Posted on 09/22/2004 3:31:37 AM PDT by Nepalis
By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer
AMMAN, Jordan - The spiritual leader of the most active insurgency group in Iraq (news - web sites), Tawhid and Jihad, has been killed in a U.S. airstrike and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a Jordanian newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday.
Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, 35, was killed when a missile hit the car he was traveling in on Friday in the west Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, said the clerics, who have close ties to the family. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
Al-Shami was an aide to Tawhid and Jihad's leader, the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The al-Qaida-linked group is blamed for some of the biggest attacks in Iraq, such as the bombing of the U.N. headquarters last year, and the beheadings of foreign hostages. Al-Zarqawi is believed to have personally decapitated the American hostage Eugene Armstrong on Monday.
Al-Shami, a Jordanian of Palestinian extraction who was also known as Omar Yousef Jumah, was believed to be the voice on several audio tapes that Tawhid and Jihad released via the Internet. In one such tape in August, a speaker identified as al-Shami said the militants planned to kill Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, soldiers and police officers.
"We will not allow you to destroy our hopes in this blessed holy war, and we will not let you steal our bright tomorrow, which is now appearing on the horizon," the speaker said on the tape.
The an independent Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad quoted al-Shami's family on Wednesday as confirming the death. It said the family was preparing a wake in the east Amman suburb where al-Shami lived before he went to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion last year.
The pan-Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera reported al-Shami's death earlier in the week, quoting unidentified relatives.
I've been watching the war where we haven't yet delivered an attack or killed them on the level equal to Dresden, Tokyo or even Tet....
If EVER there was a people who represented evil and deserved to be killed in large numbers, and their "treasured" sites reduced to rubble -- it is the lunatics in the "militant Islamist" held locations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.......
Many of us believe the coalition has waited far too long to deliver death and destruction on a large number of militant Islamists and their supporting souls and property...
There is a reason the enemy is not behaving as a defeated enemy -- it is that they have not yet been sufficiently defeated..
We are still fighting by outmoded ROI.... We need to kill them with the efficiency we are capable of -- just as they would if they could, and will as soon as they can.
Semper Fi
Thank God.
Fine, River Rat. You identify a sponsoring government for Al Qaeda (such as the former Taliban), and I'm quite confident you'll get some version of Tokyo that you'd be satisfied with.
What?? Can't do that? No kidding. Please find a better analogy.
"I wonder how disappointed this guy is that the 72 virgins weren't waiting for him on the other side."
Picture, if you will, just how attractive ANY muslim virgin could possibly be; by definition, they'd have to be uglier than the nearest goat. I suspect these idiots are actually relieved when they first discover they have been lied to with that "72 virgins" line.
Together.
Good point, most of the wealthy Sunni and Shiite clerics drove top of the line, late-model Mercedes and BMW's. I'm sure it was an EASY target! Our boys stopped a 'cleric' and searched his '02 BMW 7-series and confiscated 8 weapons from silenced MP-10 to an RPG launcher.
I don't think he got the memo that Islam was a religion of peace!
It could have been an accident... my guess is that if MILINT really knew the guy was in that car, they would have wanted to have, ahhh... "Discussed" a few things with him, and would have "offered" him a ride back to more "comfortable" accommodations in an Apache...
I didn't say that. I asked you to identify the sponsoring government. These are not parallel situations.
Nice shot! Gimme more!
Where the hell is it written that we must make war against a GOVERNMENT?
At this moment, our stated "official" enemy is NOT a government..
We are at war with lunatics following a militant bastardization of Islam...and "those that support them"..
They are the enemy --
There are a number of "governments" that I believe are too damned supportive of our enemy for me to think of them as allies ---- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, France, Germany and others....
We have been attacking the lunatics wherever we can isolate them..
My point - was that we should attack them with less concern for the "innocent" lives that may be lost by reducing large areas of their concentrations/strongholds to rubble..
Semper Fi
Now then.... I've attempted to answer YOUR question...and to explain my position..
I'd like you to explain why you would "Thank God" that we haven't killed our militant Islamist enemy in numbers equal to Dresden or Tokyo?
Are you praying for their survival, in preference to your own?
Semper Fi
I find it difficult to tell which side AP and Reuters is on. And notice the reporters actual names. No John Smiths here. They make these barbaric evil thugs out to be little shepard boys with crying mommies and babies.
Chopped off heads = bombed out mosques. Enough of this. It's 2004 not 1324. Screw their "holy" sites.
If Tommy Franks was a pastor at his local church, or was known to recite prayer with his troops, would this AP idiot refer to him as a spiritual leader? These fascists (the reporter in this case) cloaks the terrorist in religion because they know our left will persecute anyone who speaks against the peaceful religion. They attempt to control thought by controlling the medium of thought: language. Any person on the planet speaking with any integrity at all would describe the actions of hate-filled murder-women-and-children and behead men fuzzybearded jackals exactly what they are, Terrorists. This attempt to define him as a holy man is a blatant attempt to protect his image and honor his cause. I don't care if ten billion people worship the diety (small D) he purports to represent, there is no God behind his actions and he deserves an ugly death, sans B.S. titles like "holy man" and "spiritual leader".
This war is going to go on and on, and the only thing that is ultimately going to allow this dipstick reporter to keep his own head on his own body is the bravery of the U.S. soldier and the brass cajones of the American President. Which the AP undermines daily.
what does it take to get a cluster bomb at this guys funeral?
Why is there no alternative to AP and Reuters, their crap is reported the world over. Their photo captions reprinted in every local newspaper in the country. I am outraged by the lack of outrage over these criminals cutting peoples heads off! I don't even know the poor people but it takes me days to get over this sick feeling in my stomach every time is happens.
Rush commented on the bias of the media recently, saying the people who are called to be journalists are constructed liberally, and they view themselves as normal. They don't know there's anything wrong with their world view. Many artsy type people are so left-leaning they're practically horizontal. The answer to your question is there aren't any global alternatives I know of. One of the best arguments for embracing an American empire is that the world has gone global, and if we don't make a conscious effort to export conservatism, every single interaction we have with any nation will in some small way be undermined by their idiotic world views.
Sorry to keep ranting, but you seem sporting.
"was killed when a missile hit the car he was traveling in.."
I'm gald we're taking a page from the Israeli play book. A few more of these and the terrorists will be playing the palestinian leaders game: "No - you can be the leader - really".
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