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Rabi' al-Awwal 19, 1428/ April 8, 2007 #28
Please scroll to end
for latest WAR NEWS and brief analysis of the war in Iraq.
We have done it again! Another New Trend FIRST!
On April 8 New Trend interviewed the leader of the Islamic women
at Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad, Pakistan, who are defying the
Musharraf regime. It is a shocking and inspiring interview.
See it in our next issue, inshallah. We are translating it
from Urdu into English
THOUGHT of the DAY: Islam sets high standards for Imams and leaders.
Even slight misbehavior or crass disrespect for the qibla of Islam
disqualifies an imam or Muslim leader, let alone cooperation with the
oppressors and the enemies of Islam:
"A person led his people in prayer and spat towards the qibla.
The messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be on him, was
watching. After the imam finished, the messenger of Allah, pbuh, told
the people: He should not lead you again. So next time he tried to lead,
the people forbade him and told him of the command of the messenger of
Allah, pbuh. He complained to the messenger who said, pbuh, yes, I did
forbid.
[The narrator says he thinks the messenger added: you hurt Allah and
his messenger."]
[Hadith in the Sunan of Abu Dawud, kitabis salat,
narrated by Abu Sahla Saib bin Khallad. Ahmed says he was a sahabi.]
Comment by Kaukab Siddique: Today many imams and self-declared leaders
of Muslims are openly misbehaving and spitting on the values of Islam
by cooperating with the oppressors, the transgressors, the occupiers
of Islamic lands. These leaders have no legitimacy in Islam and are
the agents of Shaitan.
CAIR needs Sensitivity Training:
Unbridled Nifaq of the Shameless "Advocacy" Group
Only hours after Jews desecrated Masjid al-Aqsa, CAIR joined their
celebration of Passover in Washington, DC and proudly posted its
haram activity on its own site. Here is what CAIR said
about itself:
"DC: CAIR DIRECTOR ATTENDS INTERFAITH PASSOVER SEDER -
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/6/07) - CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad
yesterday attended an interfaith Passover Seder hosted by the group
Washington Area Jews for Jewish-Muslim Understanding."
Here is what New Trend reported but was ignored by CAIR:
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Large numbers of Israeli policemen and
border guards escorted more than 60 fanatic Jewish settlers on a
desecration tour of the holy Aqsa Mosque at an early hour
Wednesday. [4/4]
Pakistani Perspective
Campaign Against Jamia Hafsa's Islamic Women:
Haqqani, Mazari, Rashid, Hussain for Imperialism
[The Islamic women of Jamia Hafsa raided a prostitution den and
"captured" the "madam" who headed the ring. The "madam" was freed
after she confessed to her crimes and pledged to stop. This activism
by Islamic women has Pakistani secularists in a tizzy. A Pakistani
paper called Daily Times published disinformation against
the women, accusing them of breaking the law and diverting attention
from the case of the Chief Justice! Peoples Party (headed by
Benazir Bhutto) sent its own women, heavily westernized, to
demonstrate against Jamia Hafsa on April 7.]
[In response to Daily Times, Kaukab Siddique wrote this note:]
Daily Times is producing a bunch of lies to hide the fact
that Islamic women are defying the power of General Musharraf right
in Islamabad. The Urdu language media are reporting quite the reverse
of what Daily Times says.
These secularists often use this lame excuse that if the Islamic forces
are winning then Musharraf must be behind them. A very clever tactic to
discredit the Islamic forces.
There is no one closer to Musharraf than PPP, with MQM coming in second.
These are America's B team and C team if Musharraf is toppled.
A Pakistani intellectual then sent the following advice to Siddique:
This disinformation about Madrassahs is part of the campaign, about
which Hussain Haqqani has written [supported] in his book "Pakistan:
Between Mollahs and the Military," as cited by Shireen M. Mazari
including names like Ahmed Rashid and and now a newcomer named Zahid
Hussain in his book "Frontline Pakistan." A lot of Pakistanis who want
to earn easy money are falling in the trap of foreign media like New
York Times (etc., etc.) trying to fabricate "facts" and providing
their correspondents juicy stories, which are further modified to
justify their own agenda. There are a lot of secularist forces working
in Pakistan, hand-in-hand with Enemies of Islam (EOI's) to win their
favors for their own existence.
