MK’s Views - Down under on the right side

The Weekly Standard - In mid-May, Iraqi security forces began to crack down on Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in a Sunni area of Mosul that the U.S. military had described as AQI’s last major urban stronghold. As AQI melted away in response to these operations, we gained a glimpse of the brutal and bizarre governance that the terrorist group had imposed. Most notably, AFP reports that the group banned the display of tomatoes and cucumbers side-by-side because they regarded this as “sexually provocative.” AQI also banned a local Iraqi bread known as “sammoun” on the grounds that it did not exist during Prophet Muhammad’s time.

(As my colleague Steve Schippert of ThreatsWatch noted in an e-mail, neither AK-47s nor explosives–two AQI staples–existed in Muhammad’s time either.) The use of ice was similarly banned because Muhammad did not have ice. Under AQI’s rule, barbers were not allowed to use electric razors, as AFP notes: Barber Atta Sadoun, 29, is back in business. “They threatened to kill me if I used an electric shaving machine,” he said adding that Al-Qaeda had also decreed that men’s facial hair should not be removed. He was forced to place a sign outside his salon saying he was using only scissors and no electric shaver. Several of his colleagues had been killed because they had failed to comply, he said.

Times Online - American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians. [snip] American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism. Continue reading Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda…

MNF-Iraq - Amnesty drop off points are not a new idea in the Army. Whether coming off a range, field exercise or going through customs returning home from deployment, such drop off points give Soldiers a chance to discreetly dispose of contraband and avoid repercussions. Now, in the Maderiyah area, 25 kilometers south of Baghdad, the same privileges are being offered to citizens. “The biggest fear a lot of these people have is getting arrested,” said 1st Lt. Greg Highstrom, platoon leader for 2nd Platoon, Battery B, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

Getting arrested is a guarantee for those who hold caches in their homes or backyards and refuse to turn them over to Coalition forces. However, many people who have no ill will toward Coalition forces are still afraid to contact them to remove caches for fear of reprisal from al-Qaeda. Captain Richard Aaron, commander of Btry. B, 1-9th FA, said al-Qaeda forced many people to hide weapons under the threat of torture or death. Because of this, many people are afraid of having Soldiers seen on their property. Continue reading Citizens disarming AQI…

LiveNews - Iraqi security forces have shot dead at least 11 suspected al-Qaeda operatives who were hiding in a sheep truck near the northern city of Tikrit, the defence ministry said. The men were killed in fighting at a checkpoint between ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and Baiji, ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said.

“Members of the Iraqi special forces intercepted a truck transporting animals, but there were 11 al-Qaeda fighters hiding in it,” Askari said, adding that one of the men was a foreigner from an unidentified Arab nation. Askari said the truck was believed to be fleeing the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where the Iraqi army has been conducting a large-scale crackdown on al-Qaeda since May 14.

On Thursday, 15 suspected al-Qaeda members were gunned down by a militia group loyal to the government in the same region.

Oh alright, they weren’t raping the sheep in the back of the truck, at least not that we know of, I just thought I’d throw that in there to sort of kick the scumbags while they’re down. If any filth deserve a kicking while they’re down, it’s those sheep shagging filth. None the less, it’s nice to see the Iraqis themselves bringing fire and pestilence upon al-Qaeda. Now you know why B. Hussein is staying away from Iraq, he can close his eyes and cover his ears, but he can’t take that chance with his media entourage. Nice to see some of the media down here are broadcasting this sort of news as well, hope it’s a sign of things to come. My condolences to Democrats and leftists worldwide, perhaps you should light a candle for your comrades or hold a bake sale to ease the pain.

MNF-Iraq - The strong working relationship between Multi-National Division – Baghdad and the Sons of Iraq (Abna al-Iraq) led directly to the capture of key terrorist at approximately 9 p.m. on April 28. During a meeting with a local sheik and other citizens, a Sons of Iraq member indicated that a known key terrorist was nearby.

