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~~~snip~~~ ....Men caught repeatedly smoking have their index fingers rammed into metal pipes and then snapped, while cigarette shops have been torched. The rules have often been taken to absurd extremes. Greengrocers in the “caliphate” told The Times that they had been ordered not to sell bananas in public because they were deemed obscene, while cucumbers could not be sold next to tomatoes, which are deemed to represent femininity. At the most extreme, shepherds have been ordered to cover the nether regions of their goats to avoid offending strict Salafist sensibilities. ~~~snip~~~

BAGHDAD (May 3) - U.S.-led forces killed a senior al-Qaida in Iraq operative believed responsible for the kidnappings of Westerners, including a Christian Science Monitor reporter and a slain peace worker from Virginia, a military spokesman said Thursday. The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents that includes al-Qaida, confirmed in an Internet statement that its official spokesman, Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, had been killed. The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, said a rocket attack on Iraq's Green Zone on Wednesday killed four foreigners - one from the Philippines, one from Nepal and two from India - who were working...

Jill Carroll's captors appear to be involved in some of the most high-profile kidnappings of Westerners in Iraq during the past two years. A Monitor investigation - including interviews with other kidnap victims, US, Iraqi, and Italian investigators, as well as court testimony in Iraq - ties her abductors, or others close to them, to at least five kidnapping incidents, including Ms. Carroll: [...] The strongest evidence suggests that the same group that took Carroll also abducted Ms. Sgrena, the Italian journalist. In early March, Abu Rasha, the leader of one of the three cells handling Carroll's kidnapping, went into...

A Briton who was held hostage in Iraq for almost four months said he considered suicide because he thought it might help his fellow captives. "I thought it might help the Canadians, if they got rid of the Brit," said Norman Kember, who was abducted along with two Canadians and an American, Tom Fox. Fox was later killed. Britain participated in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, but Canada did not. "I got very depressed at one stage. ... When you're really depressed you think of suicide but there aren't any means of doing it," Kember, 74, told British...

Pacifist group revealed as moral imbeciles By Ian Robinson When the three Western hostages were rescued by coalition forces in Iraq last week and returned to Canada, was I the only one who was disappointed? Was I the only one who thought: Dear Lord. Is THIS what all the fuss was about? These smarmy, international busybodies, the Gladys Kravitzes of the Iraq occupation, peering out at the world from behind the curtains with their pursed little disapproving lips? These sanctimonious, reality challenged little creeps? And even after the release, the organization to which they're attached was still taking metaphorical shots...

TORONTO (CP) - The co-director of the Christian Peacemakers Teams says the family of freed Christian peace activist James Loney kept his sexual orientation quiet out of fear for his safety. Doug Pritchard says the family feared Loney might come to harm at the hands of his Iraqi captors had they known he was gay. Pritchard says it likely wouldn't have helped if Loney's partner, Dan Hunt, had come forward with public pleas for his release. Hunt made his first public appearance since Loney's ordeal began last November when he greeted his partner Sunday at the airport. Loney arrived in...

Iraq's embassy to Canada lashed out at the Christian Peacemaker Teams Friday, calling them "phoney pacifists" and "dupes" after the antiwar group responded to the rescue of three of its kidnapped activists by condemning the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq. The Iraqi embassy called CPT "willfully ignorant" and "outrageous," and accused the Chicago-based group of being on the side of anti- democratic forces in Iraq. "The Christian Peacemaker Teams practises the kind of politics that automatically nominate them as dupes for jihadism and fascism," the embassy's statement said. A British-led special forces team on Thursday rescued three CPT members, who...

Briton Norman Kember and his Canadian colleagues James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden were freed after a multinational military raid acting on information provided by a detainee, the US military says. The rescue was completed without any shots being fired and with no kidnappers present, suggesting the operation was carefully planned and carried out. But the crucial bit of intelligence that enabled the rescue came only after two men were captured by US forces on Wednesday night. One of the suspects had the information which led officials to the Baghdad house where the hostages were four months into their ordeal....

MetroSource News 03/23/2006 02:32:46 Iraq Christians Freed URGENT >>Christian Aid Workers Freed In Iraq (Baghdad) -- Three Christian aid workers kidnapped in Iraq have been freed following what's being described as "a planned operation mounted by the Multinational Forces in Iraq." The British Embassy has confirmed that Briton Norman Kember and two Canadian nationals -- Harmeet Sooden and Jim Loney are being evaluated by doctors and are currently in the care of consular staff. The three men were taken hostage along with a fourth member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in late November. The body of Tom Fox, a native...

ARLINGTON, VA. -- The death of "peace activist" Tom Fox, and the threatened execution of the three others held with him in Iraq, is doubly tragic. It is tragic whenever an innocent person is murdered. It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Mr. Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none. That the "peace activists" believed their brand of Christianity would trump the fanatical Muslims who regarded them as infidels and worthy of death meant that Mr. Fox and the others would either be used for propaganda...