With best regards.
B. Syed
A perfect fusion of "Black" and "Islamic"
Meet a Genuine Islamic Leader and his Blessed Wife
Imam Warith Deen Umar and Sis. Islah Walia
by Kaukab Siddique, Ph.D
I am usually dismayed by the behavior of men who claim to be leaders of
the Muslims of America. Most of them are sold out to and/or scared of
the U.S.-Zionist power structure. In the cases of most leaders and
heads of "advocacy groups," the more one looks at them, the more one
realizes that they are either knaves or fools. Here is one person
about whom one can say that the closer one comes to him, the more
one admires him from an Islamic viewpoint.
During my recent trip to Albany, New York, I had the opportunity to
visit Imam Warith Deen Umar and his family in his home. It's a
relatively large, though modest, home on the outskirts of the city.
Br. Umar is thin in a wiry kind of way; dynamic energy flows through
him as he talks to me and even when he sits near me. His face is
framed by a strong beard and he usually wears a cap or a kufi. He
is well-versed in the Qur'an and the Hadith and his understanding
of Islam is thoroughly orthodox. His enemies, the Zionists, accuse
him of being "Wahhabi" although there is no such sect in Islam. When
the Zionists say "Wahhabi," it's code language for "strict Muslim."
Br. Umar is stressed out by the blatant attacks, physical and
psychological, to which he has been subjected by the FBI, the Zionists
and the American power structure. New Trend readers already know of
the great struggle of this Imam against overwhelming odds and his
refusal to break or to run away. Surely he has written a new chapter
in the history of Islam in America. This is indeed in the line of
Malcolm X [shaheed], Imam Jamil al-Amin and the Black Panthers.
The oppressors threw everything they had at him but he never allowed
the banner of Islam to be lowered. Here is a reminder to new readers
of the main events in this great struggle.
The Wall Street Journal, flagship of the Zionist-capitalist
system, published a huge front page report, which continued on the
inside pages, on Imam Umar, attacking him as a supporter of terrorism
[9.11] and a "wahhabi" who introduced Islamic "extremism" into the
prison system. It was a hatchet job full of lies and
slanted reporting.
As the WSJ report came out, the Zionist power structure swung into
action against the Imam. He was abused and attacked on TV by Jewish
Senator Schumer [D-NY] and Governor Pataki and many others. As a result,
all his job contacts withdrew their offers, some of them without even
talking to him, by fax!
As the Zionists saw that the Imam refused to be cowed down [he sued
the WSJ], they tried to intimidate him. The storm troopers of the
regime attacked his apartment-business office in the Bronx
[New York City]. They trashed his belongings, desecrated his place
of worship, damaged his Qur'an and arrested him.
During his stay in jail, a filthy place with common criminals, the FBI
tried to cow him down by telling him that they had the tape of the
khutba he gave at the masjid of toady ISNA leader Siraj Wahhaj. The
FBI could not ruffle the Imam, nor could the court find anything
against him.
Finally, the FBI attacked the Imam's home near Albany. The servants of
the Zionists entered this Islamic home with dogs and tried to terrorize
the Imam's wife and daughter. They turned the contents of the Imam's
study room upside down and stole all his paper work, his folders and
his computers in the vain attempt to "get something on him."
The Imam, the strong, fearless Black man that he is, was outraged and
provoked by this terroristic attack on his peaceful home. While the
raid was in process, the Imam talked to me and I advised him that
the FBI's purpose seems to be to provoke him into an angry response
and then to arrest him for it. I urged him to call the local media
right away. The local media were thus able to cover the shameful entry
by the FBI into a peaceful citizen's home. As a result, the neighbors,
all non-Muslims, formed a committee to defend the rights of the Imam.
