(CBS/AP)FORT DIX, N.J. A man charged with helping five others plot a terrorist attack on Fort Dix will not be freed on bail, a judge ruled Thursday.
Agron Abdullahu, 24, a legal U.S. resident, is charged with helping illegal immigrants obtain weapons, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors on Thursday persuaded U.S. Magistrate Joel Schneider that Abdullahu was likely to flee and would be a serious risk to the community's safety if he was released.
"He was an integral part of the plan to attack Fort Dix," Schneider said as he explained his decision.
Earlier in the hearing, Abdullahu told Schneider he is "not really a bad guy" and asked the judge to allow him to leave jail for house arrest.
Abdullahu, 24, made the plea during a bail hearing at which his father, mother and sister also testified.
"I'm not really a bad guy," Abdullahu told the magistrate. "If I could leave I would definitely go back to my old life ... I would never do anything to harm this country."
Abdullahu and his lawyers sought to persuade Schneider that he would not flee and would not pose a serious risk to the community's safety if he was released.
Abdullahu was arrested on May 7, the same day that authorities rounded up five other men -- Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; Serdar Tatar, 23; Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23.
In a court filing, the government described them as "a radical Islamic and jihadist group." Each of the five is charged with conspiring to kill military personnel, a crime punishable by life in prison.
Authorities said that while Abdullahu joined the others on trips to practice shooting weapons and told them about how to make bombs, he said he did not want to kill people.
At Thursday's hearing, Abdullahu's defense lawyer, public defender Lisa Evans Lewis, said that what the government characterized as weapons training was really a vacation. She said Abdullahu did not know the men were planning an attack.
She said when Abdullahu heard discussion of attacking a military installation, he spoke against it.
"He made it clear he was not down with that program," Lewis said.
Family members described Abdullahu as someone who worked six or seven days a week, often for 10 to 12 hours, paid the bills for the family, and even bought his 21-year-old sister a car.
His father, Sejdulla Abdullahu, said no one in the family speaks Arabic. He said the family was not religious and that the only religious ceremonies they took part in were at funerals.
Abdullahu lives in Buena Vista Township, between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. He's an ethnic Albanian who was born in the former Yugoslavia.
As a 16-year-old, Abdullahu came to Fort Dix with his family as refugees from Kosovo. After settling nearby, he became a baker at the ShopRite in Williamstown, where he worked until his arrest. His lawyer has acknowledged Abdullahu is a gun enthusiast, but has also said he enjoys renovating cars.
Raymond Million, a former boss and friend who was willing to post the equity of his home as part of a bail package, also spoke on Abdullahu's behalf Thursday.
"You don't find a man that has the character that he has," Million said.
When the terrorists of Fatah announced yesterday that the degenerate, evil Mickey Mouse clone had been dropped by Hamas TV, they were lying: Hamas TV refuses to axe contested kids cartoon.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — A Hamas-run television channel has defied a Palestinian government request to axe a controversial children’s cartoon in which a Mickey Mouse look-alike urges resistance against Israel.
A senior official working for Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) television in the Gaza Strip said that the program - “Tomorrow’s Pioneers” - would air as normal this Friday in defiance of information minister Mustafa Barghouti.
“The program will continue and it will be broadcast tomorrow at 4.00 pm [1300 GMT]. Mustafa Barghouti misunderstood the issue,” said the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
Earlier, the information ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah said: “A politically-oriented children’s television program was withdrawn by the Al Aqsa TV station today following a request by the ministry of information.”
The Hamas version of Mickey Mouse, preaching hatred, death, and world domination, represents a problem for the “progressives” who idolize Palestinians as the ultimate victims. It just doesn’t seem very ... victim-ish. It seems deranged and evil, because it is, and almost anyone can see it.
Therefore, to soothe the painful, itchy cognitive dissonance induced by this intrusion of reality, they retreat into conspiracy theories. Here’s a Kos Kid that’s got it all figured out—the Mossad or somebody equally nefarious and pro-Israel was trying to cover up a World Bank report—and he questions the timing:Daily Kos: Mickey Mouse and the Cantonisation of Palestine.
