Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Palestinian man shot dead amid clashes with Israeli forces near Jenin

2023-01-15

[IsraelTimes] Media reports say troops detain at least one suspect in Qabatiya; local wing of Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
claims to open fire at soldiers.

Two Paleostinians were killed on Thursday amid festivities with Israeli troops during a daytime military raid in the West Bank city of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, the military and Paleostinian health officials said.

Border Police officers entered Qabatiya to arrest Muhammad Alawneh, a wanted Paleostinian allegedly involved in terror activities and planning further attacks, according to a joint statement by police, the military, and the Shin Bet security agency.

The statement said that Alawneh and an additional suspect expeditiously departed at a goodly pace as troops sought to arrest him. The officers opened fire as they arrested Alawneh, and the second suspect was hit by the troops’ gunfire.

Another armed man shot up troops from a passing vehicle amid the operation, the statement said. The soldiers returned fire, hitting the man, before seizing his M16 assault rifle.

The statement added that several more Paleostinians, who allegedly hurled stones at the troops during the raid, were shot.

According to the Paleostinian Authority Health Ministry, Habib Mohammed Abdul Rahman Kamil, 25, was shot in the head by the troops during the festivities in the area and later died.

A second Paleostinian, 18-year-old Abdul Hadi Fakhri Youssef Nazzal, died several hours after being critically hurt in the festivities, the ministry said.

It was not immediately clear if two slain Paleostinians were involved in the gunfire, the ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful riots, or if one of them was the second suspect that initially fled with Alawneh.

The ministry said another three Paleostinians were maimed in the festivities.

In a statement, a local wing of the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad claimed to have targeted troops in the area.

No Israeli soldiers or officers were hurt during the raid, officials said.

Kamil and Nazzal were the fourth and fifth Paleostinians killed by Israeli forces in less than two days, after a man was rubbed out after allegedly hurling cinderblocks at troops in the Qalandiya refugee camp early Thursday, an alleged Paleostinian stabber was rubbed out in the South Hebron Hills on Wednesday afternoon and a Paleostinian gunman was killed in festivities with the IDF in Nablus in the morning.

Samir Awni Harbi Aslan, 41, was killed as troops detained six wanted Paleostinians in the refugee camp north of Jerusalem early Thursday. The IDF said another 11 Paleostinians were arrested elsewhere across the West Bank overnight, with some ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful incidents.

In a separate raid on Thursday morning, the IDF, Border Police, and Shin Bet security agency said troops arrested a member of the Lion’s Den terror group in the West Bank city of Nablus as local button men attempted to target the forces.

Forces from an elite Border Police unit detained Iyad an-Nasser Shbaro, 33, along with four other suspects, and seized two makeshift submachine guns and an bomb, according to the joint statement.

In all, 22 Paleostinians who were arrested in the West Bank over suspected terror activities were taken to be questioned by the Shin Bet security agency.

Link

Terror Networks

New Islamic State leader is brother of slain caliph Baghdadi

2022-03-12

Follow up to this story from yesterday. Hattip to 3dc.

[Rooters] The new leader of Islamic State

… An Nahar spells his name Abu Hasan al-Hashemi al-Qurashi …

in a recorded audio message distributed online.

The announcement came weeks after the death last month of Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi,

… Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi in An Nahar’s stylebook, also known as Haji Amer Qardash or Haji Abdullah Qardash…

the man who in turn succeeded Baghdadi in 2019 and became the group's second so-called caliph. Both Baghdadi and Quraishi died by blowing themselves and family members up during U.S. raids on their hideouts in northern Syria.

CLOSE BAGHDADI AIDE
The new leader's real name is Juma Awad al-Badri, he is Iraqi and Baghdadi's elder brother, two Iraqi security officials told Rooters on Friday. A Western security official confirmed the two men were brothers, but did not specify which was older.

It is the first time this has been revealed since Islamic State announced the new leader. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to media.

Little is known about Badri, but he comes from a close circle of shadowy, battle-hardened Iraqi jihadists who emerged in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion.

"Badri is a radical who joined salafi jihadist groups in 2003 and was known to always accompany Baghdadi as a personal companion and Islamic legal adviser," one of the Iraqi security officials said.

The new leader's real name is Juma Awad al-Badri, he is Iraqi and Baghdadi's elder brother, two Iraqi security officials told Rooters on Friday.

The official said Badri has long been head of Islamic State's Shura Council, a leadership group that guides strategy and decides succession when a caliph is killed or captured.