[The Muslims, misguided and mislead, remained scared and inactive.]
This was the home I visited on April 1, 2007. I was wondering: What is
the secret of Br. Umar's success, in addition to his Islamic faith and
his Black consciousness which keeps him in touch with his ancestors
who survived the torments of slavery. I found out! It is his wife.
Sis. Islah is one of those great Black women, like Harriet Tubman,
[or Hajirah, r.a., in Islamic history: see
Sahih Bukhari]
who could face the greatest odds and stand by her man in the most
difficult circumstances. She is a fascinating woman, holding on
strongly to the Islamic hijab. Now she is starting to wear
the niqab. She is generous, compassionate, outspoken, steeped
in the lore of Islam. About the companionship of such women, the
Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him, said: "Undoubtedly women are the
twins of men."
What a family the Umars have! Very unusual indeed. They have 11
children and 8 grandchildren, some of them living in the same home
I visited. It's a miracle in itself to be able to bring up children
as good Muslims in this society. One of the Imam's sons gave the adhan
in the downtown masjid where I had been invited as khateeb. It was a
beautiful call to prayer, lilting with the eternal truth of the
Oneness of Allah and the truthfulness of Allah's messenger, Muhammad,
peace and blessings of Allah be on him.
The daughters-in-law of Imam Umar and Sis. Islah are also a sign that
being Islamic, this family knows no boundaries. One of them is a
Bangladeshi young woman. Another is a White convert to Islam. Both
are Islamic in their behavior and attire. The Imam and Sis. Islah
are very caring about the rights of women. While I was there, they
asked me to advise and help a Sudanese woman who is undergoing
unremitting abuse by her husband who is violating Islamic Law.
Imam Umar is a man of learning, a scholar, an author, a speaker, a
journalist. He has written six books. The latest of these is nearing
publication and will probably create new waves in American Muslim
discourse. He has re-done his study room and office after it was
turned upside down by the FBI. Like a true Islamic leader, he loves
and studies books and does not base his teachings on hearsay. He is
also, needless to say, very media savvy, although his computers [like
his passport] have been seized by the Zionist storm troopers.
Don't tell me that the Muslims of America have no leaders. Here is one:
May Allah bless him and his family and keep them strong.
Jewish Critic of Holocaust Exploitation Facing Denial of Tenure
by Mazin Qumsiyeh
Dershowitz and other racists embarked on a program to press DePaul
University to deny tenure to our friend Dr. Norman Finkelstein. See
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=960
(if you are not familiar with Finkelstein's excellent work, take a
look around that website). Anybody who read Beyond Chutzpah knows how
meticulous is the research of Prof. Finkelstein. Dershowitz's
plagiarizing and garbage would not be tolerated if he was not part
of an elite that were used to having their way in America. But above
all, Dean Suchar should not accept the attack on free speech by these
desperate, mean, and increasingly (if that is possible) fanatical
elite. McCarthyism and witch hunts should not be tolerated in America!
I hope you will take time to write letters especially if you are in
academia (I am sure they are receiving letters from racists who do not
like the facts articulated in Finkelstein's books or his other
scholarly work):
Dean Prof. Charles Suchar csuchar@depaul.edu
President The Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, CM president@depaul.edu
Why Does Left Wing ANSWER endorse Reactionary Mahdi Bray and MAS which
Recognizes Israel as a Legitimate State?
Notes on Anti-War Protests at the Pentagon on March 17
by Nadrat Siddique [Maryland]
Recently, I attended the March 17 March on the Pentagon. ANSWER (Act
Now to Stop War and End Racism), which organized the protest, must be
credited with a keen sense of history, in planning the event to
coincide with the anniversary of the historic 1967 March on the
Pentagon. It had been a while since I'd experienced the joy of
participating in an independent Muslim contingent, and I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
As we marched down the hill overlooking the Citadel of Death (the
Pentagon) reciting "Allah ho akbar" and "Free, free Palestine"
I felt as if I were in a dream. Maybe the rednecks sending me hate mail
were right, that I should thank my lucky stars to be in this great
country where I could spew such things and not get arrested. Then again,
the protest was on a Saturday afternoon, sparing the tender feelings of
the Pentagon brass in particular, and government officials in general.
