatah leaders split from the party and formed their own group, Future, leaving Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and other Fatah old-timers with a candidate list filled with Fatah veterans that many Palestinians consider corrupt.

The split was expected to weaken Fatah just as Hamas got a large boost its string of victories last week in West Bank local elections.

Hey, why foot the medical bills when the lunatics are running the asylum? Still, I have little faith in Europe to actually enforce such a strong stance at this time.

President George Bush is at the heart of a media and political storm since the revelation that he authorized warrantless monitoring of communications between people in the U.S. and people overseas suspected to have ties to Islamist terror. Today, Bush defended the program.

President Bush offered a vigorous and detailed defense of his previously secret electronic-surveillance program today, calling it a legal and essential tool in the battle against terrorism and saying that whoever disclosed it had committed a “shameful act.”

Mr. Bush said the surveillance would continue, that it was being conducted under appropriate safeguards and that Congress had been kept informed about it. He rejected any suggestion that the surveillance program was symptomatic of unchecked power in the presidency.

[...]

Surveillance dominated Mr. Bush’s hourlong news conference at the White House, and Mr. Bush said he fully understood the concerns of some lawmakers that civil liberties might be infringed upon. But those concerns are simply not justified, the president said.

“Leaders in the United States Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this program,” Mr. Bush said. “And it has been effective in disrupting the enemy while safeguarding our personal liberties. This program has targeted those with known links to Al Qaeda.”

The program, which Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to carry out, is consistent both with Article II of the Constitution, which outlines presidential authority and responsibility, and the laws of the United States, he said, and is reviewed every 45 days or so to prevent abuses.

Mr. Bush said he had determined early on that he was on sound footing. “Do I have the legal authority to do this?” he asked rhetorically. “And the answer is, absolutely.”

So, according to Bush, congressional leaders knew of the program. That, of course, is no reason for the Democrats not to on the attack.

Democrats quickly rejected the president’s rationale. “Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?” Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said at a Capitol news conference.

Sen. Levin is quite right; I’ve searched my own personal copy of the Constitution and I find no such authority. In fact, I find not mention at all of wires or telephones.

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom points his readers to a couple of interesting postings from other bloggers on the matter before he puts in his two cents.

As I’ve maintained all along, the President went through legal channels and was counseled as to the legality of his authorization of the NSA domestic surveillance, which means his good faith shouldn’t be questioned. And so at best, one can argue that the legality of the program is in dispute—but that the President was forthcoming about it and that he followed the proper procedures for legal review. How that is an “impeachable offense,” as Barbar [sic] Boxer and John Dean maintain, is a question best left to the progressive Democrats to explain.

But what interests me most is Phares argument (via Yoo, et al) that the authority is dependent upon whether or not we believe the President to be acting under war time conditions. Clearly, Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda declared war on the US. And so the question then becomes, are we actively at war?

As I noted previously, that the Dems don’t feel like we’re actually at war doesn’t mean we aren’t.

As this will continue to play out, and it will play out for quite a while as we’ve already seen time and time again the sickening but tenacious behaviour of the media and Democrats when they think they smell Bush administration blood in the water, one can only anticipate the twisting arguments to come on constitutionality, legality, authority and need. I feel that, in the end, two things are certain: first, should they be doing their job (HA!), the media should demand an investigation into the identities of those involved in the leaking of the program (don’t hold your breath); and second, the effectiveness of the program has been greatly impaired or ended. Should the program be stopped, the terrorists can only feel more secure in their communications from within the U.S. Should the program continue, the terrorists have been tipped off that a portion of their communication capabilities is no longer safe.

Net result no matter the course of the story: the ability of our government to defend the safety of Americans has been damaged, by choice and by our own citizenry.