Research by the late Iraqi Islamic State expert Hisham al-Hashemi published online in 2020 said Badri was leader of the five-member Shura Council.

The audio recording announcing the new leader said he had been named by Quraishi as his successor before his death.

Badri's nom-de-guerre, also Quraishi, indicates that like his brother and his predecessor he is believed to trace his lineage from the Prophet Mohammed, giving him religious clout among fellow jihadists.

Iraqi security officials and analysts have said that the new leader will continue trying to wage attacks across Iraq and Syria and that he might have his own vision for how those attacks are carried out.

NEW SECURITY THREAT
One of the Iraqi security officials who spoke to Rooters on Friday said Badri had recently moved across the border from Syria, where he has been holed up, and into Iraq.

Badri will inherit control over financial resources that are significant, according to a report written in December by the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
sanctions monitoring team.

"Recent assessments ... put the group's reserves at between $25 million and $50 million," it said, but added that Islamic State spends more than it earns, relying on "opportunistic extortion, looting and kidnap for ransom."

Badri has two other brothers, one detained for years by Iraqi security services, the Iraqi security official said. The other brother's whereabouts is not known, but he is believed to be another Islamist radical, he said.

Rudaw gives us even more alternate spellings:
Former leader: Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, whose real name was Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli
The new guy: Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi

Muhajir called on Muslims to pledge allegiance to the new leader, but refused to share his real name and photo. Despite sharing the same nom de guerre, the two are not believed to be related. Instead, al-Qurayshi stems from Quraish, the name of the tribe that the Prophet Muhammad belonged to, and a tribe that ISIS claim its leaders originate from. The former Qurayshi's real name was Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli

Link

Home Front: WoT

Brooklyn man pleads guilty to attempting to support ISIS

2020-08-20

From August 10th.

[NYPost] A Brooklyn man who uploaded instructional manuals online about how to conduct lone-wolf terror attacks in New York City pleaded guilty Monday to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

Zachary Clark,

... also known as Umar Kabir, Umar Shishani, and Abu Talha ...

41, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court after he was arrested last fall for posting manuals such as "Knife Attacks" and "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom" in encrypted chat rooms designed to recruit new ISIS members.

That sounds almost innocent, but he was one of the administrators for the most popular and well-known source of ISIS media and recruitment propaganda online, according to the feds. He was especially vocal about lone wolf attacks and full of advice on how to accomplish them.

One of the handbooks included maps of the New York City subway system and writings on how to commit attacks in the Big Apple, according to court papers.

Clark pledged support to ISIS twice in 2019, including in July when he stated his allegiance to the former leader of the terror group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, prosecutors said.

...after Al-Baghdadi’s death, Mr. Clark repledged to his successor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, the nom de guerre of Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi...

He faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February, prosecutors said.

"Thanks to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Clark’s efforts to incite deadly violence on behalf of ISIS have been silenced, and he now awaits sentencing for his crimes," Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement after the guilty plea.

"Today’s plea by Mr. Clark is yet one more example of the resolve of the FBI’s JTTF in New York, and our many law enforcement partners, to protect this city and our citizens from the danger of lone wolf attacks," FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. added.

Link

Terror Networks

US names ISIS chief on terror blacklist

2020-03-19

[Rudaw] The United States on Tuesday placed the new leader of the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group (ISIS) on its blacklist of terrorists, naming him as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that al-Mawli was named leader of the ultra-violent group after an October raid by US commandos killed its chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The organization had earlier named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi as its new head, but US officials acknowledged they knew little about him ‐ and later came to believe that the Islamic State group was using his nom de guerre.

Al-Mawli "was previously active in al-Qaeda in Iraq and is known for torturing innocent Yezidi religious minorities," Pompeo said.

"We’ve destroyed the caliphate and we remain committed to ISIS’s enduring defeat no matter who they designate as their leader," he said.

A US-led coalition, spearheaded on the ground by Syrian Kurdish fighters, crushed the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate that once stretched for vast stretches of Iraq and Syria ‐ but the group has inspired attacks much farther afield.

Al-Mawli was named a specially designated global terrorist, putting him on a list created after the September 11, 2001 attacks that makes any support to him a crime in the United States.

The State Department has already issued a $5 million bounty for information leading to al-Mawli’s capture.

A scholar in Islamic sharia law, al-Mawli rose through the ranks by issuing edicts to justify the persecution of the Yezidi, a campaign that the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
has described as genocide.

The jihadists killed thousands of Yezidis, who practice an ancient religion, and kidnapped and enslaved thousands more women and girls as they rampaged across the Middle East.