And why not let the proles blow off some steam if it'll prevent a
revolution, especially with Dick, Condi, and Alberto outta town for
the weekend. So, I won't lick Unca Sam's boots outta gratitude for
allowing me to be there just yet.
I've gotten mostly negative feedback on the protest from Muslims: the
protest was lackluster; ANSWER has no program; the turnout was
miserable; the Muslims were few in number, disorganized, and
undisciplined; and the ever popular "it was too cold."
My view is that the protest gave us badly needed experience as Muslim
organizers. It should have taught us the importance of being on time
(or, in some cases, simply showing up); of marching in formation; of
good communication (both prior to and during the protest); and of
making our voices heard (through distribution of literature,
sloganeering, etc) instead of simply blending in. And it should
have increased collaboration and trust between Muslims of diverse
racial, educational, and socio-economic backgrounds, as is necessary
for the building of an independent Muslim movement. Should have.
That the Muslim voice was much more evident than at previous marches
was a victory in my view. I do not recall, for instance, hearing
takbirat, or very evidently Islamic slogans at previous ANSWER,
UFPJ, or MoveOn.Org protests. Distribution of Jamaat al-Muslimeen's
"Boycott Israel"
fliers, Free Imam Jamil postcards, and CDs of Imam Abdul Alim Musa's
speeches in defiance of the finger-freezing cold was another victory
(thanks to Br. Nabil, Br. Aqueel, and Br. Bilal).
Some have asked me why the need for an independent Muslim contingent
for the March 17 (and other) protests. After all, the Muslim American
Society (MAS) was a major signatory to the protest, so why not simply
join hands with them?
The answer is simple: MAS' credentials are questionable, to put it
mildly. In a July 25, 2005 press conference at the National Press Club,
MAS leaders called for support of "law enforcement," and promised to
hand over Muslim dissidents to the FBI. The video is unfortunately not
yet on youtube, but is available for purchase through C-SPAN:
http://www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=187913-1
The self-described "pioneering Muslim organization" has yet to take a
strong stance on any major political issue in advance of the winds of
political correctness. Even on the Palestine issue, MAS' position is
feeble:
"It is not our argument to deny the fundamental right of the people of
Israel to survive in peace and security. But it is our position that
the long-term interests of the United States would be advanced if
American foreign policy in the region supported the demilitarization
of the current conflict between the State of Israel and the people
of Palestine...."
http://masnet.org/articlesandpapers.asp?id=3974
According to its website, MAS has always worked very closely with ISNA,
a pro-establishment organization which helped organize the bloc vote
for Bush, among other things. On the same webpage, MAS refers to NAIT,
a reactionary Saudi government-funded organization, as a "pioneer" in
the Islamic movement.
http://masnet.org/aboutmas.asp
I would like to know why a seemingly radical political organization
such as ANSWER would select the reactionary and reformist MAS as its
liaison with the Muslim community. Why is MAS' announcement that it
would effectively infiltrate and snitch on Muslim dissidents of no
concern to ANSWER, particularly in view of the Left's historical
victimization under similar programs during the McCarthy witch hunts?
While working closely with ANSWER on a previous anti-war protest, I
asked Brian Becker these questions. The reply was an odd one: ANSWER
worked with MAS because they were out there (ie active). And the
July 2005 press conference? Perhaps MAS did this to keep the authorities
off their back, said Becker. And something is rotten in the kingdom of
Denmark....
Can you believe this, dear reader: Dr. Al-Timimi was sentenced to LIFE
in prison for giving khutbas unpalatable to the U.S. government! Does
America have no shame? Why the LONG silence over this victimization of
a man of God who was an exemplary citizen of the U.S.?
