Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • Spain Claims Terror Pipeline to Iraq Cut

    It was certainly bad enough that, through a bloody terror strike, al Queda was able to gut Spain, affecting the country’s elections and precipitating an early withdrawal of Spanish forces from the Iraqi theater. Adding insult to injury, the terror network continued to abuse the nation, using it as a conduit to move jihadists into the same battleground Spain had fled. Now, Spain has made a move to cut the terror flow through its nation.

    The Spanish Interior Ministry said Wednesday that the police had arrested 16 people on charges of involvement with Islamic terrorism, including 11 men suspected by the police of having worked for a network that provided recruits for the insurgency in Iraq.

    Spain, which is described by terrorism experts here as a major logistical center for Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Europe, was not thought to be a significant supplier of fighters for the Iraq insurgency.

    But the announcement on Wednesday suggests that the flow through Spain of recruits to Iraq may be heavier than previously estimated, at least publicly.

    The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the 11 men, most of them Moroccans and Algerians, had recruited Islamic fighters for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader who is America’s most wanted man in Iraq, and for Ansar al-Islam, a group of mostly Kurdish guerrillas who are suspected of collaborating with Zarqawi.

    “The activities of this Islamist network centered on the recruitment and sending of jihadists to Iraq with the goal of committing suicide terrorist activities against the coalition forces,” the ministry statement said.

    Officials asserted that the network appeared to have been directed from Syria, although its activities were largely financed locally through drug trafficking, document fraud and robbery.

    The ministry also announced Wednesday that the police had arrested five more suspects in the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded at least 1,000. That attack, which Spanish investigators say was carried out by Islamic militants with ties to Al Qaeda, has led to the arrests of more than 100 people and the jailing of about 25.

    This is a possibly significant achievement, especially if Spain follows up the arrests with a successful haul of intelligence. 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. That, and it may eventually be painful and deadly to those only trying to police the waypoints of jihad within their borders, as the article points out ominously.

    In describing the men suspected of ties with the insurgency in Iraq, the Interior Ministry’s statement said that several had already vowed to carry out suicide attacks in the name of Islam, a fact that “highlights the extreme radicalism and the danger of most of those arrested in this operation.”

    The statement also suggested that the men were prepared to carry out attacks before reaching Iraq, and perhaps even before leaving Spain. “Several members,” it said, were “willing to commit a suicide terrorist act as soon as the leaders of the organization ordered it.”

    Pain and blood will come again to Europe via the Islamists. I hold it as a certainty. This is not a game where the sidelines are safe. This is not a game at all.

    Chad has more at In the Bullpen.

  • PA claims Israel Selling ‘Carcinogenic’ Juice

    We ain’t talking Jesus juice here.

    Israel has been flooding the Palestinian market with carcinogenic juice and “suspicious” computers used by its Defense Ministry, the Palestinian Authority claimed Tuesday.

    Such allegations, which were common under Yasser Arafat’s rule, have resurfaced in recent weeks in the Palestinian media.

    PA officials have also accused Israel of dumping toxic chemical waste in some areas in the West Bank with the intention of causing severe damage to the health of Palestinians.

    Last month, PA-controlled newspapers claimed that Israel was using wild pigs to destroy crops and agricultural farms in the West Bank. The papers claimed that settlers and IDF soldiers were seen setting loose many wild pigs near Palestinian villages as part of a campaign designed to destroy the Palestinian economy.

    A senior official in the [Israeli] Prime Minister’s Office said that with these types of allegations, the PA was resorting “to the same types of lies Yasser Arafat used to spread.”

    According to this official, the allegations represented a pandering to the radical elements on the Palestinian street and not much attention should be paid to them.

    At the same time, he said that if the PA was being dragged along by the radical elements, then “the Palestinians are not on the way to a state, but rather to another intifada.”

    […]

    The latest charge was made by Dr. Youssef Abu Safiyeh, chairman of the PA’s Environment Authority, who told Palestinian legislators in Ramallah that the PA security forces had recently seized a number of shipments from Israel that included canned juice containing a carcinogenic substance.