Reading this site for the past few months has me feeling like I was reading the writings of West European communists in the 1970’s : Confidant, just, well written, scientific, moral (remember the “evils” of capitalism?) . Yet - in the view of history - utter garbage.
I came to this site with Leftist Zionist Environmentalist Pro-Peace ideology (Meretz style).
I leave it with a heavy doubt of the entire “Progressive” ideology, morals and goals.
The outrage of the day is the way CNN tried to cover up the Hamas Mickey Mouse story; Glenn Beck was played for a fool by his CNN producers, and he talked about it on his radio show today:
How about go knock a little more on the doors of those that attend the Regents street Mosque. One only needs to understand in order to win we need to kill or take out those who preach the hate, the imams, those that issue the fatwa's and GO TO THE HEART OF THE IDEOLOGY.
THERE ARE GOOD MUSLIMS - ITS UP TO THEM TO STEP UP AND TURN THESE SATANIC CORTORTIONISTS OF THE RELIGION OF ISLAM AND HIJACKED IT LONG AGO...
British police make 4 terror arrests
6 minutes ago
LONDON - British police arrested four people Wednesday in connection with the suicide bombings that killed 52 bus and subway passengers in London in 2005.
Police refused to confirm reports that the wife of one of the bombers was detained. They said a woman and two men were arrested in West Yorkshire and a 22-year-old man was arrested in Birmingham.
All were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism and were being taken to London for interrogation, police said.
Searches were under way at two apartments in Birmingham, and at five addresses in West Yorkshire — two houses in Dewsbury, two houses in the Beeston neighborhood of Leeds and one house in Batley, police said.
Mohammed Sidique Khan, identified as one of the four London bombers, was a resident of Dewsbury and had grown up in Beeston.
The British Broadcasting Corp. report that Khan's wife, Hasina Patel, 29, was among those arrested.
"We never discuss the identity of people who have been arrested," a police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.
The bombers struck on three subway trains and a double-decker bus on July 7, 2005 — the worst terrorist attack in British history.
In March, police arrested three people, all from the same West Yorkshire area as three of the four suicide bombers. They were charged on April 5 with conspiring with the attackers.
Those charged were Mohammed Shakil, of Beeston; Sadeer Saleem, of Beeston; and Waheed Ali, who recently lived in London but was formerly from Beeston.
London's Metropolitan Police said they were continuing a "painstaking investigation with a substantial amount of information being analyzed and investigated."
"As we have said previously, we are determined to follow the evidence wherever it takes us to identify any other person who may have been involved, in any way, in the terrorist attacks," the department said. "We need to know who else, apart from the bombers, knew what they were planning. Did anyone encourage them? Did anyone help them with money, or accommodation?"
Brothers Eljvir Duka, left, and Shain Duka are seen in an artist's drawing during a court appearance at the U.S. District Courthouse in Camden, N.J.
FORT DIX, N.J. — The three brothers being charged as part of the alleged Fort Dix terror plot may have been smuggled across the border, FOX News has learned.
Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23, were in the United States illegally. Federal investigators were exploring whether they were smuggled into the country or entered as stowaways.
Because the three men entered the United States without inspection, there is no legal record of their entry.
The six being charged in the alleged plot — Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; Serdar Tatar, 23; Agron Abdullahu, 24; and the Duka brothers — were ordered held without bail for a hearing Friday.
Five were charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. military personnel; the sixth, Abdullahu, was charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigrants in obtaining weapons.
Four of the arrested men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Jordan and one came from Turkey, authorities said. Three were in the United States illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay in this country permanently; and the sixth is a U.S. citizen.
Federal investigators are now checking whether the latter three lied on their immigration paperwork to remain in the United States.
One drove a cab, three were roofers. Another worked at a 7-Eleven and a sixth at a supermarket. Their alleged plot to attack Fort Dix was foiled by another blue-collar worker: a video store clerk.
