08-Jan-17: Pakistanis, working for Iran, plotted murders of Israelis in France, Germany

From news coverage of the suspect's earlier arrest last summer [Image Source]

A brief report put out by Kuwait's official newsagency caught our eye last week:

BERLIN (January 3, KUNA): The office of the German Prosecutor General has on Tuesday officially accused a Pakistani national of spying for Iran. Sayed Mustafa, 31 years, confessed of receiving money from an Iranian secret service for spying on the former head of German-Israeli Society Reinhold Robbe over at least one year, said a statement by the Prosecutor General's office located in Karlsruhe city. The defendant is also accused by Paris of spying on a professor of economics for the same Iranian secret service, according to the statement. The man. arrested in last July is to stand trial after his interrogation complete in mid-December [Source: Kuwait News Agency KUNA]

The fractured English aside, it sounds like more than spying is involved here, unless the Kuwaitis mean for us to believe that Iran is seeking insights into economic theory or wants to get a deeper understanding of how Germany's parliament works (Robbe has been an elected member of the Bundestag for the past 23 years). Both options are unlikely.

Now there's a different version of this murky story from an official German source:

German federal prosecutors pressed charges against a 31-year-old Pakistani student who they believe targeted Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician Reinhold Robbe on behalf of the Iranian intelligence agency, German media reported on Friday. Robbe, who served as president of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) until 2015, was being eyed as a possible assassination target, according to information reviewed by German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, as well as the daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung." According to the federal prosecutors' indictment, the suspected agent, named as Syed Mustufa H., compiled a thorough "movement profile" on Robbe and staked out the DIG offices in Berlin - signs authorities said were a clear indication of an assassination attempt.
The suspect paid particularly close attention to Robbe's public transportation travel habits and charted alternate routes that he took on the way to the DIG Berlin building. Prosecutors said the suspect's actions were part of a broader operation to identify possible targets with friendly ties to Israel in Germany, France and other European countries, the reports said. The Pakistani man is also accused of spying on a French-Israeli professor at a business school in Paris on behalf of Iranian intelligence. The suspect was previously detained by authorities in July 2016 under suspicion of espionage and was known to Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV). The Pakistani suspect is believed to have been spying for Iran since July 2015. The exact motive for carrying out a possible attack on Robbe is still unclear. However, security agencies speculate that the Iranian government could have been preparing a retaliatory move against people closely linked to Israel should Israel carry out airstrikes against Iranian nuclear power plants. Despite his extensive observation of Robbe, files confiscated from Syed Mustafa H. indicate that some of his methods were those of an amateur... The suspected agent officially studied engineering in Bremen and also worked at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the northern German city, the reports said. It is the first known case of a German politician being the target of an espionage operation by the Iranian intelligence agency, the reports said. [Deutsche Welle, January 7, 2017]

We're left wondering: Does this suspected spy/assassin have a surname and is it H? (Associated Press says this is "in keeping with German privacy rules"). Is there a good reason for not publicly identifying the Iranian spy agency? Is this really just an espionage story? And can we expect the wiley - and ruthless - Iranians to intervene and extract their agent from the German authorities clutches as they recently did in Kenya? ["14-Dec-16: Kenya, one way or another, clarifies its stance in the face of Iranian terror"]

In Pakistan, the alleged agent's July 2016 arrest in Germany on charges of serving the Iranians was a real story: see "Germany arrests Pakistani man accused of spying for Iran" [Express Tribune, Pakistan, July 8, 2016]. The photo at the top of this post is from the news coverage at the time.

Israel's Ynet, like us, is inclined to look past the espionage claims and to view the arrest as more pertaining to a sleeper assassination squad in the service of the Iranian regime:

A 31 year old Pakistani man has been indicted for being involved in an attempt to assassinate Reinhold Robbe - a member of the socialist-democrats and former president of the body responsible for strengthening relations between Israel and Germany. [He] was recruited by Iranian intelligence services, and was tasked with following known, outspoken Israel supporters in Germany... Mustafa and other operatives were to have been given orders to assassinate these targets should Israel have struck the Iranian nuclear reactors... Mustafa was arrested in July on suspicion of spying, and has been known to German intelligence services as a suspected Iranian agent since at least 2015. [Ynet, January 8, 2017]

And an Israel-based video news network pursues a similar line:

While the motive of the possible attack remains unclear, authorities reportedly suspect that the individuals were targeted as part of a planned worldwide retaliation scheme, in case Israel carries out an airstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Another suspect, also a Pakistani national, was arrested in connection to the affair but was released due to insufficient evidence, as he was able to erase the hard drive of his computer prior to his arrest, possibly destroying incriminating information. He left Germany immediately after his release. German media noted that it is the first known case in which a German politician was the target of an operation by the Iranian secret service... [i24NewsTV, today]

As for Iranian motivation (and perhaps fingerprints), a reminder of a news snippet we highlighted here just last month: 

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, while speaking at a conference in Tehran, said that were President-Elect Trump to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear “deal” signed by the Obama administration, Iran would destroy the State of Israel... ["Iran threatens to destroy Israel - again", Washington Times, December 12, 2016]

We suspect this story has some way yet to go.

27-Mar-16: A playground filled with children is mercilessly attacked. That's suicide?

Devastation in Lahore, Pakistan today
[Image Source: Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse]

Incomprehensibly terrible events are unfolding in Pakistan today. Reuters reports:

A suicide bomber killed at least 52 people, mostly women and children, at a public park in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday... The blast occurred in the parking area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, a few feet away from children's swings. Around 150 people were injured in the explosion, officials said... Eyewitnesses said they saw body parts strewn across the parking lot once the dust had settled after the blast. The park had been particularly busy on Sunday evening due to the Easter holiday weekend... "Most of the dead and injured are women and children," said Mustansar Feroz, police superintendent for the area in which the park is located.

[The toll is still rising. At 8:40 pm Israel time, Reuters says it's 65 dead, 280 injured. Unspeakable.]

