Free Republic

Amid anger over the beheading of a U.S. contractor in Saudi Arabia, a minister at the church where the sister of Paul M. Johnson Jr. worships urged tolerance Sunday. Pastor Gene Huber noted Johnson's family's grief and struggle in the face of cruelty, but said turning to faith would "enable them to become champions of grace in a world of wickedness." Johnson's sister, Donna Mayeux, did not attend the service, held at the nondenominational Greentree Ministries Church, about 30 minutes south of her home in Little Egg Harbor Township. The family remained in seclusion, as they have since Johnson was...

VICIOUS, BLOODTHIRSTY BASTARDS "The infidel got his fair treatment." Do you see what savage bastards we're up against here? Yesterday Al Qaeda beheaded Paul Johnson Jr. Just like they said they would. Are you listening people? JUST LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD. And haven't they said that they were also going to hit us on our own soil again .. this time looking for tens of thousands of American deaths? When will we be saying "just like they said they would" to that threat? These Islamic menaces have no humanity. Not one ounce. They are cruel, cunning, capable ruthless monsters....

AL-QAEDA has named Saleh Al-Awfi, a disgraced former prison guard and ex-Madina car dealer, as Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin s successor to head the terrorist organization s Saudi Arabia cell, according to sources. Al-Awfi s reported appointment demonstrates the damage Al-Qaeda sustained when Al-Muqrin, responsible for the Friday beheading of American Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr., was killed by security forces several hours later in a firefight in Riyadh. Muqrin was killed with three other extremists identified by security forces as Faisal Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Dakheel, Fehaid Al-Mutairi and Ibrahim Al-Duraihem. Meanwhile, the search for Johnson s body continued late Sunday with...

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - Demonstrating what some would classify as the strongest support to date by a Muslim nation - for the U.S. in the War on Terror, Saudi police forces took swift action this weekend to bring about justice in the beheading of American Paul Johnson. According to reports, the Saudi's made 12 arrests as more than 15,000 security forces were deployed to find the body of Johnson as well as those involved in the slaying. Saudi sercurity forces shot and killed the suspected leader of Al Qaeda in the Saudi kingdom but the bounty of their search...

EAGLESWOOD TOWNSHIP, N.J. June 20, 2004 — Backlash over the beheading of a U.S. contractor in Saudi Arabia was as clear as a sign in the town where he was born. "Stamp out Islam," read a cardboard sign that also depicted a hand-drawn boot over a crescent and star. Phil Galasso posted it on a utility pole near his house in Eagleswood Township. "I'm getting a little fed up with the mindless violence against civilians who had nothing to do with the war in the Middle East," Galasso said Sunday. He called Islam a "vile, bigoted faith" that subjugates women...

Watching an American being beheaded by Islamic terrorists is a dirty thing, foul and hideous. I wouldn't normally recommend the viewing of such images, especially today, a Sunday of togetherness, a Father's Day. To see hatred and hear the sound of it--in the voices of the killers, in the shrieks of the victim--triggers something profoundly unclean. But now Paul Johnson Jr. has been beheaded by Al Qaeda. And Nicholas Berg was beheaded before him. They were Americans. They weren't killed quickly. Instead they were slaughtered slowly, like lambs. And I don't think we can avoid being witnesses to the cruelty...

Paul Johnson jnr was butchered for you. Pictures of his decapitated body, with his severed head on his chest, were posted on the internet in the early hours of Saturday (Sydney time) for your benefit. So was the message that "the infidel got his fair treatment". You were the target. The symbolism was carefully considered. The 49-year-old American civilian, kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, was dressed in an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by prisoners of the US military in Guantanamo Bay. The method of execution was also considered for maximum impact. The images were quickly placed on the internet...

CAIRO, Egypt - The al-Qaida cell that kidnapped and killed American Paul M. Johnson Jr. said in an online periodical Sunday that sympathizers in the kingdom's security forces supplied it with police uniforms and vehicles and set up fake checkpoints to facilitate last week's abduction. The details of the kidnapping appeared in Sawt al-Jihad, or Voice of Holy War, a semimonthly online periodical published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. A separate article, the final one written by cell leader Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, killed in a shootout Friday night, justified Johnson's slaying. The first article said militants wearing police uniforms and...

CAIRO, Egypt - The head of the al-Qaida cell that killed Paul M. Johnson Jr. justified targeting the American engineer in a message written before he himself was killed in a gunbattle with Saudi security forces. In an article posted Sunday on a Web site used by Islamic radicals, Abdulaziz al-Moqrin called Johnson "an infidel, a warrior of the military." Johnson, who had worked on Apache helicopters for Lockheed Martin in Saudi Arabia, "works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies (of Islam) in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir...