The list of feel-good bumper stickers such as "Think globally, act locally" and "You can't hug your kids with nuclear arms" should now be countered with "Nobody can afford 'peace at any cost.'"Late last year, four people who were billed as "Christian peace activists" were abducted in Iraq by a group calling itself the "Swords of Righteousness Brigade." Around that time, Al-Jazeera, the Middle Eastern TV network best known for their "two-fer Tuesday" back-to-back airings of classic hits from al-Qaeda and any other unhinged spiral-eyed crazy with access to video equipment and a FedEx guy, broadcast a video. On that...

There was a nut case named Timothy Treadwell who fancied himself a modern Grizzly Adams. He was a troubled young man, a drug addict with many troubles in his short life. He became fascinated with the idea of living among the brown bears of the Alaskan wilderness apparently as some sort of homemade therapy to ease his troubled mind. For several years he trekked to this wild place and talked to the bears filming, himself as he did so. He imagined they knew him and were his “friends”. In the end, he and his equally troubled girl friend, were eaten...

Palestinians saddened at Fox's killing Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 11, 2006 Palestinians throughout the West Bank expressed sorrow Saturday over the killing of American Tom Fox, 54, who had traveled to the West Bank to protest for their cause before he was taken hostage in Iraq. Fox's body was found shot in the head and chest Thursday near a Baghdad railway station. He had worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the Palestinian areas before he began work with the group in Iraq. Fox, from Clear Brook, Virginia, had demonstrated in the West Bank town of Jayyus against the...

In this undated image made available by Christian Peacemaker Teams, Christian activist Tom Fox is seen at a demonstration in the West Bank protesting the security fence. Photo: associated press Palestinians throughout the West Bank expressed sorrow Saturday over the killing of American Tom Fox, 54, who had traveled to the West Bank to protest for their cause before he was taken hostage in Iraq. Fox's body was found shot in the head and chest Thursday near a Baghdad railway station. He had worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the Palestinian areas before he began work with the group...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- American hostage Tom Fox -- who was kidnapped with three other Christian peace activists in November -- has been found shot in the head with his body showing signs of torture, Iraqi emergency police told CNN Saturday. There was no word on the whereabouts of Fox's fellow hostages -- Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember -- who were last seen in a video broadcast Tuesday on Arab television. Fox's body was found wrapped in a blanket around 5 p.m. Thursday in the Daoudi neighborhood in western Baghdad --...

American Apparently Tortured Before Death By BUSHRA JUHI ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 0311dv-fox-killed-reax An American aid worker taken hostage with three other peace activists was apparently tortured before he was shot in the head and chest and his body dumped near a railroad line in Baghdad, Iraqi police said Saturday. Tom Fox, a 54-year-old member of Christian Peacemaker Teams from Clear Brook, Va., was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow captives, a Briton and two Canadians. The U.S. command in Baghdad confirmed that Fox's body was picked up by...

An American member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, Tom Fox, was found murdered in Iraq today. He was kidnapped by the Islamist-oriented group known as the Swords of Righteousness Brigades on November 26. Iraqi police reported that Fox had "gunshots to his head and chest and signs of torture on his body." This incident begs the question: Do the Islamist terrorists respect all the appeasement offered them by leftist peace activists like Tom Fox? The answer is a categorical "no," "non," "nein," "nyet," "nr." After all that has happened, the Left still ignores the threat of Islamism, appeasing militant Muslims...

Friends of U.S. peace activist Tom Fox, who was kidnapped and killed in Iraq, cited his stance against retribution on Saturday and called for the remembrance of all victims of violence around the world. Members of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, a peace group in northern Virginia to which Fox belonged, read a statement he co-wrote in October 2004 in which he shunned violence, even to rescue him should he ever be kidnapped. "We reject violence to punish anyone who harms us," said Doug Smith, quoting Fox, in a statement read to reporters at the group's headquarters in McLean, Virginia....

The "bridges for peace" bennish types will be on their bridges between 1200-1300 today. Here's a good counter protest slogan for those of you who are tiring of using the same old hand signal semaphore every week these ponytails inflict themselves on us:Shout out or write...."Tom Fox gave peace a chance!" They'll know exactly who you mean.

An aid worker from Virginia taken hostage with three other peace activists was found dead near a railroad line in Baghdad with gunshots to his head and chest and signs of torture on his body, Iraqi police said Saturday. Tom Fox, a 54-year-old member of Christian Peacemaker Teams from Clear Brook, Va., was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow captives, a Briton and two Canadians. The U.S. command in Baghdad confirmed that Fox's body was picked up by American forces on Thursday evening, although it provided no information on the condition....