The Guardian, in a January article that cited intelligence sources, said that al-Mawli was raised in an Iraqi Turkmen family ‐ making him one of the few non-Arabs to rise through the ranks of the holy warrior group.

The newspaper said that intelligence officials were unsure of his whereabouts but believe he likely followed Baghdadi to Idlib, the last Syrian outpost out of the control of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
’s forces.

The Counter Extremist Project, which tracks bully boys, said that al-Mawli served in the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein before joining al-Qaeda in Iraq, becoming a jurist for the Sunni Arab bully boys.

It said that US forces captured al-Mawli and tossed in the calaboose
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
him in southern Iraq where he formed his bond with Baghdadi, who was also tossed in the calaboose
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
as part of al-Qaeda.

Link

Terror Networks

Meet New ISIS chief Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi.

2020-01-22

The same report we had yesterday, but sometimes you just have to appreciate the in-lines.

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The new leader of Islamic State has been revealed as Iraqi Amir
[so he is just an Emir, not a Caliph]
Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi.

Two intelligence services said al-Salbi took over from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after the terrorist blew himself up in October.

Al-Salbi, who helped found ISIS, brought in brutal Sharia Law in Iraq and Syria, led the enslavement of the Yazidi and has operated across the world...

The Mosul-born leader is believed to be one of the most influential ideologues left in ISIS's depleted ranks and is one of the last non-Arabs
[an ethnic Turkman - this should please Erdogan].

Al-Salbi was born in Tal Afar, a city near Mosul, to Iraqi Turkmen and went on to study Sharia Law at the University of Mosul
[apparently he was not on the football team although there is a rumor that he assisted equipment management for the track team].

After a background as an Islamic scholar
[or as the WaPo would say 'an austere scholar'],
he rose the ranks in the terror organisation
[he had great annual reviews from supervisors],
and tried to justify an attempted genocide on the Yazidi people.

Link

Terror Networks

Report says top terrorist who oversaw operations around world is new IS chief

2020-01-21

[IsraelTimes] UK paper identifies previously secret successor to slain Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi.

A headshot of the brutish-looking gentleman in question can be seen at the link. May his time in office be as brief as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi’s, the last fellow named as Al Baghdadi’s successor, although it’s possible Abu Ibrahim was imaginary.

The new leader of the Islamic State

According to The Guardian, his nom de guerre is Haji Abdullah, and he is sometimes called Abdullah Qardash, unless the latter is another ISIS member who died two years ago.

Salbi is one of the group’s founders and oversaw the enslavement of members of the Yazidi community in Iraq, as well as jihadist operations around the world, according to the report.

Link

Arabia

Soddys eliminate Houthi snipers at their border

2016-11-05

[Al Arabiya] Saudi Arabian forces have targeted and killed several Houthi snipers who were positioned inside the Yemeni borders facing al-Doud Mountain.

The Al-Mwasim region remained relatively calm since last night as the Apache helicopters and Saudi artillery were able to repulse in the afternoon an attack led by Houthi militias and Republican Guards as they were trying to reach Saudi borders. They were targeted and dozens were killed in the operation.

The Coalition aircraft also destroyed two boats belonging to the Houthis. The boats had set off from the Mocha port in Yemen toward international waters, threatening marine navigation.

According to the Coalition, verification was done on the information regarding the existence of two Houthi surveillance boats equipped with radars and a 12.7 caliber machine gun in front of the Mocha coast. The two boats were spotted and targeted on Wednesday by the Apache helicopter; a thermal missile was launched from the boats.

Meanwhile, it has also been revealed that the Houthi militias on Wednesday performed the funeral of one of their important leaders, Brigadier General Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Khalid, commander of the Second Brigade of the border guards affiliated to the rebels.

Khalid was meeting with a number of field and military leaders of the Houthi and Saleh militias in the Zaidiyyah security department building when the Coalition aircraft targeted the building.

The Saudi border region of al-Khubah also witnessed violent clashes on Thursday during which Saudi artillery was able to destroy two military vehicles belonging to the Republican Guard. The two vehicles were carrying dozens of fighters, owing allegiance to ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, who were trying to move toward the Saudi border. The border forces and the Saudi artillery in the region managed to eliminate them.

Link

Arabia

Saudi confirms death of three wanted militants

2010-01-19

[Al Arabiya Latest] Three militants from Saudi Arabia's most wanted list were killed in September in an explosion outside the kingdom, Saudi's interior ministry confirmed on Monday.