Six foreign-born Muslims were accused Tuesday of planning to assault the Army base and slaughter scores of U.S. soldiers with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
The unidentified clerk is being credited with tipping off authorities in January 2006 after one of the suspects asked him to transfer a video to DVD that showed 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said.
"If we didn't get that tip," said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, "I couldn't be sure what would happen." FBI agent J.P. Weis called the clerk the "unsung hero" of the case.
Authorities said there was no direct evidence connecting the men to any international terror organizations such as Al Qaeda. But several of them said they were ready to kill and die "in the name of Allah," prosecutors said in court papers.
Weis said the U.S. is seeing a "brand-new form of terrorism," involving smaller, more loosely defined groups that may not be connected to Al Qaeda but are inspired by its ideology.
"These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so. They operate under the radar," Weis said.
One of the suspects, Tatar, worked at his father's pizzeria — Super Mario's Restaurant — in Cookstown and made deliveries to the base, using the opportunity to scout out Fort Dix for an attack, authorities said.
"Clearly, one of the guys had an intimate knowledge of the base from having been there delivering pizzas," Christie said.
Tatar's father, Muslim Tatar, 54, said the accusations against his son were hard to accept.
"He is not a terrorist. I am not a terrorist," he told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
The elder Tatar told ABCNews he had gotten no indication his son harbored a deep hatred of the United States.
"I came here from Turkey in 1992, and this is my country. I love this country," Muslim Tatar told ABC.
The group often watched terror training videos, clips featuring Usama bin Laden, a tape containing the last will and testament of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and tapes of armed attacks on U.S. military personnel, authorities said.
The men trained by playing paintball in the woods in New Jersey and taking target practice at a firing range in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, where they had rented a house, authorities said.
"We believe they are their own cell," said Christie. "They are inspired by international terror organizations. I believe they saw themselves as part of that."
Fort Dix last was in the international spotlight in 1999, when it sheltered more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
In addition to plotting the attack on Fort Dix, the defendants spoke of assaulting a Navy installation in Philadelphia during the annual Army-Navy football game and conducted surveillance at other military installations in the region, prosecutors said.
After the video clerk's tip, investigators said they infiltrated the group with two informants and bided their time while they secretly recorded the defendants.
The six were arrested Monday night trying to buy AK-47 assault weapons, M-16s and other weapons from an FBI informant, authorities said. It was not clear when the alleged attack was to take place.
"We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army. They identified their target, they did their reconnaissance. They had maps. And they were in the process of buying weapons. Luckily, we were able to stop that," said Weis.
The arrests renewed worries among New Jersey's Muslim community. Hundreds of Muslim men from New Jersey were rounded up and detained in the months after the 2001 terror attacks, but none were connected to that plot.
"If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law," said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the Sept. 11 attacks. "But when the government says `Islamic militants,' it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous."
"Don't equate actions with religion," he said.
Mario Tummillo lives near Tatar's father in Cookstown and said he worked with Tatar at the pizza parlor. Tummillo, 20, described Tatar as a religious man who "wasn't violent at all."
The restaurant's chef, Joseph Hofflinger, 35, quit after learning the owner was the father of one of the suspects.
"My son is in the 82nd Airborne," Hofflinger told ABC. "I won't work for a place that supports terrorism so I'm out."
FOX News' Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Want to send a powerful - yet discrete - message to Islamofascists? Or a message of encouragement to moderate Moslems who oppose them? Wear our Anti-Islamofascist T-Shirt. Although we don’t label it as such - it’s officially called The Anti-Whorehouse T-Shirt.
The greatest insanity of Radical Islam is its adherents blowing themselves up to slaughter “infidels” as a ticket to Moslem heaven, where they believe, six dozen eternally virginal whores await to satisfy their every desire.
It’s difficult to imagine a more blasphemous insult to God than to claim He will reward you in Heaven for mass murder. Such a god would be an evil monster to be condemned as criminally deranged as the suicide bombers, not a merciful loving deity worthy of worship.