    “These drinks are specifically produced for Palestinian consumers in the Gaza Strip,” Abu Safiyeh said.

    He also claimed that the Egyptian authorities last March intercepted two Israeli trucks carrying children’s toys that included carcinogenic and radioactive substances. The trucks were seized at the Rafah border crossing, he added.

    […]

    Over the past few years, PA officials have repeatedly claimed that Israel was distributing corrupt food in Palestinian cities. They were quoted in the Palestinian media as saying that the Israeli government was selling expired food products to Palestinians with the intention of spreading various diseases among them.

    In 2001, the PA claimed that Israel was responsible for poisoned chocolates and explosive toys, pens and radios that appeared in markets in the Gaza Strip.

    Doctors at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said then that they had treated several children who were allegedly poisoned after touching candy bars.

    I would venture that the only verifiable poisoning being practiced on Palestinian children is the poisoning of their young minds by Palestinian society.

    Second verse, same as the first.

  • Palestinian Militants: Resistance or Thugs?

    You make the (obvious) call.

    Palestinian Authority ‘won’t disarm militants’

    The Palestinian Authority will not disarm militants until Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as stated in a U.S.-backed peace plan, Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said on Monday.

    “Under international law, the Palestinian people have the right to resist this occupation and defend themselves,” Kidwa, the former Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, told Reuters in an interview.

    “When occupation ends, it becomes a different matter. It would have to come to a national position to start disarming everybody, everybody but the security apparatus,” he said, referring to Palestinian Authority security forces.

    A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who declared a ceasefire with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February, could not be reached for comment on whether the Palestinian leader agreed with Kidwa’s remarks.

    When lawlessness gets the upper hand

    At long last A. managed to bring his nephews from Jenin to Ramallah for one weekend. He had hoped to restore to them, if only for two days, the taste of their childhood that was buried under the Israeli bulldozers, tanks and missiles. On Friday he took them to the play center in Ramallah. They had not yet begun to enjoy themselves when an argument erupted between a mother and the owner of the place. She called in a relative, a member of one of the security organizations. He came and contributed his part to the argument – shots fired into the air from his pistol, in the closed space full of children.

    The children and the parents huddled in alarm and did not calm down until armed police showed up. Instead of stopping the shooting, they too opened fire.

    On that same street, about a kilometer northward, passersby found themselves in the midst of exchanges of gunfire between armed men wearing civilian clothes. “Jews,” said 5-year-old T. to his mother as they hid behind the shelves of the grocery store. “No, they’re ours, safeguarding our security,” she replied with cynicism beyond his ken.

    Feel free to read them both and decide.

  • France Refuses to Explain Hostage Release

    Ah, the French. Why do they, as a nation, make it so easy to question their fortitude?

    France, which denied it paid a ransom to win the release of French journalist held in Iraq, refused Monday to give any details that led to winning freedom for the reporter and her Iraqi guide after five months of captivity.

    Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, who were freed Sunday, had been missing since Jan. 5, when they were seen leaving Aubenas’ hotel in Baghdad. French officials have never identified the kidnappers, although authorities in both France and Iraq suggested they were probably seeking money rather than pressing a political agenda.

    Despite mounting calls for the government to explain how the releases were achieved, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy refused to identify the captors, because he said they are still holding other people.

    “I can say absolutely nothing about that,” Douste-Blazy said on RTL radio. “There are still some hostages in the place of detention where Florence and Hussein were a few hours ago.”

    Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said France paid no ransom.

    “There was absolutely no request for money,” Cope said on Europe-1 radio. “No ransom was paid.”

    Former Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who worked the case until leaving the government this month, also said there was no ransom.

    But questions persisted.

    “Now the time of joy is over, the time for explanations has come,” said Annick Lepetit, a spokeswoman for the main opposition Socialist Party. “The public authorities, the president, the government must explain themselves.”

    If there are legitimate questions, they deserve to be answered. Note I said if. There is nothing in this article, other than a lack of forthcoming, that suggests the French government would acquiesce to a foe. There is, however, history.