Dr. Ali Al-Timimi's Statement at Sentencing
Published August 27th, 2006
Dr. Ali al-Timimi's Statement in Court after the judge denied
his motions.
All praise is due to God and may God's blessings and peace be upon all
his prophets – particularly Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.
Your honor, it is customary at the time of sentencing that those found
guilty give a statement during which they admit their guilt and
thereupon entreat the court to show them leniency.
I stand before this court having been found guilty of ten felonies.
However, I will not admit guilt nor seek the Court's mercy. I do this
not out of any disrespect to the Court. I do this simply because I
am innocent.
My claim of innocence is not because of any inherent misunderstanding
on my part as to the nature of the crimes for which I was convicted
nor is it because my Muslim belief recognizes sharia rather than
secular law. It is merely because I am innocent.
Few in the history of this country have been charged with what I was
charged. None I believe have ever been so removed from the charges.
My experience is therefore unique and is thus worthy of some comment
and reflection.
During its closing argument the Government read to the jury the preamble
to the Constitution. I frankly found it to be a poor recitation. I will
not be in any need of paper to recite those words for I faithfully
committed them to memory as a schoolboy long before I was taught or
learnt any passage of the Koran.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for
the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I declare the government's recitation poor as it stripped those words
of their meaning. Allow me to explain why. The first aim of the
Constitution after the immediate raison d'etre – of forming a more
perfect Union – is to establish justice. The establishment of justice
was mentioned before the aim of providing for the common defense.
Common defense is what we today call security. The reason as to why
justice proceeded security should be obvious to all: true security
can never been attained without true justice.
I, as many of my community since 9/11, have been denied justice.
I am not a lawyer so I am unable to cite case law to demonstrate this.
I will instead have to appeal to the very philosophy upon which the law
is based. Aristotle teaches us that justice means to equate similar
things and distinguish between dissimilar things.
Let us recall the crimes to which I was charged: advocating treason,
soliciting war against the United States, providing aid and comfort
to the enemy, conspiring to levy war against Israel, Russia, India,
and Indonesia, and of course at every turn the informal charge of
terrorism.
Charges I must say "abounding in crudities and absurdities."
For to accept these charges we must believe that a solitary man who
would spend his days working full time at one of Fortune magazine's
one hundred best companies and then spend his evenings and weekends
engaged in cancer research for a doctorate in computational biology;
an individual who never owned or used a gun, never traveled to a
military camp, never set foot in a country in which a war was
taking place, never raised money for any violent organization would
be – could be – the author of so much harm.
"Crudities and absurdities" your honor … Someone who did not observe
the proceedings might justifiably ask: How then was he convicted?
The answer, of course, was simply out of fear.
The eminent jurist Stephen L. Carter cautions:
When the secular sovereign decides to try a citizen on a charge that
amounts to serving a separate sovereign, the jury should be pressed
toward the sobriety of democratic respect rather than the
intoxicating fury of the witch-hunt.
If this is his admonition for a charge that "amounts" to serving a
separate sovereign, how much more so should it be when the charge
is the actual raising of arms against the sovereign!
It is said that historically two trials have captured the imagination
of Western civilization. The trial of Jesus Christ and that of Socrates.
Rome was a brutal empire. Athens was a democracy. Plato relates to us
that during his trial Socrates said the following:
They – in reference to the prosecutors – are headed by Meletus, that
good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Against
these, too, I must try to make a defense:, Let their affidavit be read:
it contains something of this kind: It says that Socrates is a doer
of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods
of the state, but has other new divinities of his own. Such is the
charge; and now let us examine the particular counts. He says that
I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but I say, O men of
Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, in that he pretends to be
in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring men to
trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he
really never had the smallest interest.
In the coming months this courthouse will witness the trial of another
individual accused of betraying his country. Let us wait and see if
the Government's zealotry to prosecute that case will be as was with mine.
In the end, I too like Socrates am accused and found guilty of nothing
more than corrupting the youth and practicing a different religion that
of the majority. Socrates was mercifully given a cup of hemlock, I was
handed a life sentence.