The SoI member detained two suspects and turned them over to MND-B soldiers for further identification. One of the suspects was positively identified as a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda of Iraq. The captured terrorist is a prominent member of an al-Qaeda in Iraq cell that operates in Baghdad and the southern outskirts of Baghdad.

The suspect is reportedly known for vehicle-borne improvised-explosive device attacks, improvised-explosive device attacks, sniper attacks on Coalition Forces, the kidnapping and murder of Iraqis, and weapons trafficking. He has been directly implicated as a key operator in an attack on Coalition forces at a checkpoint in which a vehicle-borne improvised-explosive device, under his direction, was responsible for the killing of three MND-B soldiers.

Continue reading Sons of Iraq Capture Key Terrorist…

News.com.au - US President George W. Bush today lumped Iran with al-Qaeda as “two of the greatest threats to America in this new century”, saying both hoped for a US defeat in Iraq.

Come on Dubya, be honest, we all know there is a third party that you really should lump in there with Iran and Al-Qaeda, who also desperately yearn for an American defeat in Iraq. You know, the Democrats!

LA Times - Abu Ubaida al Masri, a suspected mastermind of Al Qaeda plots including the London transportation bombings of 2005, has died of an infectious disease in Pakistan, Western anti-terrorism officials said Wednesday. The Egyptian militant is thought to have died of hepatitis C, a U.S. anti-terrorism official said. Recently, however, anti-terrorism investigators detected conversations among Al Qaeda militants revealing that Masri had died of hepatitis C, the U.S. official said. Death by illness would explain the lack of eulogies, which are generally reserved for extremists who die violently as “martyrs,” officials said.

Here’s to hoping it was slow and uncomfortable, painful even.

From the April 7 2008 Edition of National Review Online, The Week. Click here to subscribe folks, it’s like $2 a month, money well spent I say.

Al-Qaeda trains its terrorists to resist known interrogation tactics, so the United States has a national-security interest in keeping such tactics secret. Congressional Democrats, however, tried to make the country’s techniques quite literally an open book: They wanted to restrict interrogators to the practices approved in the Army Field Manual, a publicly available document. Fortunately, President Bush vetoed the bill. Democrats are pretending that he acted out of enthusiasm for waterboarding. But that is not the issue: While waterboarding is rough stuff, the United States has not used it in five years, and even then employed the technique on a grand total of three terrorists. Their colleagues should not know what to expect from our interrogators, even if we know all too well what to expect from the Democrats. Continue reading Why terrorist scum support the Democrats…

MSNBC - After secret interrogations, the CIA transferred to U.S. military custody a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday. Mohammad Rahim was detained last summer, CIA Director Michael Hayden said, but the intelligence official didn’t reveal where or by whom. The CIA has interrogated Rahim. “I can’t characterize the nature of his questioning (but) this detention was done in accord with U.S. law,” a senior counterterrorism official said.

Good thing Dubya vetoed that legislation banning water boarding and the terrorist-coddling treasonous Democrats failed to overturn it the other day. Welcome to Gitmo Rahim, bring out the ham sandwiches, our guest looks famished. Oh, and run a bath will ya, we need to make Rahim more comfortable in his new surroundings while we shoot the breeze and talk in detail about the past.

FOX News - An Iowa Republican congressman on Monday defended his prediction that terrorists would celebrate if Democrat Barack Obama were elected president, despite a rebuke from aides to John McCain, the GOP’s apparent presidential nominee. King cited Obama’s pledge to pull U.S. troops from Iraq, his father’s Muslim roots in Kenya and his middle name, Hussein, which King said has a meaning to terrorists.