    The article does go on to allow Aubenas to be praised to a silly degree.

    Liberation director Serge July, in an editorial Monday, called the captors “professionals in kidnapping, who hold an important – if not central – role in the atrocious market for hostages” in Iraq. He did not elaborate.

    July, a Liberation co-founder who shuttled to and from the Middle East during the hostage crisis, joined many others in praising Aubenas’ tenacity.

    Aubenas, 44, is “an incredible fighter, with a considerable psychological resistance, who in many ways simply didn’t crack,” he said on France-Inter radio.

    The kidnappers had their biggest prize since the lying Sgrena. Just how the hell was Aubenas, a career-long reporter for France’s “leading left-wing tabloid,” going to crack? By promising to write a story denouncing American efforts … again?!!

  • The Subtle Tricks of al Jazeera

    Want to be an effective propaganda machine? There’s always the Big Lie. Blasting the audience with a repetition of a falsehood while eliminating or drowning out the truth will work, as was ably shown by Nazi Germany. There are alternative, more subtle means, though.

    One possible way is to pass yourself off as a legitimate news agency and then tweak the stories. Ah, the devil is always in the details.

    For your examination, I present al-Jazeera.

    Now, I’m not normally an al-Jazeera reader. Mrs. Greyhawk led me down this path in her latest Dawn Patrol post. In the link, al-Jazeera trumpets that the American media is turning against American efforts in Iraq.

    American media no longer accept Bushs war lies [sic]

    In the story, al-Jazeera lists a collection of American newspaper stories published on or near Memorial Day that decried the current situation in Iraq. Mostly, the article is accurate in its painting of the stories. However, a couple of subtle touches jumped out at me.

    The piece pointed to a column from June 2 by Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune. The original text reads as follows:

    The dilemma the U.S. faces in fighting the insurgents is that military methods are not enough to solve the problem and may make it worse. If the movement is a reaction to the U.S. military presence, keeping American troops in Iraq amounts to fighting a fire with kerosene.

    The al-Jazeera plays with it slightly:

    “The dilemma the U.S. faces in fighting the (anti-occupation fighters) is that military methods are not enough to solve the problem and may make it worse. If the movement is a reaction to the U.S. military presence, keeping American troops in Iraq amounts to fighting a fire with kerosene. …

    The edit there is obvious in comparison — “anti-occupation fighters” has been substituted for “insurgents” by al-Jazeera. Is this a minor detail? No, when one considers how al-Jazeera defines anti-occupation fighters. As this al-Jazeera poll page shows, the terrorist group Hezbollah is also classified as an anti-occupation movement. Yes, the same Hezbollah that supports the occupation of Lebanon by Syria and bloodily opposes the occupation of Israel by, well, Israel.

    At least that change used a parenthetical notation to demonstrate an al-Jazeera edit. Now, for a more subtle tweak.

    We then turn to what al-Jazeera introduces as “the most powerful denunciation … from an unlikely source.” That is how a June 1 piece by the editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is, admittedly fairly accurately, framed. The original opens with the following:

    President Bush was among the 260,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery when he said it. But it was clear Monday that the president was referring to the more than 1,650 Americans killed to date in Iraq when he said, “We must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives; by defeating the terrorists.”

    Here is the supposed same piece from al-Jazeera:

    “President Bush was among the 260,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery when he said it. But it was clear Monday that the president was referring to the more than 1,650 Americans killed to date in Iraq when he said, ‘We must honour them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives; by defeating the “terrorists”.’

    Note the difference? Without any journalistic acknowledgment of the edit, al-Jazeera inserted quote marks around the word “terrorists.” The reader is left to believe one of two things — either the original piece included the doubting quote marks or President Bush held up his two hands and gave the internationally-annoying insert-quote-marks hand gesture while speaking. The latter being obviously unlikey, al-Jazeera has managed to add even greater spin to the original piece.