According to the New York Times

The blast, apparently caused by a suicide bomber, occurred in a parking lot at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province, said Haider Ashraf, a senior police official in Lahore. The park is frequented both by residents and visitors to the city, and is popular with families. “It was a soft target. Innocent women and children and visitors from other cities have been targeted,” Mr. Ashraf said. “Apparently, it seems like a suicide attack.”

Oddly, neither that Reuters report nor the NY Times mention that "The area was crowded with Christians celebrating the Easter holidays, and many families were leaving the park when the blast occurred, Ashraf said." - [Source]. Could they be thinking that this has no relevance?

The people who executed this carnage certainly viewed it as an attack - the kind of thing you do in a war. They set out to murder as many people as possible, to inflict maximum despair and pain. From familiarity with previous such savagery, they did it willingly, utterly indifferent as to whether they would survive or die. The satanic culture in which they are immersed and the value-system they embrace and propagate make them very, very different from normal people.

Our attaching the word suicide to what they do adds a degree of understanding and perhaps even, Heaven forbid, respect for their motivations. This is a huge mistake.

Why do Reuters editors - and virtually the entire news reporting industry - call the person carrying the explosives a suicide bomber? How did suicide feature in his or her thinking? It didn't. Living or dying was a matter of complete indifference to that person.

The site of the explosion: the car-park of
a Pakistani playground [Image Source]

Focus instead on the unspeakable pain, the carnage, the body parts, the lost lives, the dead children. Then realize this was a human bomb attack that likely involved more than just the human bomb alone. There may have been planners, drivers, engineers to assemble the explosive package, others. We know what guided missiles are. And hydrogen bombs. And rocket-propelled grenades. They are put together by people in order to inflict extreme misery. Sometimes, more and more often, the explosive is delivered to the target by a person - who in doing so has forfeited his claims to mercy and consideration. The life of that person has been weaponized.

That's how our daughter Malki was murdered. That's what a human bomb is. We should insist that reporters and editors call it that. To whatever extent it affects the way we deal with the onslaught of the savages who do it, it's important we do it right.

03-Dec-15: In San Bernardino, they're starting to think this perhaps might possibly have been terror

San Bernardino [Source: The Independent]

The killings in southern California yesterday have - as most of us have learned to expect in an era afflicted with the curse of  political correctness - led to some quite foolish theory-propounding and circumlocations. 

But in the past couple of hours, the elephant in the room has gotten noticed by the reporting classes which means there might be some true investigative journalism on its way. (But we're not holding our breaths.) We're not going to do any speculating of our own - yet.

This is from the New York Times ["F.B.I Treating San Bernardino Attack as Counterterrorism Investigation"] today:

The F.B.I. is treating its inquiry into the massacre here as a counterterrorism investigation, two law enforcement officials said Thursday, based on materials the suspects stockpiled — including explosives — their Middle East travels and evidence that one of them had been in touch with people with Islamist extremist views, both in the United States and abroad. 

The suspects, a married couple identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, are believed to have opened fire inside a social services center on Wednesday, killing 14 people and injuring 21 others, in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the assault on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., nearly three years ago. The suspects died hours later in a shootout with the police on a residential street. 

Law enforcement officials said Thursday that the couple had thousands of rounds of ammunition in their home as well as 12 pipe bombs. “We do not yet know the motive,” David Bowdich, the assistant director of the F.B.I. office in Los Angeles, said in a news conference... Asked whether there were contacts with possible terrorist suspects, he said “We are still working through that.” Authorities added that there was certain level of sophistication in the explosive devices.

Law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. had uncovered evidence that Mr. Farook was in contact over several years with extremists domestically and abroad, including at least one person in the United States who was investigated for suspected terrorism by federal authorities in recent years...

We're hoping the lives and back-stories of the victims start getting some public attention. The first identifications have started to appear in the media in the past couple of hours. The LA Times ["San Bernardino shooting victims: Who they were"] has a "developing" article that we will be watching. Only a handful of the 14 murdered are documented at this stage.

16-Dec-14: Antisemites, lone-wolves, killers of school-children, and the people who appreciate and understand them

A timeless question

Over at the Gatestone Institute's website, Dexter Van Zile from CAMERA takes a penetrating look at a high-profile Christian magazine that "caters to liberal (mainline) Protestants in the United States" (his words) while helping to advance a notoriously anti-semitic website. 

Oh, and a major search engine is involved too. 

His essay is called "The Stubborn Antisemitism of Yahoo and The Christian Century", and one of its central characters is James M. Wall. Unlike most Christian theological writers and their thinking, this Wall is someone about whom we have actual views. Strongly negative views, naturally, based on articles he has published and positions he has advocated. A sense of what we think can be gotten from a post we published here a year and a half ago: "18-Jul-13: When he lionizes child killers, is James M. Wall speaking for mainstream Christians".  In honor of Dexter's new piece, following, is an excerpt.

...James M. Wall, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.... exemplifies, to us, a deeply disturbing trend in the world of ultra-liberal religious thought: the willingness to really, really, really understand and theologically empathize with the people who hate Jews and who do awful things to them... Anyone not already familiar with what we said about this troubling individual earlier is invited to see

• 3-Jul-13: Stonewalling? The Christian Century and the thundering silence

• 5-May-13: Self-confessed jihadist murderer: "With my media card, I was able to enter back and forth, undetected..."

• 23-Aug-12: Theology and sociopaths

In the earliest of those posts, we noted that he was editor of a prominent American journal of thought and ideas called The Christian Century for the 27 years between 1972 and 1999... Our interest in Wall was aroused when we saw a rambling article on his blog entitled “Ahlam and Nezar, A Palestinian Couple Released in The Prisoner Exchange”. In it, Wall makes the argument that Ahlam Tamimi, who proudly takes credit for a terrorist atrocity in 2001 which targeted Jewish school-children and extinguished the lives of 15 people including our daughter Malki, did what anyone would do if they saw themselves at war. What she did was merely logistic. It was therefore perfectly understandable. Murder? Hatred? Deeply visceral antisemitism? Terrorism? Not, it seems, in Wall's lexicon... How Christian is it to embrace the unrepentant murderer of children who says she prays for the chance to do it again?