That’s why such suicidal maniacs may claim to be devout Moslems, but they actually worship Satan, not Allah.
So the message needs to be broadcast: Allah is not a pimp for murderers and doesn’t run a whorehouse in heaven.
Yet you’ll note that our t-shirt says nothing - nothing - about Islam or Moslems. Who could object to its message? Someone who thinks heaven is a whorehouse? Someone who condemns it as “anti-Islam”? But how can it be anti-Islam when there’s no mention of Islam at all?
So here it is. There’s an order link in the right side bar. Order one today and wear it proudly - get one for your friends. The belief that heaven is a whorehouse for murderers is what sustains Islamofascism. Do your part in denouncing this evil conviction.
By Debra Erdley TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, April 10, 2005
FAIRFAX, Va. -- He never made it to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, but Yong Ki Kwon -- a Northern Virginia engineer who fled the United States nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- said it wasn't for lack of effort.
Kwon, 29, is a South Korea-born graduate of Virginia Tech who is serving an 11-year prison sentence as a result of his guilty plea last year on federal conspiracy and weapons charges. He has emerged as the prosecution's star witness in the case against Ali Al-Timimi, an American Islamic scholar charged with recruiting soldiers for the Taliban just five days after Sept. 11.
Al-Timimi, 41, who maintains his innocence, sat quietly with his attorneys as the case against him unfolded last week during Kwon's testimony in an Alexandria, Va. courtroom. Al-Timimi was indicted last year on 10 counts, including charges of soliciting others to levy war and inducing others to join the Taliban. If convicted on all counts, he could face life in prison.
Kwon, one of nine men convicted last year in the so-called "paintball jihad" network, told a chilling tale of the birth of an American jihad.
The holy war was conceived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the dawn of the 21st century and was born at a meeting in his Fairfax, Va. apartment Sept. 16, 2001, when Kwon said he and several companions decided to heed the call of spiritual adviser Al-Timimi and to be trained to join the Taliban.
Four days later, Kwon was on a flight to Karachi, Pakistan.
The call to holy war took Kwon, who became a U.S. citizen in August 2001, to the mountain training camps of Lashkar-e-Taiba -- known as the LET -- a group that the U.S. placed on its terrorist list in December 2001.
Under the guidance of militants who trained holy warriors for battle in Afghanistan, Kwon honed his skills with semi-automatic weapons and learned to fire a grenade launcher.
Kwon, though, said he never was able to join the Taliban. He was simply too late. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan closed as U.S. forces took control of Afghanistan shortly before Kwon completed his training at the LET camp.
He said his mentors offered him another option: Go back to the United States and gather information for the mujahadeen, or holy warriors.
Kwon has become a key part of the government's case against the "paintball jihad" following his arrest in 2003.
He testified last year against several members of the group; has cooperated with terrorism investigators in Great Britain and Australia; and now is testifying against Al-Timimi -- all in hopes of earning a reduced sentence.
Dressed in a dark-green prison jumpsuit, the tall, bearded Kwon told jurors how he first heard Al-Timimi speak in 1997 at an Islamic Assembly of North America conference in Chicago.
Born to Christian parents, Kwon converted to Islam in 1997 and quickly found scholar Al-Timimi lecturing regularly near his Northern Virginia home.
Al-Timimi was known in strict Muslim communities across the word for his taped and Internet lectures. Supporters point to well-known lectures calling for peace in the wake of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.
Al-Timimi also was listed as an advisory board member of Assirat Al-Mustaqueem -- an international Arabic language magazine published in Pittsburgh from 1991 to 2000.
The magazine called for holy war against Christians and Jews. It also lauded the international army that Osama bin Laden assembled for the Taliban in Afghanistan. The magazine once featured an article lauding Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel who took credit for last fall's bloody Beslen school massacre in which more than 300 people -- many of them school children -- were slain.
