Posted on 04/06/2004 6:51:06 AM PDT by TexKat
Yeah! Slaughtering some innocents will show them what liberation is all about! Or somefink...
8 Twelve Detained in Raid ~ CJTF-7 | 4/06/04
8 Coalition soldiers train Iraqi Armed Forces to join fight ~ Army News Service | 4/05/04 | Spc. Aaron Ritter
8 Bush Vows to Arrest Iraq Cleric to Quell Violence ~ Reuters | 4/06/04 | Jeremy Pelofsky, Michael Georgy
8 A Soldier Assures Us: Our Progress Is Amazing ~ Houston Chronicle | 4/05/04 | Joe Roche
8 Private Guards Repel Attack on US Headquarters ~ Blackwater Security, we will not forget your sacrifices, either ~ Washington Post | 4/06/04 | Dana Priest
8 A Marked Difference: Most Shiite Arabs Oppose Attacks; Islamic State Is Not Preferred ~ ABCNEWS | 4/05/04 | Gary Langer
The role once played by Lord Haw Haw, Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose in World War II has now be taken over by the American liberal news media.
About time.
This gives you license to be a terrorist and slaughter innocents too?
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A man claiming to be a senior al-Qaida figure that the United States believes is operating in Iraq has released a tape calling for the country's Sunni Muslims to fight Shiites and claiming responsibility for high-profile attacks there.
The 33-minute audiotape appeared Tuesday on a Web site known as a clearinghouse for militant Islamic messages. The speaker introduced himself as Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian also known as Ahmed al-Khalayleh who is thought to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden. It was the first tape of any kind attributed to him to be made public.
The tape's authenticity could not be verified immediately. Terrorism experts say that even when such statements cannot be traced to al-Qaida, they serve the group's cause by inspiring sympathizers.
Al-Zarqawi's whereabouts are unknown, but the Web site on which the tape appeared had a transcript heading that said al-Zarqawi was in Iraq.
The tape appeared hours before a Jordanian court convicted al-Zarqawi in absentia and sentenced him to death for the 2002 killing of a U.S. aid official in a terror conspiracy linked to al-Qaida. U.S. officials have offered a $10 million reward for his capture, saying he is trying to build an network of foreign militants in Iraq.
A statement circulating in Iraq and signed by anti-U.S. groups last month claimed al-Zarqawi was killed earlier by American bombs in northern Iraq. A senior U.S. official denied the report of al-Zarqawi's death.
The speaker on the tape claimed responsibility for a March 17 car bombing of a Baghdad hotel that killed seven people. The reference to the car bombing was an indication the tape was made recently.
The speaker also said that his group carried out the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Al-Hakim was killed by a car bomb in Iraq on Aug. 29.
Al-Hakim's brother, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, has said al-Qaida was behind that assassination to try to ignite sectarian conflict.
The speaker also threatened to kill Gen. John Abizaid, head of the Central Command; L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq; and "their generals, soldiers and associates."
One theme of the tape echoed that of a letter U.S. authorities released earlier this year in which al-Zarqawi purportedly wrote to other al-Qaida leaders that the best way to undermine U.S. policy in Iraq was to turn the country's religious communities against each other.
Iraq's Shiite majority was suppressed under toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), who favored his own Sunni community. Saddam loyalists in heavily Sunni parts of the country and foreign fighters have been blamed for the bulk of attacks against U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
On the tape, the speaker said Shiite Iraqis were not true Muslims and were "the ears and the eyes of the Americans" in Iraq. He called upon Sunni Muslims in Iraq to "burn the earth under the occupiers' feet."
As a matter of fact, that's what makes them terrorists.
Fox News reported that the perps are using Iraqi citizens as human shields.
FYI, will post some graphic japanese/korean TV reporting from Iraq today, on the FR site. Those reporters have been allowed to get damned close to Sunni and Shiite rebels, filming their every move. Guess they have rapport that CNN and other round eyes do not have. (At any rate, makes for good G-2 viewing.)
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