The original post is longer of course. And the three other posts listed above may cause the blood of some of our readers to warm up, if not boil. But please do read them if you haven't already.

Wall is far from alone in advocating the deeply offensive line he does. Lionizing the murderers of innocent people, including school children, has almost become a commonplace thing as we saw in the past few hours in Peshawar. And diminishing the seriousness of the threat posed by so-called isolated, lone-wolf jihadists like the man behind yesterday's Sydney siege (see "Sydney siege: Don't call Man Haron Monis a 'terrorist' - it only helps Isis", The Guardian, December 16, 2014] is a trend that's growing almost as fast as the number of so-called isolated, lone-wolf jihadist attacks. 

And as we are seeing right now over the river in Jordan, appreciating the heroic and the inspirational in the actions of a convicted and unrepentant killer (who prays for the day when she can kill again) is something even world-class journalists and Western governments have little problem supporting [see ["11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?"]  Still, the case of James M. Wall and those who acquiesce in his hatefulness with their silence and passivity continues to cause damage because of how little attention and criticism it has attracted.

19-Oct-14: Saudi Arabia's sense of where it fits in the war against the terrorists

Today's forward-looking Saudi Arabia [Image Source: BBC, October 2013]

Saudi Arabia "is at the forefront of combating terrorism" and believes strongly in "the need to take steps to spread the spirit of peaceful coexistence across the globe".

These and other startling revelations appear in an article entitled "Kingdom backs tough steps against terror" in Saturday's Arab News ("Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper... founded in 1975"), published in Riyadh. The report summarizes a speech delivered by by Dr. Ahmed Al-Salem, undersecretary at the Saudi Ministry of Interior, to the Crans Montana Homeland and Global Security Forum in Geneva this past week. (Here's a partial list of attendees.)

We don't mind admitting that we don't know much about Crans Montana or the Forum itself. It was established in 1986 and, though it is a Swiss entity, it is run from Monte Carlo, Monaco. The website of the organizers says:

Do not be surprised if after so many years you have not heard of the Crans Montana Forum – or very little. Indeed we do not invite the press and do not want media coverage in order to preserve the freedom and the quality of exchange of ideas that we organize... The Crans Montana Forum offers an alternative way to create, expand and deepen knowledge and business relationships in a unique and friendly atmosphere you will appreciate... Forums are not publicized. ["Crans Montana Forum: What makes us different"]

Notwithstanding the absence of the press, here is what the Saudi press says about the Saudi delegate's speech on the Saudi approach to terror. Given Saudi Arabia's deep, long and rich involvement in terror, these are comments worth noting (all direct quotes):

• “From our experience, it has become crystal clear that terror has no religion, no ethnicity and no nationality,” said Ahmed Al-Salem, undersecretary at the Ministry of Interior. “Fighting against terror ideology is as important as any other method adopted to combat terror... Terror is the scourge of the 21st century that has left a catastrophic impact on the security and prosperity of human societies across the world...”
• The Kingdom is at the forefront of combating terrorism as it has been the target of a number of violent attacks, he pointed out. Since 2003, the Kingdom has suffered 147 terror attacks in which 95 innocent civilians lost their lives and 569 people were wounded. Foreign employees and visitors were also among the casualties. Security forces foiled 250 plots to blow up domestic and foreign facilities and murder citizens and foreigners... He put the number of the security officers who were killed in terror attacks at 74, adding that 657 officers sustained serious injuries. 
• “The situation demands that all countries intensify their efforts to combat and root out the menace and bring terrorists to justice wherever they might be,” he said. This can only be achieved with reinforced international, regional and bilateral cooperation, he said.
• He also stressed the need to take steps to spread the spirit of peaceful coexistence across the globe.
• ...The Kingdom had developed a comprehensive strategy over the past years to combat terrorism, focusing on the prevention of terror activities and rehabilitation of reformed terrorists. These efforts, he said, aim at fortifying and protecting the community from extremist ideologies by way of anti-extremist campaigns through the media, lectures and seminars. A unit to deal with terror has been set up in collaboration with educational, religious and social establishments, he said. 
• The Kingdom’s efforts against terror also include signing a number of regional and bilateral agreements to cooperate in the combat, participation in the drafting of the comprehensive charter to fight international terrorism, besides urging other countries to set up a center to combat terror with a donation of $100 million.

A recent op ed in The Guardian takes a robustly different view of where the Saudis stand on defeating terror. Its title somewhat gives away the author's thesis: "To really combat terror, end support for Saudi Arabia" [Owen Jones, The Guardian, August 31, 2014]. Among his sharply critical points (all direct quotes):

• Much  of the world was rightly repulsed when Isis beheaded the courageous journalist James Foley. Note, then, that Saudi Arabia has beheaded 22 people since 4 August. Among the “crimes” that are punished with beheading are sorcery and drug trafficking. Around 2,000 people have been killed since 1985, their decapitated corpses often left in public squares as a warning. 
• Shia Muslims are discriminated against and women are deprived of basic rights, having to seek permission from a man before they can even travel or take up paid work. Even talking about atheism has been made a terrorist offence and in 2012, 25-year-old Hamza Kashgari was jailed for 20 months for tweeting about the prophet Muhammad. 
• This human rights abusing regime is deeply complicit in the rise of Islamist extremism too. Following the Soviet invasion, the export of the fundamentalist Saudi interpretation of Islam – Wahhabism – fused with Afghan Pashtun tribal code and helped to form the Taliban...
• Chatham House professor Paul Stevens says: “For a long time, there was an unwritten agreement... whereby al-Qaida’s presence was tolerated in Saudi Arabia, but don’t piss inside the tent, piss outside.” 
• Although Saudi Arabia has given $100m (£60m) to the UN anti-terror programme and the country’s grand mufti has denounced Isis as “enemy number one”, radical Salafists across the Middle East receive ideological and material backing from within the kingdom. According to Clinton’s leaked memo, Saudi donors constituted “the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”.

