The five detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp charged with plotting the September 11 attacks have filed a document expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The five detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp charged with plotting the September 11 attacks have filed a document expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The document, which the newspaper said may be released publicly on Tuesday, describes the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document read to a reporter by an unidentified government official, the report said.
“‘To us,’ the official read, ‘they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor,’” the paper said.
The document is titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations,” the military judge at the U.S. Naval base said in a separate filing, obtained by the Times, that described the detainees’ document.
“Your intelligence apparatus, with all its abilities … failed to discover our military attack plans before the blessed 11 September operation … Why then should you blame us, holding us accountable and putting us on trial?”
They criticize the U.S. for fighting “from behind roadblocks, trenches and warplanes” rather than face-to-face and describe Islam as “a religion of fear” for Jews, Christians and pagans.
“We are terrorists to the bone. So, many thanks to God,” they write.
Gee, so, the culprit of an attack is not the terrorist but the policemen who didn’t prevent it.
Islam = religion of fear for Jews, Christians and pagans. WOW!!! Even Wilders wouldn’t have said something soooo striking. Are they also going to punish them for “Islamophobia”?? You know, for hating Islam, presenting it as something different from the mantra-logo-slogan “Islam is Peace, Islam is the Religion of Peace”.
So, what is going to do Obama now? I don’t think these guys want to have a normal civilian life and I really don’t believe want to be a part of US society. Sooo?
another group of army soldiers also clashed with Jemaah Islamiya militants at around 4.40 a.m. in the village of Napnapan in Pantukan town in Compostela Valley province and capturing a Filipino bomb expert, Giovanni de Ocampo.
He said the captive admitted during interrogation that he is a member of the Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamiya and is also an alleged commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
“Initial report revealed that he is a trainer and an expert in manufacturing of improvised explosives which has caused the death of many innocent civilians and destruction of properties in this part of Mindanao,” Bautista said without further elaborating, saying, security forces were still hunting down other Jemaah Islamiya militants in the province.
The Iraniab regime decided naming a Teheran’s street after one of the main militar chiefs of the Lebanese Islamist Shia group Hizbullah, Imad Mughniye, alleged intelectual author of the worst terrorist attack suffered by the US Army in foreign lands.
Teheran already has a street honoring the memory of Egyptian Jaled al Islambuli, murderer of Egyptian former President Anwar al Sadat, and the terrorist Ahmad Qasir.
(…) In 1984, a doble terrorist attack using a truck bomb, planned by Mughniyed while he was recovering from some wounds in a Beirut’s hospital, killed 276 US Marines and 56 French paratroopers in the Lebanese capital.
During the 90’s he lived in hiding, but in 2009 it seems he had returned to active service. After his murder, the Iranian regime buried him in the so-called “martyr’s cemetery”, near the Great Ayatollah Khomeini’s grave, where it has a black marble tombstone.
Mughniyeh is also believed to have been behind the 1992 bombing of Israel’s embassy in Argentina in which 29 people were killed, and the blast at a Buenos Aires Jewish center two years later that killed 95.
No one knows who killed him. But at the moment there was several guesses: one of them was the Mossad, another were the Iranians…
Gunmen attacked Sri Lanka’s cricket squad Tuesday ahead of a match with home team Pakistan, the latest sign of the government’s weakening grip over the country’s security.
The early morning attack in Pakistan’s cosmopolitan city of Lahore killed five policemen and injured six players, after about a dozen men fired assault weapons at vehicles carrying the Sri Lankan team and their guards, according to Pakistani and Sri Lankan officials. The Sri Lankan team captain, Mahela Jayawardene, was among those injured. By early afternoon, the team had been airlifted from the cricket stadium and had announced it was canceling the tour.
Six Sri Lankan cricketers and their British assistant coach are wounded as gunmen attack their bus as it drives under police escort in the Pakistani city of Lahore. Video courtesy of Reuters.
“They were our guests,” Pakistan’s Sports Minister Aftab Shah Gilani told NDTV, an Indian channel. “We are very sorry about this. It’s really shocking.”