Imprisonment of any term, as this Court well knows, is a crisis for
the incarcerated and his or her loved ones. I am no exception to that.
But the real crisis brought on my imprisonment, I sincerely believe is
America's. For if my conviction is to stand, it would mean that two
hundred and thirty years of America's tradition of protecting the
individual from the tyrannies and whims of the sovereign will have
come to an end. And that which is exploited today to persecute a single
member of a minority will most assuredly come back to haunt the
majority tomorrow.
Thank you.
Ali Al-Timimi, Ph.D
Prisoner of Conscience
Fairfax, Virginia July 13, 2005
Footnotes:
- Aaron Burr's statement prior to his trial
- SRA International
-The Dissent of the Governed, p. 119
-Even though Muslims do not believe that Jesus Christ was tried
and crucified but rather God raised him unto Himself.
-I will put aside the analogy of the United States as empire.
-Plato's Apology.
-I refer to the upcoming Larry Franklin/AIPAC case
WAR NEWS: LATEST: by New Trend's Media Monitor
AFGHANISTAN: NATO LAUNCHES PRE-EMPTIVE OFFENSIVE: SUFFERS FIRST SETBACK.
April 4, 2007: NATO tried to pre-empt an expected Taliban spring
offensive by launching its biggest offensive, "Achilles," north of
Kandahar. British artillery and tanks and America's 82nd Airborne
Division spearheaded the attack. This was the Anglo-American alliance
at its best.
The British immediately ran into a minefield cleverly detonated by
the Taliban leading to the destruction of 7 British tanks in the
Sangin area of Helmand province. Four days later, the elite American
forces haven't been able to hit the Taliban. [As predicted by New
Trend, the U.S. battle group in the Arabian sea led the air assault,
"Achilles," on Afghanistan. The battle group was not meant for an
attack on Iran.] Helmand Province remains in Taliban hands.
In the Musakhel area of Zabul province, Karzai's Afghan troops, armed
by the U.S. and Germany, fell into a Taliban ambush. Ten of the Karzais
were killed and 25 wounded.
As we had reported earlier, A Taliban column is advancing into Badghis
province, in the north. On April 4, they ambushed a Karzai police
caravan destroying 3 vehicles. A Kabul officer was captured.
April 6: A huge explosion rocked Kabul late at night. The U.S. has not
released any information on losses.
HIZBE ISLAMI [led by Hikmatyar] which supports the Taliban is trying
to shut down "reconstruction" projects which NATO is putting in place
to gain Afghan support [owing to intense poverty of the area]. On
April 3, Hizbe Islami launched 2 raids on European "reconstruction"
workers in the northern province of Mazare Sharif. In the first
attack 6 foreigners were killed and 3 in the second. In Nimroz
province [eastern Afghanistan] 2 French aid workers were kidnapped.
[Source: The prestigious Urdu language daily Nawa-e-Waqt.]
Earlier the Taliban obtained the release of 6 of their men from Karzai
in exchange for an Italian journalist.
PAKISTAN: ATTEMPT TO MASSACRE ISLAMIC UZBEK, CHECHEN REFUGEES BACKFIRES
March 19-April 7: South Waziristan: Pakistani forces in tandem with a
"bought-and-sold" local tribe, tried to massacre Islamic refugees from
Uzbekistan and Chechnya. The Pakistani government claimed that local
tribes lead by one "Maulvi Nazir" had decided to kill the refugees
because they were armed and were not surrendering. The government
and "maulvi Nazir"s people sealed off the area around Wana and started
the killing. Telephone lines were cut off and journalists were banned.
The truth started coming out when it was reported by refugees from
the area that heavy artillery was used against the Uzbek refugees who
were caught by surprise in the local bazar. It was the Pakistani army
in disguise. "Maulvi Nazir" does not have artillery! The government
media insisted that it was not the army but the tribes who were
killing the "foreigners."