He's writing for a British publication, so it's not surprising that he reminds Guardian readers how "Saudi Arabia is the British arms industry’s biggest market, receiving £1.6bn of military exports. There are now more than 200 joint ventures between UK and Saudi companies worth $17.5bn." His point, in our words, is that while ending terror ought to mean breaking off with the Saudis, that's just not going to happen.

And about that reference to "rehabilitation of reformed terrorists", the photo below was published by the Saudi government in 2009. The faces in it are of Saudi Arabia's 85 “most-wanted” terrorists. They include 11 former Guantánamo detainees, all of whom were in that Saudi Arabian rehabilitation program: plainly not such a huge success.

Saudi Arabia's "Most Wanted" List, February 2009 [Image Source]

That mention of "Clinton's leaked memo" probably means "WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists", a report published in The Guardian  on December 5, 2010. It opens with these blunt claims:

"Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton. "More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said.

A leaked State Department document published on that same date, "US embassy cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists raise funds in Saudi Arabia", asserts that Lashkar-e-Taiba "fundraises in Saudi and the Gulf though charitable donations and front companies". Lashkar, generally thought to have been the party that executed the bloody 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, is "one of the largest and most active terrorist organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan".

All in all, the notion that the Saudi government claims to be at the "forefront of combating terrorism" raises some questions about what the word forefront could possibly mean when they use it.

22-Nov-13: Memo to self: Not everyone claiming to be against terrorism ought to be believed

In the war against the terrorists, there's a sharp distinction to be drawn between those who are for the terrorists and those against. A great shame that there is so much confusion on the matter in so many places.

From Reuters today:

Pakistani doctor who helped U.S. find bin Laden charged with murder
JIBRAN AHMED | Reuters | Peshawar, Pakistan | Fri Nov 22, 2013

Pakistan on Friday charged with murder the doctor who helped the United States track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in the latest development in a case that has strained ties between the two countries. Shakil Afridi, hailed as a hero by U.S. officials, was arrested after U.S. soldiers killed bin Laden in May 2011 in a secret raid that outraged Pakistan and plunged relations between the strategic partners to a new low.

Pakistan arrested Afridi and sentenced him last year to 33 years in jail for membership of militant group Lashkar-e-Islam, an accusation he denies. But in August, Pakistan overturned his conviction, citing procedural errors and ordering a retrial.

Friday's murder charge, relating to the death of a patient eight years ago, dims Afridi's chances of going free and could further sour ties with the United States. It centers on the death of Suleman Afridi, at a hospital in Pakistan's rugged Khyber Agency region in 2005, and was brought by the man's mother, a local official told Reuters. "A woman blamed Afridi for the death of her son," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "She stated that he operated on her son at a hospital in Khyber Agency even though he was not a surgeon, and that caused (her son's) death." No further details of the case were immediately available. Afridi is not a relative of the doctor, despite the shared surname.

The Khyber Agency, on the border with Afghanistan, is part of the semiautonomous areas where tribal law holds sway instead of Pakistan's judicial system, and the government is represented instead by a political agent.

Afridi's lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, also no relative, said Khyber officials had informed him about the murder charge on Friday morning.

Pakistan accused the doctor of running a fake vaccination campaign in which he collected DNA samples to help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency track down bin Laden. Afridi is a last name shared by members of the Pashtun tribe of that name.

29-Sep-13: Sunday, bloody, bloody Sunday

Last Sunday, under a deliberately ironic headline ["22-Sep-13: A quiet weekend"], we reported on the ghastly weekend actions of Islamist terrorists in several places:

• Nigeria, where Islamists killed at least 159 humans in two attacks
• Pakistan where 75 were killed [the toll subsequently rose past 80] and 120 injured in a church attack in Peshawar
• Kenya, where Islamists were then still in the process of murdering more than 60 people after separating out some of the Moslems among them
• Iraq where 16 were killed in the name of Islam at a Sunni funeral, a day after 104 people were killed in an attack by Islamists on a Shiite funeral in Baghdad.

That was then. Now this weekend:

The death toll in an attack by gunmen on a college in northeastern Nigeria on Sunday has risen to 40, a Reuters witness said, in a region where Islamist militants have targeted schools and universities. Gunmen stormed the College of Agriculture in Yobe state and shot students as they slept in the early hours of Sunday, state police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said. A Reuters witness counted 40 bodies at the main hospital in Yobe's state capital Damaturu, mostly young men believed to be college students. [Reuters, reporting in the past half hour] Note: AP reports today, as well, that Nigerian Islamists killed at least 30 other civilians during the past week in separate attacks.

and

Twin blasts in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar killed 33 people and wounded 70 on Sunday, a week after two bombings at a church in the frontier city killed scores, police and hospital authorities said... The blasts hit outside a police station in an area crowded with shops and families. Police said it appeared at least one of the explosions had been a car bomb. There was no immediate claim of responsibility... Women sobbed as ambulances pulled up with more bodies... The Taliban [Islamists] have repeatedly rejected Pakistan's constitution and have called for the full implementation of Islamic law and for war with India... [Reuters, reporting in the past hour]

And it's still only Sunday morning in some parts of the world.