    I have utter faith in the ability of our mainstream media to grab hold of defeat from the jaws of victory and hold onto it tenaciously, given the opportunity. They’ve managed it before. If they are willing to let an opposing propaganda machine use them yet again, then that is one thing, disgusting though it may be. If they are willing to let the enemy play them in violation of the media’s own standards of journalism, well, then that is another. That is a media betraying its own country’s military efforts, their own progeny’s security and their very own professional integrity. What does that leave, people?

    Nothing but a mindset.

    My guess — the “American” mainstream media will continue to let such issues slide, and the al-Jazeera propaganda machine, which could be answered globally by an integrated effort, will continue to roll on and be painted as a “legitimate” alternative media source. Sometimes, really all too often, my life-long love of journalism is sickened by the modern state of the craft.

  • Hey, Senator Biden

    Shut up or start making sense. It’s your call.

    Two days ago, I pointed y’all to a blog post by Chad at In the Bullpen examining the call by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Some asylum) to shut down the Guantanamo detention center. Chad appropriately titled the piece “Biden is Off His Rocker.”

    Today, I’ve found more evidence that the man is losing his grip.

    Having recently returned from his fifth visit to Iraq, Sen. Biden spoke of the need to avoid a complete withdrawal from the country.

    “And if we leave now, I guarantee you there will be a civil war, which a lot of our folks are worrying about now anyway,” said Biden, D-Del., said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “We made a giant mistake in the beginning over the objection of a number from both parties.”

    U.S. forces decommissioned the entire army, the so-called de- Ba`athification and that left Iraq with no military, according to Biden.

    Biden said the training of Iraqi troops is on track, however, the United States waited a year and a half to start the process of training Iraqi troops.

    A year and a half? That would be a tragic mistake indeed. By Biden’s count, the training of Iraqi forces by Americans did not begin until at least October 2004. Well, he’s been there five times — he must know what he’s talking about, right?

    Wrong. In fact, not even close. In January 2004, the Department of Defense released the following:

    The first of nine brigades planned for the new Iraqi army nearly is complete, the officer responsible for helping to rebuild the country’s military reported in a Baghdad briefing today.

    Addressing progress in the rebuilding effort, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, commander of the coalition’s military assistance and training team in Iraq, said three battalions of Iraqi soldiers have graduated from military training academies since October. The desired “end state” is to eventually have “Iraqi officers and soldiers take over the training of their own soldiers,” Eaton said.

    “I would like to emphasize that this will be an Iraqi Army, trained by Iraqis,” he said.

    And who were the Iraqis hoped to relieve from the duty of training their forces? You guessed it, the Coalition Provisional Authority, according to one of its own briefings from September 2003. Oh by the way, the coalition included Americans.

    Let me begin with a little bit on the new Iraqi army, as such. The new Iraqi army began training the first battalion around the first of August, and that first battalion will be commissioned and enter operational service on October 4th, the training being now about three-quarters completed.

    The training takes place at a place called Kirkush, which is an old Iraqi military base about 80 kilometers northeast of Baghdad and about 30 kilometers from the Iranian border, which we reconditioned and are using as the training facility. As battalions go through, we will expand the capacity of that facility and have something like four battalions ready and operational by early next year.

    The actual day-to-day training is being done by U.S. contract trainers with very close Coalition military oversight. The military oversight is done by an organization called the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, which is commanded by an American, Major-General Paul Eaton, who was, until he took up this assignment, the commander of infantry training for the United States Army. So we have sent our best expert on that issue.

    His deputy is British, and his staff includes officers from a variety of Coalition countries.

    NATO trainers began arriving in August 2004 to expand efforts, and a military academy for Iraqi officers was already in the works in October 2004, when Biden claims we became involved in training Iraqi forces.

    Well, the good senator was only off by well over a year.

    Then there’s another curious statement just today by the senator during the confirmation hearings on Zalmay Khalilzad, nominee for the position of U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

    Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said on returning from his fifth visit to Baghdad that he and the American public were losing patience.

    “I’m not sure I could in good faith, a year from now, if things aren’t drastically different, continue to support American forces being in Iraq because we just seem not to get it yet,” he told Mr Khalilzad. The US “loss” of Iraq would be an “absolute disaster for the better part of a generation”, he said.