Kwon said he grew to know and respect Al-Timimi as he regularly attended lectures at Dar Al Arqam mosque in Falls Church, Va.
Al-Timimi's lectures on such topics as the purification of the soul and the new world order were only one side of Kwon's pursuit of Islam.
The other side played out among Kwon and a small group of Muslim friends on the paintball fields and target ranges ringing Washington. That side focused on jihad -- violent holy war. And that focus turned to an obsession among Kwon and his friends long before Sept. 11, 2001, Kwon testified.
The group, which included two U.S. military veterans and several engineers, gathered regularly, starting in early 2000, to talk about or prepare for jihad.
"Russian Hell" -- a jihad video that featured bloody clips of a Chechen Muslim rebel leader executing a Russian prisoner of war -- was a favorite among the videos that the group exchanged and discussed.
"They (the videos) motivated us. It was like they gave us inspiration," Kwon testified.
Martyrdom, too, was a topic.
"As a Muslim, it's something you aspire to," Kwon said, answering questions from assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg. "We talked about it. I don't know how realistic we were, but we talked about it because it was very noble," Kwon told the jury of nine men and five women before U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.
Members of the group wanted to be ready to take up arms -- should the need to defend Islam arise, Kwon said -- and they began traveling to shooting ranges for target practice and to paintball fields to execute military maneuvers.
Al-Timimi never was a part of their games, Kwon said, but he and other witnesses said the man they characterized as a respected mentor was aware of them. Indeed, they consulted Al-Timimi when the FBI visited one of the members of their group with questions. Al-Timimi's advice: Be more circumspect about their activities, Kwon and others testified.
Kwon recalled driving Al-Timimi home from the mosque Sept. 11, 2001 after the terrorist attacks. He said Al-Timimi and another scholar argued, with Al-Timimi characterizing the attacks as a punishment of America from God, while his fellow scholar decried the attacks.
That night, as they drove from the mosque, Kwon said Al-Timimi had a request.
"He told me to gather some brothers, to have a contingency plan in case there were mass hostilities toward Muslims in America," Kwon said.
Five days later, Al-Timimi met with Kwon again, this time at the young engineer's apartment where he gathered a small group of friends.
"He told me to unplug the message machine and turn off the phones."
Then, Kwon said, Al-Timimi advised the group that the effort to spread Islam in the United States was over and that the only other options open to them were to repent, leave the U.S. and join the mujahadeen -- the holy warriors preparing to defend Afghanistan against the coming U.S. invasion.
Four days later, Kwon was on the plane to Pakistan, embarking on a jihad that would land him in prison.
"I made the decision to go, but (Al-Timimi) was a big part of my decision to go," Kwon said.
No matter what words Harry Reid uses, redeployment, withdrawl, timetable, al-Qaeda see's it as surrender. It's a damn shame too that the Democrats handed Zawahiri this propaganda just as al-Qeada in Iraq's back is against the wall and our Apache crews are making short work of the Taliban's spring offensive.
Via ABCNEWS: In a new video posted today on the Internet, al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al Zawahiri, mocks the bill passed by Congress setting a timetable for the pullout of U.S. troops in Iraq.
"This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap," Zawahiri says in answer to a question posed to him an interviewer.
Continuing in the same tone, Zawahiri says, "We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson."
By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
BAQOUBA, Iraq - Across the walls of the villas they seized in the name of their shadow government, black-masked al-Qaida militants spray-painted the words: "Property of the Islamic State of Iraq
They manned checkpoints and buried an elaborate network of bombs in the streets. They issued austere edicts ordering women not to work. They filmed themselves attacking Americans and slaughtered those who did not believe in their cause.
For months, al-Qaida turned a part of one Baqouba neighborhood into an insurgent fiefdom that American and Iraqi forces were too undermanned to tackle — a startling example of the terror group's ability to thrive openly in some places outside Baghdad even as U.S.-led forces struggle to regain control in the capital.