22-Sep-13: A quiet weekend

It's been a quiet weekend... unless the Islamist terrorists happen to be active in your neighbourhood. Some notes from some specific neighbourhoods this quiet weekend:

Nigerian Islamists kill at least 159 in two attacks

Reuters | BENISHEIK, Nigeria | Islamist Boko Haram militants killed 159 people in two roadside attacks in northeast Nigeria this week, officials said, far more than was originally reported and a sign that a four-month-old army offensive has yet to stabilize the region. In the first attack, on Tuesday, Boko Haram guerrillas wearing army uniforms stopped traffic on a highway between the cities of Maiduguri and Damaturu, dragging people out of their vehicles and killing them, with 143 bodies recovered so far... Tuesday's toll was initially given as "more than 20", but information often takes days to trickle out of the remote and sparsely populated region, where roads are bad, curfews are in force and the military has cut the phone network since May... Thousands have been killed since the shadowy sect launched its uprising against the state in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to Western culture into an armed militia with growing links to al Qaeda's West African wing... Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, wants to revive the medieval Islamic kingdoms that used to rule northern Nigeria, before its amalgamation with the largely Christian south by the British colonial authorities.

Pakistan: 75 killed, 120 injured in Peshawar church attack

By Web Desk / AFP Published: September 22, 2013 | PESHAWAR: A twin suicide bombing killed more than 75 people at a church service in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, officials said, in what is believed to be the country’s deadliest attack on Christians. The two attackers struck at the end of a service at All Saints Church in  Peshawar, the main town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which has borne the brunt of a bloody Islamist insurgency in recent years. Sahibzada Anees, one of Peshawar’s most senior officials, told reporters the bombers struck when the service had just ended. “Most of the wounded are in critical condition,” Anees said... Former minister for inter-faith harmony Paul Bhatti and provincial lawmaker Fredrich Azeem Ghauri both said the attack was the deadliest ever targeting Christians in Pakistan... The small and largely impoverished Christian community suffers discrimination in overwhelmingly Muslim-majority Pakistan but bombings against them are extremely rare... Pakistan’s Ulema Council, an  association of leading Muslim scholars, strongly condemned the church attack and said killing innocent people violates the tenets of Islam. “It is an extremely shameful attack  which has shamed all Pakistanis and Muslims,” Allama Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, chief of the council, told AFP. “There is no room for such terrorist acts in Islam...”
Provincial lawmaker Ghauri said there  were about 200,000 Christians in the province, of whom 70,000 lived in Peshawar. “Now after this attack Christians across Pakistan will fear for their lives,” he warned... Only around two percent of Pakistan’s population of 180 million are Christian. The community complains of growing discrimination... Christians have a precarious existence in Pakistan, often living in slum-like “colonies” cheek-by-jowl with Muslims and fearful of allegations of blasphemy, a sensitive subject that can provoke outbursts of public violence.

Kenya: Standoff at Nairobi mall after gunmen kill at least 59

Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post | Updated: Sunday, September 22 | NAIROBI — More than 24 hours after Islamist militants stormed an upscale Nairobi mall, a tense standoff continued Sunday between the heavily armed assailants and Kenyan security forces, as the government announced that the death toll had risen to 59 with more than 175 injured in the deadliest attack in Kenya since the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings. The attackers, strapped with grenades and wielding machine guns and AK-47 rifles, remained holed up inside the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall, with as many as 30 hostages, Kenyan government officials said Sunday. An unknown number of people remained inside the building, hiding from the gunmen. Sporadic gunfire erupted at the mall Sunday morning as additional Kenyan security forces arrived to help defuse the crisis, which began Saturday afternoon.

Suicide bomber hits Iraq Sunni funeral, killing 16

Associated Press | Sunday September 22, 2013 A suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt among Sunni mourners attending a funeral in Baghdad on Sunday, killing 16 people and wounding 35 others, officials said, in the latest episode of the country's near-daily violence. Police officials said the evening attack took place when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt inside a tent where the funeral was being held in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Dora. Two other attacks in the country's north left two policemen dead and 37 others wounded, the officials added. Sunday's bloodshed came a day after a wave of attacks killed 104 people, most at a double suicide attack on a Shiite funeral in Baghdad. Violence has spiked in Iraq during the past few months. More than 4,000 people have been killed between April and August, a level of carnage not seen since the country was on the brink of civil war in 2006-08.Earlier on Sunday, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a residential area in the city of Kirkuk, wounding 35 people... The bomber targeted both a Kurdish educational office and an adjacent house for a Christian lawmaker, Qadir said. Seven members of the lawmaker's family were wounded in the attack. 

Associated Press has a deeply depressing album of images that illustrate aspects of these weekend stories.

11-Sep-13: No need to speculate: Palestinian Arabs genuinely, overwhelmingly believe in barbarism as a strategy

Yasser Abed Rabo, co-author of 2003 peace
plan, with Israeli partner Yossi Beilin [Image Source]

A Pew Research Global Attitudes report issued today demonstrates statistically that

Overall support for violence in the name of Islam has declined among Muslim publics during the past decade... In many of the countries surveyed, clear majorities of Muslims oppose violence in the name of Islam. Indeed, about three-quarters or more in Pakistan (89%), Indonesia (81%), Nigeria (78%) and Tunisia (77%), say suicide bombings or other acts of violence that target civilians are never justified. 

But there is one demographic where a clear majority of respondents - 62% - told Pew's pollsters that "suicide bombing is often or sometimes justified". That demographic is Palestinian Arab Muslims.

Knowing the murderous intentions of the Palestinian Arab "street" concerning us ordinary Israelis (and keep in mind that Palestinian Arab terror is rarely directed at the Israeli military), it casts a deadly light on the current strategies of the Mahmoud Abbas regime's inner circle. 

A report published just yesterday by WAFA, the official mouthpiece of the PA, quotes Yasser Abed Rabbo summing up the 'peace' process currently underway. Abed Rabbo is said to be one of the authors of the 2003 Geneva Accord. 