    Let me see if I can get a grip on this convoluted bilge spewing forth from Biden. Losing Iraq would be an absolute disaster but he cannot support the presence of our forces there another year without great improvement. Did I get that right? If things are not drastically improved, the senator would prefer to opt for what he himself sees as a tragedy.

    He calls for the shutting down Gitmo, either lies or is grossly mistaken about American training efforts in a country where he’s been on the ground enough times to know better, and shows a convoluted but resoundingly spineless support of our efforts while knowing the dreadful consequence of failure.

    Though I oppose the concept of term limits for members of the U.S. Congress, Biden does provide evidence to support at least consideration of the idea.

  • Looking Around at the News

    Feds: Science paper a terrorist’s road map

    The federal government has asked the National Academy of Sciences not to publish a research paper that feds describe as a “road map for terrorists” on how to contaminate the nation’s milk supply.

    The research paper on biological terrorism, by Stanford University professor Lawrence M. Wein and graduate student Yifan Liu, provides details on how terrorists might attack the milk supply and offers suggestions on how to safeguard it.

    The paper appeared briefly May 30 on a password-protected area of the National Academy of Science’s Web site.

    […]

    The paper “is a road map for terrorists and publication is not in the interests of the United States,” HHS Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson wrote in a letter to the science academy chief Dr. Bruce Alberts.

    The paper gives “very detailed information on vulnerability nodes” in the milk supply chain and “includes … very precise information on the dosage of botulinum toxin needed to contaminate the milk supply to kill or injure large numbers of people,” Simonson wrote.

    Obviously, more thought is needed by a great many on how not be our own worst enemy. The Information Superhighway needs a few more common sense speedtraps.

    Grandmother of 80 accused of running call girls

    An 80-year-old woman who shuffles around her home with a zimmer frame and an oxygen tank has been charged with running a prostitution business.

    Vera Tursi ran an “escort” business from her two-bedroom flat in Lindenwold, New Jersey – taking telephone calls from clients and sending out girls to meet them.

    Police said they suspected Mrs Tursi’s age when they spoke to her on the phone during an undercover operation. She could be heard catching her breath and used old-fashioned language.

    In her defense, at least … well … I’ve got nothing. This is just creepy. Maybe it could be used as an argument for Social Security reform.

    Election 2004: Election is finally over

    Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire now has a full four-year term to finish serving as governor. For Republicans, the 2004 election is over.

    For Washington voters, yesterday’s court ruling means a chance to see whether Gregoire can sustain the remarkably strong leadership she displayed during the first legislative session. There’s no reason for overconfidence: Early in his governorship, Gary Locke looked like he might be on his way toward large accomplishments and even national office.

    Voters also have an opportunity to demand changes in slipshod election procedures brought to light by the examination of Gregoire’s narrow victory over Republican Dino Rossi. Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges said the “voters of this state are in a position to demand” improvements.

    Rossi could have pursued an appeal to the Washington Supreme Court. That was his right, and until now, we have fully supported his exercise of legal avenues to contest the election.

    After the clear ruling from a respected jurist, however, it finally came time for Rossi to order an end to the legal expense and arguments. His decision to walk away from a last-ditch fight was right. But he spoiled his moment of grace with a cheap shot, claiming the “political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court” would not allow him to prevail on appeal.

    Old-time Chicago-style pizza — good. Old-time Chicago-style politics in the state of Washington — bad. The state’s election system needs desperate work.

    Man Arrested in Ariz. for Ricin Possession

    A man was being held Monday on a charge of possessing the deadly poison ricin, but authorities said they do not think he had any connection to terrorism.

    Casey Cutler, 25, told authorities he carried the poison in vials around his neck to use as a possible weapon, according to a criminal complaint. He said he had been attacked last year by three men while walking to his apartment, and that he intended to use the ricin in self-defense if attacked again, the complaint said.

    Cutler, of Mesa, faces a maximum of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on the single count of producing and possessing a deadly toxin for use as a weapon.

    Might I also suggest a psych eval?

