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Ironic Surrealism v3.0 » Iraq: Six! Year Old Boy Kidnapped and Brutally Tortured by al Qaeda SavagesRead this story. Then think what kind of people would broke both arms to a 6-year-old boy, pulled his teeth out with pliers, beat him with a shovel, laughing as they inflicting him pain. They also hammered a nail into the little boy's leg. Cause? His father is a policeman…
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Ohhhh. Myyyy. Godddddd…
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"Russia had long been indignant over Western support for Kosovo, the enclave in Serbia that won recognition as independent last year. The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was intended to prevent the Serbs from suppressing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, had especially angered people here.
With the South Ossetian conflict, the Kremlin saw hypocrisy, asking why it was proper for the West to deploy force to support Kosovo in the face of supposed Serbian violence against civilians, but not for Russia to do the same thing for South Ossetia."
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I'm sure the guys from CNN are very worried about this violence and are going to write special op-eds about how wrong is violence against people filming politicians at rallies… NOT
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the people who got "loud & violent" about Iraq war, are now complaining about the other side getting "loud & violent"…
Daily Archives: 08/08/2009
Iran: Protestors’ trial – 2nd hearing
Clotilde Reiss
Meanwhile Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, said yesterday at Friday prayers that the Iranian nation is united and vigilant, this morning the second hearing of the trial against protestors has been held.
Clotilde Reiss, a French 23-year-old teacher (right, from Le Point), is being judged of attempted “velvet revolution”… after she was caught taking photographs with her mobile phone of the riots. Her image during the trial is somewhat different (below, from Al-Jazzeera)
Clotilde Reiss, during 2nd hearing
More information here. Every accusation is just as absolutely unbelievable as that one.
Global Voices has more information about these hearings:
Mohmmad Ali Abtahi, a leading blogger and former reformist vice president, was among dozens to protest the 12th June presidential election's result.
In the court Abtahi, who appeared wearing prisoner’s pyjamas, looked weak and seemed to have lost weight. Abtahi, who had been jailed for several weeks and had no contact with the outside world, said in the court, “I say to all my friends and all friends who hear us, that the issue of fraud in Iran was a lie and was brought up to create riots so Iran becomes like Afghanistan and Iraq and suffers damage and hardship… and if this happened, there would be no name and trace of the revolution left.”
Abtahi has been accused of taking part in a “velvet coup” against regime.
Clearly he is not in a very good shape (left image: before the tribunal; right image: during hearings). His terrified, anguished looks are not very promising.
In the link there are Iranian bloggers quoted, giving their opinion about Abtahi. This site has been launched to ask for his freedom. His family has not even been told why he was arrested.
More photos of the accused in these trials:
Shahabedin Tabatabayi after 50 days in today's court
Ali Tajer Nia after 50 days in today's court
Ahmad Zeyd Abadi after 50 days in today's court
Hedayat Aghayi after 50 days in today's court
More arrested people here.
Iran has also put a UK Embassy employer on trial, causing anger from its Government.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Rassam, who is charged with espionage, as saying that information was handed over to the Americans. “Because the American government lacks facilities to survey Iran events and because of the close relations between Washington and London, the British embassy in Tehran sent its collected vote unrest details to Washington,” the Reuters news agency reported Rassam as telling the court.
Reuters reported him as apologising to the Iranian nation and that he “asked the court for forgiveness”.
Clotilde Reiss, a French citizen, was charged with “acting against national security by taking part in unrest … collecting news and information and sending pictures of the unrest abroad”, Reuters reported. IRNA said she had confessed her “mistakes” and asked for clemency.
Espionage and acting against national security are punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic law. Iran has accused the west of trying to overthrow the country’s government and encouraging the widespread protests that followed the election in June.
In another related news, seven lawyers who defended the “rioters” were killed to prevent other lawyers to defend them. Two of them died during detention (their families could barely recognise them after the beatings) and five others were sentenced to death and immediately killed on charges of drug possession, charges fabricated “by the regime local authorities”.
In another case detailed to this reporter, a Teheran-based lawyer managed to extricate his brother-in-law – a fellow attorney based in Mashhad – from detention.
“I was able to get him out,” the Teheran lawyer said, “but I am not proud of how I did so. I am sorry to say that I had to turn over all of my files and cases. In addition, I had to sign an agreement not to take on any further cases [of arrested protesters] in the future.”