“Israel is trying to benefit from the negotiations to pressure Europe to cancel the boycott (of settlement products),” he said on Voice of Palestine... The negotiations have not made any progress on the ground and that all Israel wants is that no one says anything about its settlements and other activities that violate the rights of the Palestinian people.
“There are no signs of progress... There is progress only in the settlements and in the violations, but not in the negotiations that can cause us to say that US efforts have achieved any real results on the ground or in the peace process..." [Abed Rabbo quoted yesterday by WAFA]

His voice is part of a choir. The Palestinian/Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh writes today on the Gatestone Institute website that -  

PLO, Fatah and Palestinian Authority officials have described the talks as "futile", "unproductive", "a waste of time" and "a cover for Israel to pursue its policy of creating new facts on the ground..." By sounding the alarm bell already, the Palestinians are hoping that when the talks fail they will be able to tell the world, "You see, we told you from the beginning that these Israelis do not want peace." But these statements and threats have also proven to be counter-productive. The more Palestinian officials and leaders talk about the "futility" and "ineffectiveness" of the peace talks, the bigger the opposition grows to the negotiations with Israel. [Khaled Abu Toameh on Gatestone Institute website, September 10, 2013]

Nearly two-thirds of the people ruled by the clique of which Abed Rabbo is a leading member are committed to the most extreme forms of lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. In that light, do we need to speculate about the intended effect when PA insiders like him dismiss so comprehensively the current round of talks between their side and Israel?

3-Aug-13: Prison breaks and terror threats

Indonesian police secure entrance to burning prison
compound in Medan, July 11, 2013 [Image Source: CNN]

Following on from what we posted here Friday ["2-Aug-13: That war against "terrorism"? How well are we doing, exactly?"], Interpol issued an alert today advising its 190 members to step up vigilance in the wake of a wave of prison breaks involving hundreds of terrorists and other criminals in 9 countries which "may be linked". These took place (among other locations) in

• Libya: More than 1,100 prisoners escaped from a facility on the outskirts of Benghazi on July 27 [NYTimes report] following a wave of political assassinations and attacks on political offices across the country
• Iraq: An overnight jail-break on July 22 in which 500 convicts, including senior al Qaeda terrorists, escaped from Abu Ghraib [NPR report]
• Iraq: Also July 22, Taji prison, north of Baghdad, was attacked by forces of The Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella group for al-Qaeda in Iraq [Al Jazeera report] with numerous deaths and many prisoners freed
• Pakistan: A high quality military-style operation on July 31 in which, says NPR, Taliban forces numbering around 100 (or the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a Pakistani affiliate of al-Qaeda, according to RT) armed with explosives and automatic weapons attacked the central prison in the city of Dera Ismail Khan freeing (depending on who is to be believed) between 175 and 300 prisoners, among them 35 "high-profile militants". Al Jazeera correspondent Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said that the infiltrators "were using loudspeakers and calling the individual names of inmates to come out of the badly damaged prison." Ahead of the prison break, officials received a letter threatening such action, but according to the head of the local prison department Khalid Abbas, "they didn't expect it so soon."
• Indonesia: BBC says 100 prisoners escaped (while CNN says "hundreds") on July 12 from Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, Sumatra. Nine of them are reported to be terrorists.

Reuters says the Interpol warning refers to the anniversaries of several violent attacks over the past years during the coming month, including in Mumbai and Nairobi. Though they don't mention it, August 9 is the twelfth anniversary of Hamas' showcase attack on the Sbarro restaurant in central Jerusalem.

1-Aug-13: Escalating troubles in Sinai and Gaza: Is it still news if Israel can't be blamed?

Rafah, near Gaza's border with Egypt: Each of the tents and
canopies covers a tunnel mouth [Image Source: Majed Abusalama]

Linda Gradstein, writing for The Media Line (and Ynet) describes a steadily growing shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip, with serious and visible consequences. A Gazan economist she quotes says only about 25 percent of the required level of fuel is now available, and cars are lining up for hours at gas stations. Sewage treatment plants have been shut down, with untreated effluent being dumped into the Mediterranean. Naturally, this - along with the ecological mess it causes - is going to be blamed on the Israelis.

But in reality the cause is Egypt and Hamas.

Gradstein says the Egyptians have shut down 80 percent of the tunnels, numbering in the hundreds, that run between Egypt and Gaza. An extensive security crackdown waged by the transitional Egyptian government is underway right now. It's directed at the Sinai-based gunmen and terrorists about whom we have written here frequently.

But, and this is new, it's also directed at Hamas, whom the new Egyptian rulers accuse of conspiring with the overthrown Morsi government to carry out attacks on Egyptian soldiers and police in Sinai.

The Egyptians say the weapons for those attacks come through the tunnels and the perpetrators can flee into the safety of Hamas-controlled Gaza. hence the crackdown. And Israel? Listen to this:

“Israel is making every possible effort in order to enable the transfer of goods into the Gaza Strip given the current policy,” Guy Inbar, the spokesman for the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). "We emphasize that Israel does not limit the amount of goods transferred to Gaza and that the Kerem Shalom crossing has yet to reach its maximum capacity. As for today, it is possible to transfer 400 trucks every day, but the demand from Gaza is lower, and on an average day we receive requests for about 300 trucks.” Inbar said that in the last three weeks, 165 fuel tankers have passed via Kerem Shalom at the request of the Palestinians from Gaza.

We visited the crossings last summer and heard the same analysis.

Israeli sources quoted by Gradstein say Israeli fuel is three times more expensive than Egyptian, so sharp price increases are expected. Cement and other construction materials are also in short supply now, and the large and heavily publicized Qatar-funded building projects are currently on ice.

In an Al-Monitor piece on the Egypt/Hamas tensions ["The Silence on Gaza"], Shlomi Eldar looks closely at Gaza's problems and predicts worse ahead:

If, until recently, it seemed to the leaders of Hamas both in Gaza and on the outside that after seven years of a suffocating siege, all their troubles were about to disappear, they are now seeing their world turning against them... [Recently] the skies came crashing down on them. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was deposed, and Hamas was pilloried along with him. Egypt’s new regime considers Hamas an enemy. The Egyptian army has launched a far-reaching offensive in the Sinai, and is waging a war of annihilation against the subterranean network of smuggling tunnels in Rafah, which were the main source of food and raw materials for the Gaza Strip. The light they saw at the end of the tunnel just a few months ago went out in a flicker. The markets emptied of goods, gasoline for automobiles has just about run out, and emergency stockpiles of gasoline and diesel fuel are running very low as well. The electricity is turned off every few hours, hospitals report that there is a shortage of drugs, and even cigarettes have vanished from the shops. Right now Gaza is going backward six or seven years to a situation in which it is hermetically sealed off, almost as it was after the Hamas military coup of June 2007. [Eldar]

Eldar thinks it's astonishing that Gaza's growing problems are triggering so little responsiveness among the circle of Hamas-friendly parties in the area.