Pakistani police have arrested four suspects, but didn’t offer details about who had carried out the ambush armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades and rocket launchers. No group had claimed responsibility immediately following the attack.
The incident dealt another blow to a government already reeling from security setbacks and various other crises. Tuesday’s attack is likely to heighten worries about the nuclear-armed nation, as it reinforces an impression that the government is getting weaker while an Islamic militancy grows stronger, says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political and defense analyst who lives in Lahore.
What is the problem here? Bangladesh has postponed their series against Pakistan, as they had to travel to the country. So. ehh, this means the Talibans/Islamists/whoever they are have again won: normal life is displaced by terror. What is more, Pakistan has NO IDEA about who did this:
Lahore police chief Habibur Rehman said officers raided locations in and around the city and arrested “some suspects” at a hostel, but he added, “So far, we have not made any headway toward the perpetrators.”
What is more: a survivor has accused Pakistani police of fleeing
The former England batsman Chris Broad (…) slammed armed officers for leaving his group like “sitting ducks” as the killers sprayed bullets at his van and the coach carrying the Sri Lanka Test team in Lahore.
Broad said: “There was not a sign of a policeman anywhere. They had clearly left the scene.” The attackers – with hand grenades, machine guns and rocket launchers – fired for 15 minutes before calmly walking away.
Did they know that it was going to happen? Were they in some kind of agreement with the attackers? Or seeing five police officers had been killed were simply terrified?
So as they don’t know who did this, Pakistan has accused India of the attack. The Navy Minister, Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol, who belongs to the same political party as Pakistani PM, Zardari, considers this as a war declaration and previously the Punjab’s Governor has said that this bares “the same pattern as the Mumbay attacks, the same terrorists that attacked Mumbay, they were trained people”. So, India has not only had the disgrace of having people killed in its soil, now they have to bare also that the country who has been sheltering those same terrorists, accuses them of the terrorist attack. This is absolutely disgusting… No at all…
Angel and Ekawaaz have more on this terrible attack.
The ex-chief of ETA’s “military branch”, Txeroki has admitted the falseness of the torture charges on the Spanish Civil Guard by ETA terrorists Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola. In a document who was taken from him when he was arrested on Nov 17th, 2008, he wrote that this was an strategy, explaining “you always should denounce tortures and ratify them before the Judge”. He adds, “on the other hand, even if the fall has been grave enough both for those from Lesaka and also for Txetxu and for Esti, everything related to the fall and with the false tortures suffered by Igor in the hands of our enemies is on the right path… that strategy must be followed ever“.
15 agents from the Civil Guard has been charged with tortures after the accusation made by these two members of the “Elurra commando”, which committed several terrorist attacks, among others the one who killed two persons in the T4 Terminal of the Madrid-Barajas’ Airport.
Today another, it looks Ertzaintzas (Basque Autonomous Police) have arrested another ETA terrorist, rising their absolutely shamefulenormous rate of arresting terrorists to two in 5 years…. . Well, three escaped when another one was caught last week-end.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and two top government ministers have been sent anonymous death threats in letters stuffed with 9mm-calibre bullets, a judicial official said Tuesday.
Counterterrorism agents are investigating the mailings to Sarkozy, Justice Minister Rachida Dati and Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie – the latest members of the ruling conservative party to be targeted by such a letter campaign, the officials said.
The two-page, typed form letters feature disjointed messages addressed to “purveyors of freedom-killing and fascist laws,” the judicial official said, on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
An international tribunal set up to put on trial the suspected killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri is to hold its first session this Sunday in The Hague. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is opening its doors four years after al-Hariri and 22 others were killed in a suicide truck bombing in Beirut. It’s still not clear who will be indicted in connection with the assassination, but four pro-Syria generals are being held in custody in Lebanon. Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will have 60 days from the opening of the tribunal to request the transfer of suspects and evidence from Lebanon. Syria has denied accusations that it might have been behind the murder.