Last but not least, the judge:
Iranian judge Abul Qasim Salavati attends a hearing for French language teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss and other defendants in a court room in Tehran August 8, 2009.
technorati tags: Iran, #iranelection, Clotilde_Reiss, Abtahi, Shahabedin_Tabatabayi, Ali_Tajer_Nia, Ahmad_Zeyd_Abadi, Hedayat_Aghayi, UK, Rassam, espionage, US, torture, confessions_under_torture, France, Sarkozy
Indonesia: Noordin Mohammed Top, believed killed*
Suspected terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohamed Top was believed to have been killed in a Central Java police raid today.
Indonesian police this afternoon were evacuating bodies from the house they had stormed, believing that the regional militant leader was hiding on the premises with several followers.
Indonesian news stations carried television footage of the raid, and quoted a police source as being “80 per cent certain” that Top had been in the house.
Bill Roggio reports he committed suicide after an standoff with the police:
Noordin Mohammed Top, Asia’s most wanted terrorist, committed suicide after a 12-hour standoff with Indonesian police in a remote farm house in Central Java.
Police made visual confirmation of Top through cameras attached to remote control robots that were deployed into the house and watched as he fled into a bathroom and, surrounded by a woman and three children, blew himself up, Metro TV reported. The explosion occurred at 8 am Saturday local-time (9 pm EDT Friday) and was carried on live television.
The woman is believed to be the children’s granmother. Indonesian police has not confirmed yet Noordin’s death. But that hasn’t been the only operation against terrorists in Indonesia:
In a separate operation on Friday evening, Densus 88 raided a safe house near Jakarta in Bekasi and disrupted planned major attacks on Istana Merdeka, the presidential palace, and the president’s official residence in Cikeas, a suburb of Bogor, which is two hours south of the capital. The raid followed the capture of a Daihatsu Xenia minivan that carried a 500 Kg bomb.
Two suspected terrorists, Air Setyawan (28) and Eko Peyang (21), attempted to flee the safehouse and were shot by police. Both men died after being taken to the hospital. Both men have been associated with recent terrorist attacks and activities. Setyawan was involved in the 2004 attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta while Peyang had become Top’s main bombmaker, According to Detik News.
Read it all.
More photos from the raid, here.
*Indonesian national police chief has said that Noordin was preparing a terrorist attack on the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, recently elected.
technorati tags: Tanzim_Qaidat_al-Jihad, Jemaah_Islamiyah, Islamism, terrorism, Indonesia, Noordin_Mohammed_Top, Air_Setyawan, Eko_Peyang
US: man who wanted to join the Taliban, sentenced
A federal judge has sentenced a Houston man to 4 1/2 years in prison for conspiring to join the Taliban and fight against U.S. forces.
Kobie Diallo Williams apologized for his actions and said he was wrong for what he did before being sentenced Friday in federal court.
Williams, also known as Abdul Kabir, was a student at the University of Houston-Downtown when he was arrested in November 2006 by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Good news.
technorati tags: US, Taliban, Houston, Kobie_Diallo_Williams, Abdul_Kabir, University_of_Houston-Downtown, FBI, FBI’s_Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force
Afghanistan: Taliban speak about Mehsud’s death
Firstly, they said that his actions won’t be affected by his death:
“The Taliban’s jihad against foreign forces in Afghanistan will not be affected if a Pakistani Taliban leader is killed on the other side of the Durand line,” Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“We feel sympathy for our brothers who fight for the same cause, but resistance against the Afghan government and its foreign allies will continue.”
This morning they have denied reports about his death:
A Taliban spokesman and a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud claimed Saturday that the Pakistani Taliban chief was not killed by a CIA missile strike, contradicting another aide who confirmed Mehsud’s death a day earlier.
The claims, made in calls to Pakistani and international media organizations, could undermine the growing confidence among U.S. and Pakistani officials that Mehsud died. They also could be tactical maneuvers to prevent defections as the Taliban leadership searches for a successor to Mehsud or even to delay a decision on naming an heir.
His probable heirs (in case he is dead) are:
his deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, a young brash and aggressive commander who was until recently the Taliban’s commander for the Khyber tribal region and credited with the disruption of NATO supplies to Afghanistan. (He has denied this morning that Baitullah Mehsud has been killed).
Another, Waliur Rehman, is Mr. Mehsud’s relative. He is the most likely to succeed him, according to one Pakistani security official.
The third is a man identified by the officials as Azmatullah Mehsud. The decision, the official said, will be influenced by another militant group in Waziristan with close ties to the Afghan militant leader, Mullah Omar. “His death leaves behind a huge vacuum,” one of the officials said.
Mehsud had 10,000 followers. I believe the infighting is going to be truly strong among his followers, whether he is already dead or not.