• "Why isn’t the Al Jazeera network heard broadcasting from the Gaza Strip encouraging the local residents to take to the streets en masse, to tear down the wall around Rafah and burst into the Sinai?" asks Eldar.
• And the recently installed emir of Qatar, Gaza's recent hero, has he gotten lost? From Qatar, there is not "a word of condemnation directed at the new military and civilian leadership in Egypt", says Eldar.
• After all the reports in recent months that Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "the self-appointed patron of Gaza" was going to be visiting Gaza, it's now off the agenda. Turkey is no longer threatening to send its warships to sail alongside "aid" flotillas as they try to break through Israel’s maritime siege.
• The organizers of the bloody 2010 Turkish flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara, are silent. Nowhere to be seen. Eldar asks: "Isn’t this the perfect time to get the boat ready for another voyage? Isn’t this the right moment to recruit volunteers from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf States to load crates of food and medicine on deck, so that they can be delivered to the people of Gaza, who are under siege?" But they're not coming.
• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, who sailed on board the yacht sponsored by the group “Free Gaza” is missing in action. Doing nothing. Saying nothing.

The answer, says Eldar, is obvious. 

This time there is no way to accuse Israel, because it is not involved in the injustice. These days, Israel barely imposes any restrictions whatsoever on the import of foodstuffs, clothing, and raw materials into the Gaza Strip. It is engaged in economic cooperation with Hamas, based on the transfer of goods through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The real issue is that Hamas preferred to rely on the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, so as not to create a dependence on Israel.

Those smuggling tunnels, by the way, were not only Hamas' preferred option. They were central to the economic well-being of the fast-rising Gazan select nouveau riche, the favoured of Hamas society. And if they are being systematically shut down and destroyed by Egypt, this has implications. Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Israeli journalist whose writings we quote here often said something prescient a year ago:

If the Egyptian army succeeds in demolishing the underground smuggling tunnels that keep Hamas running, it could mark the end of the Islamists' rule over the Gaza Strip. But if Egypt's new president, Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tie the hands of the Egyptian army's generals and keep them from completing the mission, Hamas will become even stronger and wealthier. [Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute Website, August 30, 2012]

His article is entitled "How Many Millionaires Live in the "Impoverished" Gaza Strip?". Since he's referring to the place that parts of the media routinely call a concentration camp, how does he answer?:

According to an investigative report published in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, there are at least 600 millionaires living in the Gaza Strip... The Palestinian millionaires, according to the report, have made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Informed Palestinian sources revealed that every day, in addition to weapons, thousands of tons of fuel, medicine, various types of merchandise, vehicles, electrical appliances, drugs, medicine and cigarettes are smuggled into the Gaza Strip through more than 400 tunnels. A former Sudanese government official who visited the Gaza Strip lately was quoted as saying that he found basic goods that were not available in Sudan... Palestinians estimate that 25% of the Hamas government's budget comes from taxes imposed on the owners of the underground tunnels. For example, Hamas has imposed a 25% tax and a $2000 fee on every car that is smuggled into the Gaza Strip. Hamas also charges $15 dollars for each ton of cement, eight cents for a pack of cigarettes and 50 cents for each liter of fuel smuggled through the tunnels. [Khaled Abu Toameh]

The chaos in Sinai is exacting a rising toll in blood. A Turkish news agency says, in a story filed from El Arish today, that

At least 42 people, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in a spate of militant attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula since July 5, two days after the army ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi, according to a tally compiled by Anadolu Agency. One soldier was killed and another one wounded on Thursday (today) in an attack by gunmen on a security checkpoint in the North Sinai city of Arish.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian news source, today quotes an un-named "security source" saying that interrogations of those arrested in Sinai in the last few days

have proven that there are ties between the extremists in Sinai and foreign intelligence bodies. The same source told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the investigation carried out by the general and military intelligence bodies has shown that the extremists have ties to elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in Gaza... Approximately half of the extremists in Sinai entered Egypt during the rule of ousted President Mohamed Morsy.

All in all, it's unlikely the violence in Sinai and the turmoil in Gaza are going to end quickly though we confess to wondering (despite the fingers pointed at Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Hamas regime) how long before it's all blamed on our side again.

15-Jun-11: The war against the terrorists requires that you choose the side you support

Click to view the Council on Foreign

Relations Crisis Guide: Pakistan

And the Pakistanis, it's increasingly clear, have made their choices.

Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants Who Aided Bin Laden Raid
New York Times - Tuesday 14th June 2011: Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

 Also from Pakistan today:

A lot learnt, a lot to learn about Pakistan and terror
Indian Express - Posted: Wed Jun 15 2011, 03:06 hrs:  Confessed American terrorist and Pakistani spy David Coleman Headley delivered explosive revelations about how [Pakistani] ISI officers funded, supported and directed the 2008 Mumbai attacks along with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Because of his mix of front-line experience and high-level contacts, Headley’s testimony was a seminar in how terrorists communicate in code, do surveillance on targets and assemble plots while spies oversee the operations from the shadows like puppeteers. The case also showed how a growing number of serving and former Pakistani military officers have put their lethal talents at the service of Lashkar, al-Qaeda and other groups.

ISI stands for the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, more commonly known as Inter-Services Intelligence. It's Pakistan's premier intelligence agency. 