It is curious they don’t mention at all Hizbullah’s being a part of Lebanese Government, something which is surely as bad for Lebanon as being under Syrian tutelage.
Blacksmith of Lebanon has the photo of the four generals arrested in connection with Hariri’s murder and also this article about the terrorist attack:
Assad never believed there would be a UN inquiry into Hariri’s murder and it was only after I revealed in the Independent that there would be, that an astonished President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt rushed to his presidential jet and flew to Syria to warn Assad that he might be in very hot water indeed. The first UN team was led by Irish Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, who discovered that the wreckage of Hariri’s six-car motorcade had ? incredibly ? been moved from the crime scene at midnight on the day of the killings and other materials not associated with the bomb placed in the massive crater. The man responsible for doing so was General Ali al-Hajj, director general of the (then Syrian-dominated) Lebanese Internal Security Forces and one of the four men now locked up in Roumieh awaiting his day in court. If there is a court.
Al-Hajj used to work for Hariri, as his bodyguard, but was removed from his personal retinue when Hariri discovered he was also working for Syrian intelligence. He actually ‘ had the nerve to turn up at the Hariri family palace in Beirut’s Koreitem district to offer his condolences on the day of the murder.
You also can read this post about the International Tribunal in charge of the process:
“Funding is important, but international support for the Special Tribunal is also important,” he said. “There will be additional needs in coming years. The UN Secretary General is attempting to secure support from other countries, and we secured a majority of the funds necessary for the first year. I received a warm welcome and aid from many member states of the UN.”
I hope they are not blackmailed with the budget. Or forbidden to say who killed Hariri to maintain “regional stability”, stability that doesn’t exist really in the area. And the lack of condemnation of the people who ordered the killing will only make them stronger:
Eight months later, a report to the UN about Hariri’s assassination outlined a conspiracy of remarkable breadth and complexity. It revealed that three months before Hariri’s death, his security detail had been mysteriously reduced from 40 to eight; that six anonymously purchased mobile phones were used on the day of the attack to keep the bomber informed of Hariri’s movements and to provide intelligence on the three possible routes that Hariri could take from the parliament building to his home; that the suicide truck moved into position one minute and 49 seconds before Hariri’s convoy passed by; and that the truck itself had been stolen on October 12, 2004, in Sagamihara City, Japan. The killers appeared to be sophisticated, politically connected, and well-funded: clearly this was not the work of a lone extremist or a fringe group. It bore the hallmarks of a government-sponsored assassination.
(…) The ramifications of the Hariri case will extend well beyond justice and jail sentences. Many observers believe that the commission has been building a case against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his inner circle. Depending on how high up the charges go, the tribunal could have a major impact on the geostrategic map of the Middle East. An indictment of members of the Assad family and their closest allies, all members of Syria’s minority Alawite sect, could scuttle negotiations for a comprehensive peace deal between Syria and Israel. It could drive Assad further into the arms of Iran. It could even lead to a palace coup, or stir the country’s disenfranchised Sunni majority to revolt. “Imagine if the Syrian regime is proved to have planned and executed this assassination,” one Western diplomat with long experience in the region told me. “What will the Sunni majority in Syria think about a leadership that took out one of the major Sunni leaders of the Middle East?”
(…) Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a Beirut-based think tank, went further: “Israel and the United States are not eager to see this regime collapse,” he told me from Qatar in mid-September. “They are afraid of the consequences.”
(…) As tensions between Syria and the U.S. increased, Hariri—along with Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze chieftain and one of Lebanon’s most powerful figures—allied himself with France and the United States, gambling successfully that the West would turn sharply against the Syrian regime and enable Lebanon to make a break. The Security Council resolution demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon was an enormous blow to Assad. In Damascus, members of Assad’s inner circle began to worry not only about Hariri’s new course for Lebanon but about his reach inside Syria itself. “These guys saw Hariri as an immensely rich and powerful Sunni, and it exacerbated the paranoia of the minority regime,” says Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based British journalist and the author of Killing Mr. Lebanon, a book about Hariri’s murder.