(All are relatives: interesting point).
technorati tags: Afghanistan, Mehsud, Baitullah_Mehsud, terrorism, Islamism, Pakistan, US, CIA, Hakimullah_Mehsud, Waliur_Rehman, Azmatullah_Mehsud, Waziristan, Mullah_Omar, Al_Qaeda
Nigeria: 13-yr-old girl forced to watch her pastor’s murder by Boko Haram
A horrible story that, of course, CNN is not going to report about:
A thirteen-year-old Nigerian Christian has told Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) sources how she was forced to watch her pastor’s murder, and has also spoken of her four-day ordeal as a prisoner in the besieged compound of Islamist group, Boko Haram.
On 26 July, Mary was in church with her pastor, his brother and an older Christian woman when a group of fifty militants broke in. She and her pastor hid as the group killed the pastor’s brother and dragged the older woman out of the room. On discovering their hiding place, the militants cut off her pastor’s hand to stop him holding on to her, then hacked him to death with machetes before setting him on fire.
The girl and the woman were dragged to Boko Haram’s compound in Maiduguri’s Railway district, and were placed in a room with around 100 other Christian women and girls. They were all asked to renounce their faith or face continued imprisonment, while Christian men were given the choice of renouncing their faith or dying.
As the link is not going very well, this is an image of the above press release.
technorati tags: Nigeria, Boko_Haram, Islamism, CSW, Christian_persecution, religious_persecution, Maiduguri
Indonesia: The JI’s “Jihad on Westerners” using social ties
An update on the social ties of terrorists:
His new network’s activities in and around Palembang, a sprawling city of 1.5 million people on the island of Sumatra, show how they operated.
The river port city is a melting pot of Malay, Indian and Chinese people, with a history as a pirate lair. Today, it’s a dusty, traffic-clogged city known for its criminal gangs, and for the Masjid Agung, one of the nation’s largest mosques, which fills up on Fridays when people from across the city come to pray.
In 2006, according to police documents, an emissary of Mr. Noordin known as Syaifuddin Zuhri, but who used the alias Sabit, arrived at a small Islamic school called al Furqon, about four hours’ drive south of Palembang. His mission: To exhort a nonviolent study group of about 10 people concerned about Christian conversions of local Muslims to consider attacks on Western targets.
(…)
Mr. Sabit introduced Mr. Taib to a master bomb maker, who later trained others in the group, and supplied him with a loaded revolver and 11 spare bullets to be used in attacks on “infidels,” Mr. Taib said in trial testimony.
Members of the group went on, in 2007, to shoot dead a Christian schoolteacher in Palembang who had persuaded his Muslim female students not to wear their veils. The members also built bombs and planned to attack tourist cafes in a Sumatran hill resort popular with backpackers, according to testimony. The group called off the attacks at the last minute because they didn’t want to also kill Indonesian Muslims.
(…) After being arrested (…), eight members of the group confessed and were convicted of the teacher’s murder and of planning attacks, and received prison sentences of between 10 and 18 years. Mr. Sugandi was given a five-year sentence for harboring terrorists, and his school shut down. Mr. Sabit wasn’t captured.
via Indonesian Terrorists Find Refuge – WSJ.com.
technorati tags: Indonesia, Jemaah_Islamiyah, Sumatra, Masjid_Agung, Noordin_Mat_Top, Syaifuddin_Zuhri, Sabit, al-Furqon, Christianity, Christian_persecution, religious_persecution, Palembang, Islamic_veil,
India: Haryana’s couple beaten to death
In another case of honour killing, a young couple was allegedly beaten to death by the family members of the girl after they caught them together in the field in a village here Wednesday night, police said Thursday evening.
According to police, the girl’s uncle found the couple in a compromising position in an empty field near the girl’s house in Balamba village near Meham town Wednesday night. He called the girl’s brothers and they killed the boy on the spot and dumped his body on the outskirts of the village.
The girl was dragged back home and murdered there. They cremated her the same night to remove all proof.
It’s really necessary that the calls for passing measures against these crimes are heard.
technorati tags: India, Haryana, Honor_Killings, Balamba, Meham
Portugal: Interior Ministry announces the country will lodge 2 GITMOs
Portugal has agreed to take two Syrian detainees from Guantanamo prison, the foreign ministry said Friday.
The pair will be accepted on humanitarian grounds and granted special visas, the ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site. The ministry did not provide details on the detainees’ identities.
Portugal is the third EU nation, after France and Ireland, to make a firm commitment to take specific prisoners. Many European states have been cool to the idea of taking Guantanamo prisoners off American hands.