I mean hellooo, if B. Hussein Obama packs up and leaves Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) will declare it as a victory for them, are leftists so stupid they can’t see this? As it stands AQI are getting their collective asses kicked from kerb to kerb in Iraq, so why the hell would they be upset if the ass-kickers leave. They can then take it easy and start carving the country up and dragging it back into the stone age. Just because they won’t send a ‘thank you’ card and chocolates to President B. Hussein Obama doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prefer him running the United States. Continue reading Under fire for stating the obvious?…

FOXNews - A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted Al Qaeda in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said Sunday. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan, were both killed Wednesday in Mosul. According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers.

In that attack, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque. The soldiers died in the explosion, the deadliest on American forces since six soldiers perished Jan. 9 in a booby-trapped house north of Baghdad. Intelligence gathered in the Mosul area led the U.S. military to al-Saudi, who was in a car with Hamdan. A precision helicopter strike killed both and destroyed their vehicle. U.S. forces then confirmed the men’s identities.

Hat tip Fortress Australia Outpost.

Yahoo! News - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators.

Meanwhile, see what is the enemy doing.

Yahoo! News - Boys in soccer jerseys don black masks and grab weapons. They scramble over mud-brick walls, blast down doors and hold guns to the heads of residents inside. The U.S. military said videos seized from suspected al-Qaida in Iraq hideouts show militants training children who appear as young as 10 to kidnap and kill. It’s viewed as a sign that the terror network — hungry for recruits — may be using younger Iraqis in propaganda to lure a new crop of fighters.

News.com.au - Police said a female suicide bomber killed 45 people and wounded 82 at the Ghazil pet market in central Baghdad. Another blast just minutes earlier killed 27 people and wounded 67 at a bird market in southern Baghdad, police said. An Iraqi military official said the two women were mentally disabled and the bombs detonated by remote control. “By targeting innocent Iraqis they show their true demonic character,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Stover, a spokesman for U.S. troops in Baghdad, referring to al Qaeda in Iraq. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the bombings underlined “the absolute bankruptcy and brutality” of those who carried them out. “This is the most brutal and the most bankrupt of movements,” Ms Rice said.

And Obama thinks taking on these evil sons of pigs was a mistake, and both he and Hillary want to ‘carefully’ walk away and go off to Afghanistan and hold firm against them there. What’s even more surprising is that so many are buying their obvious lie. If that’s the case, then Al-Qaeda knows the westerner better than he knows himself and was right to think that the westerner no longer has what it takes.

SFGate - Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan who was blamed for bombing a base while Vice President Cheney was visiting last year, has been killed in Pakistan, according to a militant Web site. Al-Libi was a key link between the Taliban and al-Qaida and was one of the Americans’ 12 most-wanted men with a bounty of $200,000 on his head.

Earlier in the week we got news that a missile brought fire and pestilence upon 12 jihadists in Pakistan, now this, it is unconfirmed but they are saying he was caught up in that strike earlier in the week. Either way, t’was a good start to the week and it looks like a fitting end to the week.

China Daily - Fatiha Mejjati, the “black widow” of Al-Qaeda warned recently that France would be the “target” of terrorism attacks and would be “punished soon,” French daily Le Parisien reported on Monday. Mejjati is the widow of Karim Mejjati, a French-Moroccan killed in April 2005 in Saudi Arabia. Karim had been suspected of masterminding the terrorism attack on March 11, 2004 in the Spanish capital Madrid that left 195 people dead. In an exclusive interview with the daily, Mejjati, who now lives in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, said France would be “punished” for “its fidelity to the United States.”
FOXNews - A senior Iranian lawmaker warned the Netherlands on Monday not to allow the screening of what it called an anti-Islamic film produced by a Dutch politician, claiming it “reflects insulting views about the Holy Koran.” “If Holland will allow the broadcast of this movie, the Iranian parliament will request to reconsider our relationship with it,” Boroujerdi said, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency.