An informed source said the three died in neighboring Yemen, a hideout for Islamic militants and the ancestral home of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Former Guantanamo prisoner Fahd Saleh Suleiman al-Jutaily, Mohammed Abdul Rahman Suleiman al-Rashed, and Sultan Radi Somaileel al-Otaibi, all in their late 20s, were killed together with several others on Sept. 14, the interior ministry said.

"There was a group of them meeting and an explosion happened," ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said.

"We got DNA for all of those people who were killed in that explosion" for identification, he added.

He did not say where they were killed, but an informed source said it was in Yemen.

The circumstances of the blast were not explained by al-Turki, but an earlier report by the London-based al-Hayat newspaper said Jutaily had been killed in northern Yemen in an attack by government troops.

Jutaily joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001 on the encouragement of radical Saudi Sheikh Hamud al-Uqla, and was captured and eventually sent to the U.S. Guantanamo prison by U.S. forces, according to U.S. military records. He was released in 2006 and put through a Saudi terrorist rehabilitation program, but after release traveled to Yemen and re-established links with al-Qaeda, according to the Saudis.

He is one of about a dozen Guantanamo returnees, out of more than 120, who have dropped out of the program and returned to militancy.

Rashed left the country with false travel documents six years ago and was known to have joined up with al-Qaeda, while Otaibi left four years ago, according to the ministry.

"All three were on our list of 85" most-wanted people, said Turki.

The list was published and sent to Interpol nearly a year ago. Since then, three have turned themselves in to Saudi authorities and six are known to have died or been killed.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Detainees Fear Being Shipped Home

2007-12-08

A federal appeals court on Thursday zeroed in on the problem of Guantanamo Bay in reverse detainees in U.S. custody who want out but don't want to be sent home.

Ahmed Belbacha isn't happy to be at Guantanamo Bay, but neither is he happy about the alternative he says was chosen for him by the U.S. government, Algeria, where Belbacha says he'll be tortured. Belbacha's lawyer, David Remes, asked a three-judge panel to block any plans the Bush administration might have for moving his client into Algerian custody until the Supreme Court decides a case covering all Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court debated whether the detainees at the U.S. naval prison in Cuba have the right to take their cases to federal courts. A decision is expected in the spring.

There are other Guantanamo Bay cases with similarities to Belbacha's. In October, a federal judge blocked the Pentagon from transferring detainee Mohammed Abdul Rahman to Tunisia. The government has notified the court it intends to appeal the judge's decision in favor of Rahman, who says he would be tortured there.

Jamil el-Banna has been facing the possibility of being returned to Jordan, where he says he was tortured in the 1990s and would be again. El-Banna also has lived legally in England, and negotiations between the United States and Britain are under way for his possible return there instead of Jordan. He was taken into custody five years ago.

Lawyers for another detainee, Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita, are seeking to block his transfer to Libya, arguing he faces torture if he is returned there. Zalita says he married an Afghan citizen and that after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he and his pregnant wife fled to Pakistan where he was handed over to U.S. authorities for a bounty.

Guantanamo Bay isn't the only place where people in custody are resisting being sent somewhere else. Two naturalized U.S. citizens held in Baghdad and an Afghan held at the Bagram military base in Afghanistan are resisting efforts to turn them over to local authorities. On Friday, the Supreme Court will decide whether it will hear the cases of the two naturalized U.S. citizens.

In Belbacha's case, the U.S. military has classified him as an enemy combatant, while saying he is eligible for transfer subject to appropriate diplomatic arrangements for another country to take him. Remes, his lawyer, says he went to court after hearing from a confidential source the U.S. government planned to turn him over to Algeria. Belbacha was brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 from Pakistan. He had been an accountant at the government-owned oil company Sonatrach. Recalled for a second term of military service in the Algerian army, Belbacha says he was targeted with death threats by terrorists in Groupe Islamique Armee, then at the height of a violent campaign for an Islamic Algeria. Belbacha never reported for duty, but he says the GIA visited his home at least twice and threatened him and his family. He left the country, traveling to France, England, Pakistan and Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Belbacha's lawyer faced a tough reception at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where Judge A. Raymond Randolph seemed unwilling to block a possible transfer to Algeria. Randolph, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, wrote the opinion in February closing the door on the detainees' access to federal courts, prompting prisoners' lawyers to take their cases to the Supreme Court.

Another judge on the Belbacha case, Judge Thomas Griffith, expressed doubts about intervening in a possible transfer based on the mere possibility that the Supreme Court will decide in the detainees' favor months down the road. "Are we supposed to divine" how the justices will rule from Wednesday's Supreme Court arguments? said Griffith, who was appointed to the appeals court two years ago by President Bush.

