Posted on 05/07/2006 6:29:17 AM PDT by MadIvan
EVEN by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty.
Nobody but her killers knew just how much she had suffered until a film showing her death on February 22 at the hands of two musclebound men in military uniforms emerged last week. Her family’s worst fears of what might have happened have been far exceeded by the reality.
Bahjat was abducted after making three live broadcasts from the edge of her native city of Samarra on the day its golden-domed Shi’ite mosque was blown up, allegedly by Sunni terrorists.
Roadblocks prevented her from entering the city and her anxiety was obvious to everyone who saw her final report. Night was falling and tensions were high.
Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.
We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.
Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.
The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.
As a friend of Bahjat who had worked with her on a variety of tough assignments, I found it hard enough to bear the news of her murder. When I saw it replayed, it was as if part of me had died with her. How much more gruelling it must have been for a close family friend who watched the film this weekend and cried when he heard her voice.
The friend, who cannot be identified, knew nothing of her beheading but had been guarding other horrifying details of Bahjat’s ordeal. She had nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left, he said. The drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye. One can only hope that these mutilations were made after her death.
There is a wider significance to the appalling footage and the accompanying details. The film appears to show for the first time an Iraqi death squad in action.
The death squads have proliferated in recent months, spreading terror on both sides of the sectarian divide. The clothes worn by Bahjat’s killers are bound to be scrutinised for clues to their identity.
Bahjat, with her professionalism and impartiality as a half-Shi’ite, half-Sunni, would have been the first to warn against any hasty conclusions, however. The uniforms seem to be those of the Iraqi National Guard but that does not mean she was murdered by guardsmen. The fatigues could have been stolen for disguise.
A source linked to the Sunni insurgency who supplied the film to The Sunday Times in London claimed it had come from a mobile phone found on the body of a Shi’ite Badr Brigade member killed during fighting in Baghdad.
But there is no evidence the Iranian-backed Badr militia was responsible. Indeed, there are conflicting indications. The drill is said to be a popular tool of torture with the Badr Brigade. But beheading is a hallmark of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Sunni Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
According to a report that was circulating after Bahjat’s murder, she had enraged the Shi’ite militias during her coverage of the bombing of the Samarra shrine by filming the interior minister, Bayan Jabr, ordering police to release two Iranians they had arrested.
There is no confirmation of this and the Badr Brigade, with which she maintained good relations, protected her family after her funeral came under attack in Baghdad from a bomber and then from a gunman. Three people died that day.
Bahjat’s reporting of terrorist attacks and denunciations of violence to a wide audience across the Middle East made her plenty of enemies among both Shi’ite and Sunni gunmen. Death threats from Sunnis drove her away to Qatar for a spell but she believed her place was in Iraq and she returned to frontline reporting despite the risks.
We may never know who killed Bahjat or why. But the manner of her death testifies to the breakdown of law, order and justice that she so bravely highlighted and illustrates the importance of a cause she espoused with passion.
Bahjat advocated the unity of Iraq and saw her golden locket as a symbol of her belief. She put it with her customary on-air eloquence on the last day of her life: “Whether you are a Sunni, a Shi’ite or a Kurd, there is no difference between Iraqis united in fear for this nation.”
Suppose we caught one of the animals who tortured and killed this woman and tried him in an American court like the left wants us to do. Like Moussaui, the jury would probably decide the poor fellow had been abused by his father and consequently no call for the death penalty.
how absolutely horrible!
The only real challenge is in the discernment of what group to slaughter if the murderers are not clearly identified.
One method might be to simply slaughter all who remained alive and in the area of the activity. Since they have already exhibited a propensity to become inactive in the face of fear, then it is better they remain fearful of legitimate authority, than of murderous thugs self absorbed in manmade religious legalism.
If it is possible to isolate those immediately accountable for the murders, then the easier it will be for those not immediately guilty of the crime to return to God on His terms, rather than on man's terms.
Oh no, they shold ahve their rights protected if we capture them. Be given lawyers and a "fair" trial.
And Samuri_Jack responded:
Sadly, we in the west do not have the moral courage to exact proper justice upon those who would commit such a barbarous act.
You are both right, of course.
Sadly, this illustrates the great dilemma The West faces.
The awful reality is that fully one-quarter of the world's population belongs to an evil cult-religion that exhorts this type of behavior upon its followers as a glorious and proper step to the furtherance of that cult-religion.
One and one-quarter billion people.
No, they are not ALL "terrorists". But a sizable minority of them - a "minority" of tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions - DO support such terrorist atrocities in the jihadic struggle against the infidels. And I daresay a teeming "silent plurality" (if not indeed the MAJORITY) of Islamics do not, or will not, object to such practices.
Whether they abstain from doing so out of fear, or because many silently agree, makes no difference from our viewpoint in The West. The results will be the same. Even a tiny percentage of one and one-quarter billion makes for a lot of potential holy warriors.
And, as Samuri_Jack has noted, we of The West are in danger of losing this struggle because we no longer have the requisite moral courage necessary to recognize the total evil of Islam, to confront it, and to wage total war and thus destroy it.
Prompted by a self-hating cultural and media elite, we of the West are gradually losing our faith in ourselves, our culture, our religious heritage, and our moral superiority (yes, folks, SUPERIORITY) over the rest of the world. Into the moral vacuum of the West will rush the forces of Islam, which has no such doubts regarding its _own_ "superiority" vis-a-vis the infidels.
They will have no qualms about enforcing their version of "justice" against us. None whatsoever.
Without the cultural and ethnic cohesiveness to value our own self-worth...
Without the moral courage to recognize the enemy for what it is...
Without the stomach to engage in a battle that will be nothing less than the Armageddon itself...
Without the faith to endure economic hardship and sacrifice at home...
How will we win?
Just some thoughts that probably don't mean anything,
- John
Demons from hell?
That is, just what we are fighting.
Study the Holy Bible weather you believe in it or not and, you will find a detailed account of what we are fighting.
Don't hope to see things to get better with the war on terror.
We are only in the beginning of this fight.
President Bush has studied the Holy Bible and he knows very well what we are facing, just this week He has said we are in WW3 and, I agree with his statement.
Demonic forces are at play as never in the history of mankind, God warned us to put on the whole armor, we will need it in the future events that are starting to unfold.
I beg to differ. That is the traditional Muslim form of Law, order and "justice". They (all obsevant male Muslims over twelve years of age) must all be killed or converted. Islam is not a religion; it is a death cult masquerading as such.
I would venture to say just about any muslim we would try in an American court of law has been abused by somebody.
This of course will be covered by NBCowards!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
You and I both know this story would mean nothing to him.
I say take Micheal Moore, strip him naked, hang a sign around his neck that says "Allah is a dog and a child rapist" and plunk his hefty a$$ in the middle of this Muslim neighborhood. Wonder if he'd still love them after they got finished with him?
I say take Micheal Moore, strip him naked, hang a sign around his neck that says "Allah is a dog and a child rapist" and plunk his hefty a$$ in the middle of this Muslim neighborhood. Wonder if he'd still love them after they got finished with him?
All observant Muslim males from twelve years old. A good start would be a lot of "accidents" in the bomb factories in the mosque basements, here and abroad.
Here is a picture of this woman as she reported. This is who these animals butchered and mutilated because they could not stand up to her reporting the truth of their activities.
Oops, I forgot:
< /rant >
"The animals who did this barbarous act are precisely the type of people who should be killed without mercy."
I couldn't agree more! What makes me equally angry is the liberals out there who just don't get it. You can't deal with these types in a civilized fashion.
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