http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071224/EDITORIAL/213223926/1013
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“Jihadists’ useful idiots”
By Joel Mowbray
December 24, 2007
EDITORIAL SNIPPET: “Given that hard evidence is often scarce in trials of unsuccessful terrorists, prosecutors in Miami no doubt felt fortunate to be trying defendants who participated in a ceremony pledging allegiance to al Qaeda — and it was captured on video.
Add to that ironclad proof that the leader of the cell requested — from a man he believed to be a terrorist financier — boots, uniforms, vehicles, machine guns and $50,000. Several of the defendants took surveillance photos of government buildings. Just in case the reason for the request was unclear, Narseal Batiste stated — on tape — that it was for creating an “Islamic army” to wage a “full ground war” and commit an attack that would be “as good or greater than 9/11,” such as blowing up the Sears Tower.
It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t convicted.”
ISRAEL says it has seized a truck carrying chemicals used to make explosives hidden in bags marked as EU aid for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The army said 6.5 tonnes of potassium nitrate were in bags marked as sugar from the European Union for Palestinians in the coastal enclave. EU officials in Jerusalem had no immediate comment. The cargo in a Palestinian truck was travelling in the occupied West Bank and seized several weeks ago at an Israeli checkpoint, the army said.
The EU is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Israel tightened its military and economic cordon of the Gaza Strip after Islamist Hamas seized the territory in a June war with secular Fatah.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22987323-23109,00.html
Hamas holds 1,700 passengers of two ferries hostage in Gulf of Aqaba in standoff with Egypt
December 29, 2007
Our military and intelligence sources reported earlier that the hundreds of Hamas and other terrorist chiefs aboard the Jordanian ferry The Princess threatened to torch the craft anchored opposite Nuweiba, Sinai, and scuttle it with everyone aboard unless Egypt permitted them to land without conditions.
A 62-year old Palestinian female passenger, Shafiqa Bahisi, died under the strain. It also transpired that an Egyptian craft was involved in the standoff. Rather than surrender, the lead Hamas negotiator aboard the ferry, Kemal Neirab, aka Abu Awad, of the Popular Resistance Committees, Gaza, threatened a world-class human tragedy.
As the hours passed Saturday, Dec. 29, without a let-up, Hamas gathered tens of thousands of supporters from around the Gaza Strip to ram the Rafah gateway to Egyptian Sinai, while Cairo beefed up its security units at the terminal.
Excerpted