David Headley is actually Daood Sayed Gilani, a Pakistani American from Chicago who was among the planners of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks (in which the Jewish Chabad House was a principal target) and other terrorist activity. Wikipedia says he changed his Islamic name to a Christian name to hide his Pakistani-Muslim identity to make travel to India easier. 

To learn more, there's useful - and deeply worrying - background on Pakistan's terrorist connections at the website of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

15-May-11: Tentacles: Terrorism charges and arrests in New York City, Florida

From yesterday's New York Daily News [link]

The Wall Street Journal today describes how Justice Department officials are busy trying to gain the trust of Muslim communities around the US while guarding against possible reprisal attacks following the killing of Osama bin Laden. But it isn't going so well for them.

Saturday, six perfectly ordinary people, good neighbours all, were arrested in Florida by federal authorities and charged with being part of the Taliban terrorist organization. The six "are charged with conspiracy and providing material support to murder, maim and kidnap" and include

"two imams at mosques in Florida, have been indicted on charges that include providing support to Pakistani Taliban terror plots, federal prosecutors said Saturday. Miami U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer announced the charges following the arrests of Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76-year-old imam of the Miami Mosque; his son Izhar Khan, 24 years old, an imam at Jamaat al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla., a nearby suburb; and another son, Irfan Khan, 37 years old. All three are U.S. citizens of Pakistani rigin and residents of south Florida. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Hafiz Khan after early morning services outside his Miami mosque and Izhar Khan was arrested in the parking lot of his mosque around the same time early Saturday, said John Gillies, special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami office. Irfan Khan was arrested at a hotel in Los Angeles, he said. Also charged are Amina Khan, her son Alam Zeb, and Ali Rehman, all residents of Pakistan. They haven't been arrested. Ms. Khan is a daughter of Hafiz Khan, and Mr. Zeb a grandson." 

A law enforcement official is quoted saying:

"Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today's charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming."

A little further north, two so-called "lone wolves" planned to dress up as Hasidic Jews and slaughter worshipers at city synagogues after selling guns and drugs to finance the diabolical plot, in the words of police quoted in the New York Daily News. Their goal was to hit so-far-unspecified New York City  synagogues using grenades and guns.

"Details of the mission were revealed Thursday after the Queens duo - whom neighbors called knuckleheads - were charged with terrorism and hate crimes... Cops say the ringleader, Algerian-born Ahmed Ferhani, 27, who sought asylum here with his family in 1999, also fantasized about blowing up the Empire State Building and a Queens church. Ferhani enlisted a Moroccan pal, Mohamed Mamdouh, 20, in a plan to sneak into "a major synagogue in Manhattan" disguised in Orthodox-style beards and side curls to plant a bomb. "He was committed to violent jihad, and his plan became bigger and more violent with each passing week," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said. [According to NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg] "New York City police officers were watching them and were in position to take them into custody before they could maim and murder innocent New Yorkers"... Ferhani, a former cosmetics salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue, had discussed avenging the treatment of Muslims. "He was fed up with the way Muslims were being treated around the world," said Kelly, quoting Ferhani telling an undercover cop... Ferhani was arrested last year on charges he tied up and robbed a woman who invited him back to her room at the Park Central Hotel in midtown, but a grand jury declined to indict. He also has prior arrests for marijuana possession, disorderly conduct and weapon possession. Mamdouh has a burglary case on his rap sheet. He's a graduate of Flushing High School, the alma mater of several suspects implicated last year in a terror plot to bomb city subways." 

Suspects have never been charged before under the New York state anti-terror laws that were passed after the 9/11 attacks. It is reported that US federal prosecutors declined to press the case, saying the plan was more aspirational than operational.

It's clear that the ongoing lessons in this ongoing war, including those of 9/11, need to be relearned and retaught in an ongoing way because the threats are not diminishing. They're growing.

3-May-11: In a world where you are either for terrorism or against it, Fatah decides

The caption from this 2006 USA Today photo says it depicts members (members?!)
of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades supporting Mahmoud Abbas in Nablus.
When Abbas' gunmen say they are broken up over the death of Osama Bin Laden,
they ought to be believed. And we ought to understand what that tells us
about Fatah and Abbas. 

Mahmoud Abbas, in addition to being the head of the Palestinian Authority, serves as chairman of the organization called Fatah, the largest of the numerous factions making up the PLO.

Fatah's military branch is the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Yesterday the Brigades published a statement responding to the untimely demise of the arch-terrorist and mass murderer Osama bin Laden.

His death, they say, was a "catastrophe", no less. His killers, the anti-terror forces of the US military, are "gangs of heretics."

For an ostensibly secular group, as distinct from the fanatically Islamist Hamas with whom they signed a co-operation agreement this morning, it's an interesting turn of phrase.

Palestinian Media Watch today quotes the Brigades unit of Fatah saying its "Jihad fighters will not be deterred in their path".

The announcement ends with this less-than-secular vow:

"We say to the American and Israeli occupier: the [Islamic] nation which produced leaders who changed the course of history through their Jihad... is capable of restoring the glory of Islam and the flag of Allah's oneness, Allah willing."

Hamas, a fully-paid-up member of the forces of Jihadist terror, is of course heart-broken at the death in Pakistan. The Guardian today quotes the Gazan jihadists praising Osama bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior" and condemns his killing by American forces in Pakistan. Presumably editorializing more out of hope than expectation, The Guardian adds:

The comments expose a clear gap between Hamas and their Palestinian counterparts, Fatah, with whom they are due to sign a reconciliation pact this week in Cairo.

That pact, as we noted, is now reality. But a clear gap? Not so much.

2-May-11: A terrorist is eliminated... but not terror

Although, as the LA Times and others are reporting, a CIA-led operation has killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and recovered his body after a tortuous decade-long hunt, terrorism was not halted, defeated or eliminated and will certainly continue. We salute the tenacity of the forces that stayed focused on this specific target and express the prayer that they and others will be tenacious and determined and - above all - successful in the far larger war against the practitioners of terror and their countless allies.