The foreign ministry statement said the decision “safeguards aspects related to security (and) the prospects for the successful integration of the chosen former inmates.”
So, these guys, Syrian Nationals (why aren’t they taken back to Syria?), are going to be given “visas” on humanitarian grounds to move freely through Portugal? Because in that case, their movements will be free throughout the whole European Union (have the rest of the countries being asked about this?).
And why didn’t they give their names?
technorati tags: Syria, GITMO, European_Union, France, Ireland, Portugal, Socrates
Left For Dead: Surviving a Murder in the Name of Honor
Disgracing her family by leaving an abusive husband while with child, Fellah* was meant to die. After her brother mistakenly thought she was dead, dropping her body in a field, fate would have it she would escape the Southern Syrian village alive.
Fellah speaks softly, afraid to share her story too loudly, but needing it to be heard. Although Fellah has relocated and changed her name, she still fears that her family will find her. She doesn’t leave her home alone and her four daughters are watched over with a protective eye. Ten years earlier, when Fellah was seventeen and with child, she was the victim of a would-be honor killing.
You know? This is the problem… It is not that someone tries to kill another human being. That happens in all societies. The special characteristic regarding Honor Killings is that they are performed because it’s socially demanded. Yes, some people will tell me that this is a religious custom. But if that religious custom, wouldn’t be socially demanded, would they do it? I really don’t think so.
Read it all. Surely, you would be angry afterwards. But it would be good to know that Syrian first lady is more interested in her shoes than in this kind of things happening in her country. Another case of lazy conscience.
technorati tags: Honor_Killings, Syria, Fellah, Women_in_Islam, women’s_rights
US: Clinton threatens Eritrea action
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the US will “take action” against Eritrea if it does not stop supporting militants in Somalia.
She said after talks with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, that Eritrea’s actions were “unacceptable”.
She also said the US would expand support for Somalia’s unity government.
Eritrea denies supporting Somalia’s al-Shabab militants, who are trying to overthrow Somalia’s government.
She continues then with statements, made by other individuals from Obama Administration, menacing Eritrea with action. As I said back then, I am not sure if Eritrea is going to be very impressed by such statements.
To know more about Eritrea: Politics, Religion.
technorati tags: US, Hillary_Clinton, Eritrea, Somalia, terrorism, violence, Obama, Yemane_Kahasay_Andom, Open_Doors, Netherlands
Indonesia: Possible Connection Between Jemaah Islamiyah and Somali “Militants”
The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, has suggested that there maybe some connection between the Somali terrorists militants arrested in Australia for a suicide bomb plot to Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
The Jakarta bombings are believed to be the work of a Jemaah Islamiah faction and the Sydney plot has been blamed on a radical Somali Islamist group, al-Shabab. Al-Shabab is said to have links to al-Qaeda and with Somali pirates (yes, it has links with both sides, because they are allied: Somali AQ warlords are receiving money from pirates’ captures).
Mr Wirajuda said in Cairns last night he did not believe the Jakarta bombings and the alleged Australian plot were linked directly, but the groups alleged to be behind them could well be connected.
“I believe that they are not directly connected, but they might be connected at the top,” Mr Wirajuda said.
via Possible Connection Between Jemaah Islamiyah and Somali Militants.
Well, ehmmm, of course, all of them are real friends from the bottom of their hearts (supposing they have any at all).
But is Indonesia preparing some measures to target Islamist ideology in their country?
technorati tags: Indonesia, Islamism, terrorism, Australia, Jemaah_Islamiyah, Somalia, Jakarta, Al-Shabab, Hassan_Wirajuda, Somali_pirates
Pakistan: Baitullah Mehsud dead, already confirmed
Yesterday, it was just a rumour:
The foreign minister of Pakistan, Shah Mehmud Qureshi, has confirmed reports that Pakistan’s most wanted militant, Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed in a suspected US drone strike.
(…)
Analysts think that Mehsud started developing close ties with al-Qaeda about a year ago. Brigadier Shah again: “He was considered as the number one al-Qaeda man in Pakistan,” said Shah. “But the US government was not convinced – it did not target the area where Baitullah Mehsud was at first. It is only six months ago that the Americans became more convinced that he appeared to be heading the al-Qaeda efforts against the Pakistan government.”
Experts believe that Baitullah Mehsud’s successor will need a considerable amount of time to establish his authority over the thousands of Taliban members in northwest Pakistan.
via US missile strike kills key Pakistani Taliban leader | World | Deutsche Welle | 07.08.2009.
Expect a great infighting betwen the tribes now.
technorati tags: Pakistan, Taliban, Baitullah_Mehsud, terrorism, US