U.S. forces took back the entire Tahrir neighborhood during a weeklong operation that wrapped up Sunday in Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad that al-Qaida declared last year the capital of its self-styled Islamic caliphate.
Though the operation was a success — it forced the guerrillas to either flee or melt into the population — soldiers say the extremists are likely to pop up anywhere else that's short on American firepower.
Indeed, even as the Tahrir operation took place, insurgents stepped up attacks on a new police post in the adjacent Old Baqouba district — which was also cleared recently — pounding it daily and killing Baqouba's police chief in a suicide car bombing.
Insurgent teams, meanwhile, have tried to infiltrate back into Tahrir, U.S. Capt. Huber Parsons said Tuesday.
When U.S. forces began pouring into the embattled district last week, residents said it was the first time they'd seen significant numbers of coalition troops since last fall. U.S. troops set up a combat outpost in northern Tahrir several months ago.
But to the south, residents recounted watching helplessly as masked fighters came and went freely in past months, piling weapons into the back of vehicles and taking over the homes of Shiites who had either fled or been killed.
"We were terrorized," said one man. "We wondered, Where is the government? Why have they forgotten us? Why does nobody come here to help?"
Baqouba has been wracked by violence for years. But insecurity has skyrocketed since late last year, partly because Sunni militants fleeing Baghdad's security crackdown have sought refuge here.
An estimated 60,000 people have fled the city of 300,000, most of them Shiites driven out by Sunni hit squads. Meanwhile, vital government subsidized food and fuel shipments, which normally flow in from Baghdad, ceased arriving because of political corruption in the capital, said Col. David W. Sutherland, whose 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, is responsible for security in Diyala province.
"In an insurgency, if you don't have faith in the government or security forces ... you turn to those who will offer you a better way," Sutherland said. "The terrorists were able to drive a wedge between the government and the people. But we're reversing that."
The battle for Baqouba picked up in mid-March.
U.S. commanders rushed in Stryker infantry battalion which helped clear, and eventually calm, the southern district of Buhriz, once the city's most violent area. While American forces fought there and in Old Baqouba, they watched neighboring Tahrir spin out of control.
Parsons said video from an unmanned aerial drone last month showed suspected al-Qaida militants searching vehicles at a checkpoint. They held back from destroying it, choosing to "track them to see where they were going, where they lived," Parsons said.
Then, for eight days in early April, al-Qaida battled fellow insurgents from the nationalist 1920 Revolution Brigades, who residents said were trying to resist the terror group's bid for control. The nationalist fighters ran out of ammunition and fled.
With the district firmly in al-Qaida's hands, local leaders and sheiks called on American and Iraqi soldiers for help.
U.S. forces first sent road-clearing teams into southern Tahrir April 22. Insurgents fired mortars and popped out of windows with rocket launchers, destroying three de-mining robots. Tanks and infantry blasted surrounding buildings, killing more than a dozen attackers.
The next day, Parsons moved three of his platoons into central Tahrir on foot. All three came under fire. The day ended with a 30-minute firefight at dusk in which rounds ripped through palm groves. Apache helicopters shot Hellfire missiles at a house insurgents had fled to, lighting the sky in thunderous blasts.
Fighting eased afterward. Soon, previously empty streets were teeming with crowds of people who shook soldiers' hands as they passed.
Residents recounted watching groups of masked men dig into roads with jackhammers in recent weeks, planting bombs and stringing copper wire to trigger them from houses and schools.
The militants mostly kept to themselves, but they distributed puritanical leaflets commanding women to cover themselves in black from head to toe, and stay home from work. They ordered tea shops shut and warned men not to smoke water-pipes.
"No one dared ask them why," said one father. Those who did drew unwanted scrutiny — and a possible death sentence, he said.
Families told of Shiites who went shopping and never returned. One man said his brother had been kept and beaten in a makeshift prison with two dozen others.
At night, masked men stormed homes, robbing and carrying out extra-judicial killings. "Nobody knew whether they were al-Qaida or the police or just common criminals," said a baker named Ali. "It was total lawlessness."