LA Times reporting on the beheading of Paul Johnson understates the outrage over this atrocity

Were Johnson murderers copycats? Arabic message targets Christians, other non-Muslims The Arabic message accompanying the pictures of the beheading of American hostage Paul Johnson suggests those perpetrating the murder in Saudi Arabia were mimicking what they saw in the slaughter of 26-year-old Nick Berg in Iraq, says a translator and expert in Islam and the Quran, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reports. The message, untranslated by other English-language media, like the one accompanying the Berg video, concludes with a call to Muslim faithful to kill all non-believers found in the Islamic world. That message was described by the same analyst, Joel...

WASHINGTON -- If the recent past is any guide, the beheading of American Paul M. Johnson Jr. is unlikely to trigger a mass exodus from Saudi Arabia. Most Americans in the kingdom have not heeded repeated State Department warnings that they get out, security consultants and analysts said. "You can't expect 30,000 Americans to pack up and leave," Nawaf Obaid, a security consultant to the Saudi government, said in London. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he does not want American workers to flee Saudi Arabia because that would reward the people whose violence in recent weeks has killed Johnson,...

After Beheading, Rising Anger in New Jersey By JASON GEORGE and MARC SANTORA ITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J., June 19 — There are the flowers and the crosses, the notes and the photographs and all the other signs of sympathy and grieving that one would expect to find at an impromptu shrine devoted to someone murdered in a most cruel fashion. But one day after graphic photographs of the body of Paul M. Johnson Jr., beheaded by Islamic extremists, were beamed around the world, a new sign appeared in the yard next to the house of Mr. Johnson's sister in...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -Saudi security agents searched homes in the capital and surrounding deserts Saturday for the body of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., while Saudi officials hailed as a victory their slaying of his executioner, the top al-Qaida figure in the kingdom. But the U.S. ambassador said he doubted the death of Abdulaziz al-Moqrin during a Friday night shootout would stop the ongoing violence against Westerners in Saudi Arabia. Militants initially denied that al-Moqrin was killed, but late Saturday the al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia confirmed his death in an online statement. The group also vowed to...

June 19, 2004, 2:55AM Militants claim to kill American; leader's death in attack denied RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- An al-Qaida cell fulfilled its threat to kill an American hostage, beheading him and showing the grisly photos on the Internet. Hours later, Saudi officials claimed they gunned down the militant who allegedly masterminded Paul M. Johnson's kidnapping. But a Web posting that appeared Saturday denied Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, the reputed leader of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, was killed. Officials had said he was slain in a firefight after police tracked down the car that dumped Johnson's body just outside Riyadh Friday. "Some...

June 19, 2004, 12:05AM Muslims here express outrage Denounce al-Qaida's beheading of an American hostage By RHEA DAVIS and JOE STINEBAKER Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Hours after an al-Qaida group announced the killing of American hostage Paul Johnson on Friday, Muslims expressed outrage locally at the second beheading linked to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Muslim Democrats from around the state were in a caucus at the Texas Democratic Party's convention in Houston when the news broke of Johnson's beheading. Dr. Inayat Lalani, a retired surgeon from Fort Worth and the head of the caucus, said he and other members...

LONDON (AP) - Shock and revulsion spread around the world Saturday over the beheading of an American hostage by an al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia. The brutal killing of Paul M. Johnson Jr. and the display on the Internet of grisly photos of his body added to fears about a rising tide of anti-Western violence in the desert kingdom. "These evil acts are not only aimed against the United States and the West, but also against Islam and humanity," Jordan's King Abdullah II told Jordan Radio. "I stand with Johnson's family in such a difficult situation." Condemnations of the killing,...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi TV broadcast pictures Saturday of four bloodied bodies of four suspected militants, including the Al Qaeda (search) chief in the kingdom, who were shot to death hours after killing an American contractor. Saudi officials said Johnson's beheaded corpse still has not been found, contradicting earlier reports that it was dumped outside the capital, Riyadh. The Al Qaeda cell allegedly led by Abdulaziz al-Muqran fulfilled its threat to kill engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. (search), beheading him and showing grisly photos on the Internet on Friday. The slaying drew a chorus of condemnation from around the...

June 19, 2004 -- YESTERDAY'S brutal murder of Paul Johnson was just the latest atrocity by terrorist Wahhabis — extremist acolytes of the hate cult that's rooted in the heart of the Saudi state. And the lessons are simple: * Terrorism terrorizes. Extremely vile terrorism that literally goes for the throat terrorizes most of all. Bombs go off and are forgotten in a week. The horrible deaths of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and Paul M. Johnson, Jr. stick in our minds. * Beheading is low-cost, and flatters the Wahhabis' belief that they are imitating the Prophet Muhammad, who lived in...

"This act is to heal the hearts of believers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula," Johnson's captors said in a statement posted on the internet late on Friday. Since US-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, already waning international attention on resolving the raging Palestinian-Israeli conflict has diminished significantly. With almost daily reports of ferocious Israeli invasions, Palestinians being crushed to death as their homes were demolished over their heads and Iraq increasingly spiralling out of control, it is not surprising that the Arab street is frustrated with the United States. While Arabs were horrified by the nature...