    We do not need urgent reforms, says Syrian leader

    Ignoring international pressure and rising domestic frustration, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President, failed yesterday to announce broad and imminent reforms as he opened an eagerly awaited conference of the ruling Baath party.

    In an address lasting barely ten minutes, Mr Assad told the 1,250 delegates: “We are convinced the ideas and precepts of the Baath party are still of relevance and respond to the interests of the people and the nation in its desire for unity, freedom, justice and development.”

    For the six Syrian opposition activists — middle-aged businessmen, engineers and former army officers — who had gathered in a smoke-filled office to watch the speech on television, Mr Assad’s address was predictable and disappointing.

    “The President has no vision, no programme and said nothing about the suffering of the Syrian people,” one man, who, like his colleagues, declined to be identified, said. “That’s why I’m not optimistic that this congress will produce anything.”

    Sometimes one is to close too to the water, too tied to the moment or the past to notice a shift in tides. Events in the Middle East are threatening to flood a Syria hoping to return to its domination of Lebanon and bloodily hold back history in Iraq. A two-front war against the future may well be too much for Assad. At least the terrorists of Hezbollah still like him. Speaking of which …

    Hezbollah Ticket Sweeps Elections in Southern Lebanon

    In the second stage of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, a pro-Syrian coalition, led by the militant group, Hezbollah, won all 23 seats at stake in the southern region where voting was held Sunday. The results in the south were in stark contrast to the result of the previous Sunday’s voting in Beirut, where a ticket headed by the anti-Syrian opposition parties swept all the seats at stake in and around the capital.

    Unsurprisingly, round two stood directly against the path of the Cedar Revolution.

  • Troops Uncover Bunker Network in Iraq

    Interesting.

    American troops have found a vast network of bunkers beneath the Iraqi desert which insurgents used as a base, complete with kitchen and air conditioning, the US military said at the weekend.

    The largest complex, measuring 166 by 269 metres, (546ft by 883ft) was carved from an old rock quarry near Karma, in the restive province of Anbar, west of Baghdad.

    It included a well-stocked larder, four furnished living spaces and rooms full of machine guns, mortars, rockets, black uniforms, masks, compasses, night-vision goggles and satellite telephones.

    […]

    The US 2nd Marine Division, backed by Iraqi soldiers, has been sweeping through Anbar in an effort to disrupt the communications and supply lines of an insurgency that has claimed more than 820 lives in the past five weeks.

    Last Thursday the troops spotted a lone building in the desert and inside it found a chest-style electric freezer. It hid the entrance to what a marine spokesman, said was possibly the largest underground insurgent hideout to be found in the past two years.

    Fresh food suggested recent use. There were showers and a functioning air conditioner; in summer, temperatures can reach 54C (130F).

    Spent cartridges on the surface revealed what appeared to be a firing range. Some 50 other weapons and ammunition caches have been found in Anbar in the past three days, said a US spokesman.

    The bunkers gave an insight into the logistics of using remote areas to group fighters and equipment for attacks.

    Since the fall of Falluja last November, insurgents have relied on scattered bases to sustain a campaign of assassination, car bombs and suicide attacks.

    US and Iraqi forces claimed another success in the northern city of Mosul when, after a brief battle, they captured Mullah Mahdi, nicknamed the Prince of Princes, with five other suspected members of Ansar al-Sunna, a group which has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest bombings.

    And yesterday the government said that police had arrested a key aide to the leader of the Mosul branch of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group.

    Mutlaq Mahmoud Mutlaq Abdullah, also known as Abu Raad, is considered a key financier for a militant known as Abu Talha, the purported head of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror cell in the city.

    Despite the lengthy haul, I like to amuse myself with thoughts of the possible morale hit on the insurgents with the seizure of the air conditioner.

  • Not Tonight

    Just can’t seem to get in a blogging mood.

    I would suggest some fine reading for you, as both Austin Bay and Publius Pundit‘s Robert Mayer tackle the grandstanding, gulag-spewing Amnesty International.