Like other residents interviewed, Ali declined to give his full name in fear of reprisals from insurgents.
Insurgents blocked roads with concrete barriers taken from coalition forces. One checkpoint was so permanent that U.S. troops found a schedule naming those who manned it daily.
In some empty homes, guerrillas knocked small holes in the walls to use them as sniper positions. Below some, bullet casings littered the floor.
Half a dozen of houses containing weapon stashes, as well as one booby-trapped villa with a 155mm artillery shell rigged to blow behind its front door, were leveled. Many stashes were pointed out by residents.
One cache of rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs was found simply leaning against a wall in the back room of an abandoned home, along with handcuffs, ski masks, radio handsets and a video camera. A tape inside it showed a "Husky" American bomb disposal vehicle trying to de-mine a road in Baqouba.
Parsons eyes widened when he saw it: the driver and the vehicle work with his Stryker unit.
On the video, machine-gun fire erupted amid cries of "Allahu Akbar," God is Great, targeting the vehicle and a de-mining robot.
The footage cut abruptly to an unrelated, final scene: A closeup of a blood-splattered corpse whose blindfold had been pulled from his face. The man looked Iraqi and appeared to have been tortured.
Soldiers said they believed al-Qaida operatives had lived in Tahrir, using homes there as a kind of rear base. In the living room of one home residents said served as a medical aid station for wounded fighters were empty beds, neck braces and x-rays scattered across the floor.
Although insurgents claimed many houses in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq, they tried to erase their work with splotches of white paint two months ago — realizing the proclamations might be too conspicuous. On some gates and walls, the paint was too thin to cover the black Arabic lettering.
The Islamic State is a coalition of eight insurgent groups. Late last month, it named a 10-member "Cabinet" complete with a "war minister," an apparent attempt to present the Sunni coalition as an alternative to the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Parsons assured each family that U.S. troops and police would stay behind to keep insurgents out after he left, and establish a new police station.
Al-Qaida "had months and months to run rampant because we didn't have the forces available to come in here until now," Parsons said. "They controlled this neighborhood, but they don't anymore."
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - 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 U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, said a rocket attack on Iraq's Green Zone on Wednesday killed four foreign contractors _one from the Philippines, one from Nepal and two from India — who were working for a U.S. government contractor. It was the third straight day that extremists used rockets or mortars to hit the area where Iraq's parliament meets.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the killing of Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, described as al-Qaida's information minister, had apparently led to confused reports that al-Qaida's top leader or the head of an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents had been killed.
Caldwell said the military had conducted numerous operations against al-Qaida in Iraq in the last six days but does not have the bodies of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri and did not know "of anybody that does."
U.S. and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations against the terrorist network following a series of car bombings and suicide attacks that have killed hundreds in recent weeks despite a security crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
Al-Jubouri was killed while trying to resist detention in an operation about four miles west of the Taji, a town near an air base north of Baghdad early Tuesday, and the body was initially identified by photos, then confirmed by DNA testing Wednesday, he said.
Al-Jubouri was believed to have been deeply involved with the kidnapping of Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter who was released unharmed, and Tom Fox of Clear Brook, Va., one of four men from the Chicago-based peace group Christian Peacemaker Teams who was found shot to death in Baghdad on March 10, 2006, he said. He was also involved in the kidnapping of two Germans in January 2006, Caldwell said.
In a statement, Christian Science Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim said the development "reminds us of the enormous efforts made by everyone over 82 days to secure Jill's safe release."
"While much remains to be done to improve conditions in Iraq, we appreciate the continuing efforts by the U.S. military and the Iraqi government to make the country a safer place for journalists and citizens alike," Bergenheim said.
On Thursday, mourners gathered at al-Jubouri's house in Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, as a huge funeral tent went up in the street, police said.
The Interior Ministry said earlier that al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, had been killed and released photos of what it said was the body of the leader of the umbrella group, which includes al-Qaida.