The results on the poll on Geert Wilders (Do you agree with the English decision of declaring Wilders “persona non grata”?) are:
A total and absolute error: freedom of speech must be preserved 94% (15 votes).
While I think that freedom of speech is important, I believe that religious sensitivities must be respected 6% (1 votes)
Who is Geert Wilders? 0% (0 votes)
This week poll is about the agreement between the Talibans and the Pakistani Government in Swat’s valley. Fareed Zakaria discusses it and says that while the Talibans are “bad guys”, we don’t have to worry about them as they don’t want to achieve the Global Caliphate:
The groups that advocate these policies are ugly, reactionary forces that will stunt their countries and bring dishonor to their religion. But not all these Islamists advocate global jihad, host terrorists, or launch operations against the outside world — in fact, most do not. Consider, for example, the most difficult example, the Taliban. The Taliban have done all kinds of terrible things in Afghanistan. But so far, no Afghan Taliban has participated at any significant level in a global terrorist attack over the last ten years–including 9/11. There are certainly elements of the Taliban that are closely associated with Al Qaeda. But the Taliban is large and many factions have little connection to Osama bin Laden. Most Taliban want Islamic rule locally, not violent jihad globally.
The Home Secretary came under fire last night for allowing a radical Lebanese propagandist with links to the extremist group Hezbollah to enter Britain for a national speaking tour.
The Conservatives urged Jacqui Smith to ban Ibrahim Moussawi from the UK, warning that he was “likely to foment extremism or promote violence”.
Mr Moussawi edits Hezbollah’s newspaper and is former political editor of the Iranian-backed group’s television station, which is banned in many countries including France, Spain and the U.S. where its output is seen as anti-Semitic.
He was recently barred from entering Ireland, where he was due to speak at anti-war meetings.
He is scheduled to appear at an event in London tonight organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with more events planned around the country over the coming week.
the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears delivered a major speech on the subject which, far from presaging a change in strategy, was a defence of the status quo. (…She) explained that the problem was not just al Qaeda but also people who did not support violence but the ‘political Islamisms’ whose extremist ideas helped promote that violence. So what was she going to do about them – the ‘political Islamists’ — was what we now needed to know.
But she didn’t tell us. Instead, she retreated to the old comfort zone of the ‘moderate majority’and the need to engage with and encourage the mainstream Muslim community so that violence would not take further root there.
(Afterwards) she appeared to be saying that the mainstream Muslim communities with whom the government was having all this dialogue actually had ‘extremist’ views. So while earlier she had been talking about the importance of engaging with moderates, now she seemed to be talking about the importance of engaging with extremists. And as she said, I do indeed think that such ‘engagement’ is ‘endorsement’; more importantly, truly moderate Muslims think so too and have repeatedly begged the government not to engage with extremists in the community because it emboldens them and undermines true moderates .
Yet with groups which display
an equivocal attitude on core values such as democracy, freedom of speech or respect towards women,
there would be ‘ limited engagement’. Did that include the Muslim Brothers, or Hizb ut Tahrir, or other groups who want to Islamise Britain? Because ‘engagement’ with such people is the current strategy, and the result is that radicalisation of Britain’s Muslims is going through the roof while the government is seen to cave into the threat of violence and dance to their tune. Witness, for example, the banning of the Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders, who threatens no-one, while according to the Centre for Social Cohesionthe Hezbollah spokesman Dr Ibrahim el-Moussaoui is to be allowed into the country to teach a course on political Islam at the School of Oriental and African studies – a course apparently aimed at educating Government officials and the police.
So this guy, actually an extremer who has been chief political editor of a terrorist group’s TV is going to give a course to educate Government officials and the police.
This fortnight’s poll: priorities in the fight against Islamism
Fareed Zakaria says we don't have to be very worried by the Talibans as they don't advocate Global Jihad. Do you agree? Vote in this fortnight's poll!!
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