Washington Times - U.S. military forces say they have largely completed combat operations and are working to consolidate their gains after a six-day push into the so-called “Bread Basket” area of Diyala province. Clearing operations still are under way in the area, military authorities said, but day-to-day security will increasingly be handed over to Iraqi army and police units. A network of Concerned Local Citizens groups — an armed neighborhood watch organization — also will be buttressed and expanded. Continue reading Raider Harvest - Scattering AQI…

Jerusalem Post - Islamic militants said Saturday they had no link to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, dismissing government claims that a leader of pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan orchestrated the suicide attack on the opposition leader. With Bhutto’s supporters rampaging across the country, Pakistan’s election commission called an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the impact on upcoming parliamentary elections. Nine election offices in Bhutto’s home province of Sindh in the south were burned to the ground, along with voter rolls and ballot boxes, the commission said in a statement. The violence also hampered the printing of ballot papers, training of poll workers and other pre-election logistics, the statement said.

I’m sure I read reports earlier that Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for this, looking at them again, I get the feeling the western media yearns to believe Al-Qaeda, scumbags who butcher women and little children every day, over Musharraf. I think Al-Qaeda is getting cleverer now, they’ve learned from their experience with the drive-by media and the lazy westerner. Sure, taking responsibility has benefits like improved status and showing that they can still strike at the hearts of their enemies. On the flip side by keeping quiet about the whole thing, the authorities will know the real deal, which is what they want, and there is much more blood to be shed if they can blame Musharraf for this and blur the battle lines on the ground.

They know the savages in Pakistan don’t really have the time or patience for cold hard facts and analysis, they just want to burn and kill. Also they’ve seen how stupid some westerners can be, even after Osama claimed 9/11 as his own doing, there are still morons in the west who think it was an inside job. From what I’ve read, the fact that the usual Islamist websites have been very quiet about this is proof enough for the western media to finger Musharraf. That Al-Qaeda’s leadership ordered this to promote their innocence seems to escape the brainiacs in the media. Al-Qaeda is not stupid, if these morons together with the Islamic savages can put enough pressure on Musharraf and break him and destabilize the whole of Pakistan, a civil war perhaps, the ultimate prize is nuclear weapons.

Yahoo! News - Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said that the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, had seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the change to an increase in both American troops and better-trained Iraqi forces.

Continue reading Surge working - al-Zawahri confirms bitterly…

Associated Press - Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds. The new alliance — called the single largest single volunteer mobilization since the war began — covers the “last gateway” for groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said. U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned again al-Qaida and other groups.

Continue reading More Sunnis turn - AQI on the run…

MNF Iraq - Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, recently hosted a social gathering, including a cookout and soccer tournament, for Iraqi Army (IA) troops and a volunteer group from Ameriya, a neighborhood in the Mansour district of western Baghdad. “Today is a chance for us to get together with our partners in Ameriya,” said Huntsville, Ala., native Army Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, commander of 1-5 Cav. His unit operates in Ameriya attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.

Continue reading Another neighborhood lost to al-Qaeda…

There was a time when Iraq was always in the news, by listening to the MSM, you’d get the impression that every square meter of the entire place was being bombed and burned 24/7, 365 days a year. Heck it sounded like even the toilets were rigged with IEDs and you couldn’t brush your teeth without dodging mortars and RPGs.

Andrew Bolt - THERE is a reason Iraq has almost disappeared as an election issue. Here it is: The battle is actually over. Iraq has been won. I know this will seem to many of you an insane claim. Ridiculous! Here is just the latest underreported news, out this week. Just 27 American soldiers were killed in action in Iraq in October - the lowest monthly figure since March last year. (This is a provisional figure and may alter over the next week.) The number of Iraqi civilians killed last month - mostly by Islamist and fascist terrorists - was around 760, according to Iraqi Government sources. That is still tragically high, but the monthly toll has plummeted since January’s grim total of 1990.

Continue reading Not fit for the headlines…

Washington Times - U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen visited a Yemeni man convicted in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in his prison cell yesterday, three days after he was seen greeting relatives in his house. U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed the visit but declined to discuss details about its length or substance. “We were able to physically confirm the presence of Jamal Badawi at a prison in Aden,” a State Department official said.