But Caldwell said al-Baghdadi's death could not be confirmed.
"If that person even exists, again, we have nobody in our possession or know of anybody that does, alive or dead, that is going through any kind of testing or analysis at this point with respect to those two individuals," he said.
On Tuesday, officials said al-Masri, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, had been killed by rivals north of Baghdad, but the body had not been recovered.
Regarding al-Masri, Caldwell said "we in fact do not have in our possession nor do we know of anybody that has anybody or person at this time that we think is him."
"His overall status whether he is dead or alive is actually unknown to us at this point," he added.
The U.S. Embassy statement gave no other details about Wednesday's attack that killed the four contractors in the Green Zone, which is home to the U.S. and British embassies and thousands of American troops as well as key Iraqi government offices.
Insurgents routinely fire rockets and mortar rounds into the sprawling Green Zone.
The attacks seldom cause casualties or damage because they are poorly aimed and there is a lot of open space in the zone, but two Americans — a contractor and a soldier — were killed in March in a rocket attack on the area and two suicide vests were found unexploded less than a week after that.
The adequacy of security in the area also came into question after the April 12 suicide bombing in the parliament building's dining hall. One lawmaker was killed in the blast, which was claimed by an al-Qaida-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents.
On Wednesday, Rear Adm. Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, said the latest round of Green Zone attacks appears to be part of a strategy by extremists "to score a spectacular hit or try to obtain some sort of a headline-grabbing direct hit."
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Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.
There is a severe disconnect in all the arguments that try to convince us that Islam is a “Religion of Peace” (hereafter to be known as R.O.P). Apologists, in all Their infinite wisdom, in maniacal chorus chant R.O.P so often and so loudly it’s hard to hear any other voice that may be singing a different tune. They’re terrified of the discussion. They won’t even talk about it. The minute I broach the topic with any of Them, the R.O.P. defense with the obligatory “nutball factor” mention commences without fail. If you notice, liberals everywhere are terrified of debate on any issue. Instead of trying to defend indefensible positions, they stage protests and direct everyone’s attention to the naked chick in the cage.
They have good reason to be terrified. The rabid beast They’ve chosen to call a harmless, cuddly, furball is not going to choose favorites when it’s time to attack. We are all in danger. They are refusing to face facts for the sake of being “right”. Human nature and ego are partly to blame…as to the rest…well I’m not qualified to assess the particular head damage that liberalism is, but I assure you it is most certainly head damage. Every person has seen the infernal face of Islam, up close and in color and those who still choose to call it “peaceful” have severe brain damage. We all know they stone women for comitting adultery. It’s not a secret. It’s not a conspiracy. The Koran allows it. We all know little girls are sold into slavery and abused under Islamic law. Some of us know that child molestation is sanctioned by the Koran…by even the prophet himself.
In case those things weren’t enough for you, here’s some more proof. This is for all the liberals who believe the Palestinians are a peace-loving folk who just want some more land. The Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Counsel, has made his views on peace very clear in the following statement.
I encourage you to face the facts as quickly as possible so that we can get on with the business of relegating Islam to the only acceptable place left for it. Buried in History books with its peers, Nazism and the KKK.
THe Bobblehead exploding ALlah does not approve of Jerry Steele
".... 9 out of 10 Jihadies agree to issue fatwah on Jerry...
UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
Frontline News From the Real Source and Not Commander Piglosi, Kommandant Traitor Harry Reid nor Blue Helmet Chickie Schumer" http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/default.aspx
RAMALLAH, West Bank — A Hamas-run television channel has defied a Palestinian government request to axe a controversial children’s cartoon in which a Mickey Mouse look-alike urges resistance against Israel.
No matter what words Harry Reid uses, redeployment, withdrawl, timetable, al-Qaeda see's it as surrender. It's a damn shame too that the Democrats handed Zawahiri this propaganda just as al-Qeada in Iraq's back is against the wall and our Apache crews are making short work of the Taliban's spring offensive.