    Oh yeah, speaking of organizations seeking to use isolated and prosecuted cases of abuse as a means to chip away at American efforts, the ACLU has won its latest case to get its grubby collective mitts on more Abu Ghraib photographs. Expect to see a few of them soon on a front page near you.

  • By the Numbers: Suicide Bombers in Iraq

    The New York Post crunches some interesting numbers about suicide bombers in Iraq.

    More than 40 percent of the suicide bombers dispatched by terror leader Abu Musab al- Zarqawi to attack Iraqis and U.S. troops hailed from Saudi Arabia, according to a new study.

    Only 9 percent of the bombers were Iraqis, said the report by the SITE Institute, a counterterror group.

    The analysis bolsters the Bush administration’s claims that the Iraqi borders are not well policed and fanatical foreign jihadists have been streaming into the country to wreak deadly havoc.

    SITE recently discovered a “Martyrs’ List” that Zarqawi posted on a Web site to commemorate the fanatics who were recruited as foot soldiers in the group’s deadly campaign of car bombings and other attacks to undermine Iraq’s transition to democracy.

    I’m sorry. Did I type “suicide bombers” instead of “martyrs” a moment ago? Silly typo on my part.

    An analysis of 107 bombers whose names and backgrounds Zarqawi’s group published revealed that 45 of the dead extremists, or 42 percent, came from Saudi Arabia, said Rita Katz, SITE director.

    Many other bombers were Syrian, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Afghani, Libyan and even French, while only 10 of the attackers, or 9 percent, were Iraqi-born.

    “What we see here is there are a lot of people who appear to be quite well educated leaving universities, good jobs and families to go to Iraq to fight the jihad,” Katz said.

    “It means there is huge support for Zarqawi and al Qaeda among the younger generation — particularly in Saudi Arabia — who are going to Iraq not to liberate Iraq, but to engage in the battle between the mujahedeen and the crusaders. This is in Iraq now. But it could be somewhere else tomorrow.”

    These numbers mean a couple of things. First, there is much support for the radical Islamist movement in the Arab countries outside of Iraq. Second, the Arab world in general, be it their spiritual leaders, political heads or regional media, are far too grounded in a culture centuries old, centuries past. The region as a whole needs some freakin’ shock treatment. Thus, the strategy of a free, democratic Iraqi populace. It may work and save millions of lives; it may yet fail and not avert the sustained attack on western civilization.

    My problem with the story in the Post is not content, but rather headline. To look at numbers on suicide bombers and project that to the entire situation with the headline “What Insurgency?” is simply wrong. Yes, there are Iraqi insurgents; they are predominantly Baathists and Sunnis who are fighting against a state where there role will be greatly diminished. The tactic of suicide bombings against civilians has not been alleged to be one of their weapons — such atrocities are predominantly in the realm of the outsiders, those that value Islamist cause over Iraqi life. You know, scum like the outsider Zarqawi.

    Iraq’s borders are an issue in keeping such foreigner crazies outside and away from innocent Iraqis.

    Foreign fighters running amok in Iraq are becoming a growing security issue for the new Iraqi government.

    Yesterday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari was at the U.N. Security Council, demanding that Syria do more to stop foreign terrorists from crossing into Iraq. He charged Syria was a “main transit route” for the guerrillas.

    Interestingly, the two blogs that pointed me to this story both took better takes on it than the headline writers at the Post.

    First, Kevin Aylward at Wizbang! gives the following:

    I’ve long been of the opinion that the argument that the war in Iraq would create a hotbed of terrorism was misguided. That Muslim jihadists from all over the Middle East are coming to Iraq to attack American forces is, in some respects, not necessarily a bad thing. Clearly these fanatics want to kill American’s and don’t much care where they do so. They’re out to get us, the only question is on whose turf the battle will be fought. At least in Iraq we have our trained military on the offensive against them.

    Then Chad at In the Bullpen adds this observation:

    What I do find interesting in this study is that none of the suicide bombers were Jordanian, Zarqawi’s country of origin. As suicide bombers are ordered to sacrifice theirselves, or sent in cars and detonated remotely without their knowledge, why haven’t more suicide bombers been Jordanian?