By the end of a week, the Islamists and their Pakistani supporters
started fighting back against the Musharraf army and his Pakistani
[heavily financed] mercenaries. Credit goes to the BBC which first
reported that Pakistani Frontier Corp and paramilitary forces
suffered their first deaths. By the end of April 6, Musharraf's
officials admitted that 50 of their men have been killed though
they claim to have killed 200 Uzbeks and Chechens. Our sources say
that the more correct figures are 60 of Musharraf's men and 106 of
the Islamic people. Most of the Islamists were killed in the first
surprise attack by the Pakistanis. These Islamic refugees who fled
Communist tyranny in Uzbekistan and Chechnya have lived here for
decades and have their women and children with them. These are
certainly not al-Qaidah as Musharraf's regime claims.
IRAQ: HEAVY FIGHTING:
It's not Shia-Sunni Fight but Islam vs Occupation
April 6: U.S. forces said they killed a Libyan Islamic fighter, Abu Bara
al-Libi during a raid in Baghdad. It appears that Islamic volunteers
from across the Muslim world have joined the resistance led by
al-Qaidah in Iraq.
Heavy fighting continues between the purported "Islamic State in Iraq"
proclaimed by al-Qaidah and U.S. forces. Islamic Iraqi losses are
rising steadily as U.S. forces launch air and land assaults. U.S.
losses too are keeping steady. The U.S. death toll in military losses
is 3268 killed and more than 24,500 wounded. In addition more than 770
American contractors ["armed civilians"] have been killed and several
thousand wounded.
In January 2007, 80 U.S. troops were killed, in February 84, in March 83
and 21 have been killed in the first 6 days of April. [Source: CNN]
Almost all were killed by the {Sunni} Islamic resistance. A few,
very few, have been killed by Shi'ites opposed to the U.S.
Some Shi'ites are fighting. On April 4, the British lost 4 killed, 3
wounded in a Shi'ite resistance attack in Basra. On April 7, the U.S.
carried out an air strike against Shi'ite resistance in Diwaniya,
south of Baghdad. Air strikes in cities are a serious violation of
international law.
Our analysis shows that the resistance forces attack Shi'ites, Sunnis
and Kurds allied to or funded by the U.S. Last month, in Tal Afar,
near the Syrian border, 2 Islamic martyrdom operators struck at
Shi'ites who had been brought in from the south to occupy the city
after the U.S. took it by force of arms. The bombings were extremely
bloody and the Shi'ite losses went up to 152 killed. The Shi'ite
forces brought in by the U.S. then went on the rampage and killed
72 civilians [Sunnis] at random.
The [Sunni] Islamists have also truck heavy blows at Sunnis supporting
the occupation. On March 23, a martyrdom operator entered the home of
Salam al-Zobaidi, a Sunni collaborator who is Deputy Prime Minister
in the largely Shi'ite regime installed by the U.S. In the explosion
which followed, Al-Zobaidi was seriously wounded and 9 of his men were
killed. Later investigation showed that it was an inside job. Wahbah
al-Dulaimi, a body guard of al-Zobaidi and a close relative had
joined al-Qaidah. The family of the martyr was also split on the
matter of opposition to the regime.
The Bush administration keeps repeating that millions of Iraqis voted
for the regime. He keeps forgetting that elections held under armed
occupation have no validity. Blair keeps saying that U.S. and U.K.
troops are in Iraq on the invitation of the "Iraqi government" and on
the basis of "UN resolutions." These are bogus claims. There is no
"Iraqi government." The UN did not okay the original invasion of Iraq;
it certainly has no moral grounds to claim that: okay, now that you
are in there, you can continue the occupation.
On March 25, four years after the invasion, the new Secretary General
of the UN, was standing in front of cameras, in the heavily fortified
Green Zone of Baghdad, in a ceremony with the Shi'ite "leader" Nuri
al-Maliki, when resistance mortar fire hit the area. It was a lesson
that without massive U.S. military support, the "government" would
not last a day.
2007-04-08 Sun 20:47:47 cdt
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