The judges questioned the Justice Department lawyer about how imminent Belbacha's departure from Guantanamo Bay might be. "Is there any current plan to transfer this individual?" Randolph asked.

"We can't comment," Justice Department lawyer Catherine Hancock replied.

The third member of the panel, Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg, speculated about a possible alternative to Algeria, referring to the cases of five Chinese Muslims given refuge in Albania because they feared being put to death or tortured if returned to China. Picked up during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Uighur Muslims are suspected by their government of being members of a group waging a violent separatist campaign in China's northwestern Muslim region.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

10 killed in the raid of Abu Samra terrorist hideout in north Lebanon

2007-06-25

Ten people have been killed in clashes between Lebanese troops and Fatah al-Islam in the port city of Tripoli, including six terrorists and a policeman's 4-year-old daughter, the army says.

The killed Islamist terrorists included three Saudis, a Russian from Chechnya and two Lebanese.

The killed Islamist terrorists included three Saudis, a Russian from Chechnya and two Lebanese. Apart from the Fatah al-Islam terrorists, two civilians, one soldier and the police sergeant died in a three-hour firefight which erupted last Saturday as the army raided the apartment of a militant, an army spokesman said.

The army confiscated "large quantities" of weapons , explosives and missiles from the apartment compound during the raid, the spokesman said. The army also found and confiscated tents, binoculars , wireless electronics for booby traps, computers and army uniforms. "The army has found the bodies of six Islamists inside an apartment building in Abu Samra," the spokesman said. "They were killed in clashes with our soldiers in which small arms and medium-sized weapons were used. We have not yet recovered the bodies because they may be booby-trapped."

The fighting began when the Islamist terrorists opened up with automatic weapons on an army jeep in the Abu Samra district of northern Lebanon's port city, killing one soldier. A military statement said 11 soldiers were also wounded, some seriously, in the clash with Fatah al-Islam, whose gunmen are locked in fierce combat with the Lebanese army in a nearby refugee camp. The military spokesman said the dead policeman had lived in the same Abu Samra apartment building which was raided. "He was killed in exchanges of fire with the Islamists who had taken his 4-year-old daughter hostage," he said. "The police sergeant, Khaled Khodor, his 4 year old daughter and his father-in-law Mohammed Abdul Rahman Theeb were all killed, and his wife and two of his sons were wounded."

Apartments burned
The photographer said four apartments were burnt out in the battle and the building's walls were burst open by tank and rocket fire. The army withdrew most of the soldiers from the area at midday, local time.

They were the first clashes in the mainly Sunni Muslim city between security forces and the militants since fighting broke out five weeks ago and a siege began at the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared. Twelve Fatah al-Islam members were killed by security forces in Tripoli between May 20 and 23.

The army spokesman said soldiers also arrested three Islamists after the overnight fighting in Tripoli but that a fourth who escaped was being hunted. Renewed shelling and small arms fire erupted on Sunday at Nahr al-Bared, 15 kilometres further north toward the Syrian border, a reporter said. Eighty soldiers have now been killed in the deadliest internal violence to afflict Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war - more than twice the number of troops killed during last summer's 34-day Israeli war against Shiite Hezbollah guerrillas. A total of 157 people, including at least 57 Islamists, have died in the violence. Three soldiers were killed on Saturday by a Fatah al-Islam booby-trap on the 35th day of the siege, the army said. A fourth was in critical condition.

In a statement, the military warned that "elements of the terrorist network... must not be permitted refuge among the civilians in the camp, allowing them to continue their aggression against our soldiers."

The army urged the population of Nahr al-Bared "to take a courageous stand so it does not fall victim to these criminals who have only one choice -- to surrender and be brought to justice." About 2,000 residents of the camp's pre-battle population of 31,000 are still inside Nahr al-Bared, with those who fled now dispersed among other Palestinian camps around the country, mostly at nearby Beddawi.

Link

Home Front: WoT

DOD identifies 3 GTMO suicides, AP wrings hands

2006-06-12

One of the Guantanamo detainees who committed suicide had been cleared for transfer to another country, a second was involved in a 2001 prison uprising in Afghanistan where ~~a CIA agent~~ Mike Spann died, and a third had ties to al-Qaida, the Pentagon said Sunday.
The Department of Defense identified the three as Saudi Arabians Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi and Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani and Yemeni Ali Abdullah Ahmed. The two Saudis were also identified earlier by Saudi officials. Al-Utaybi had been recommended for transfer to the custody of another country before his suicide, the Defense Department said in a statement released to The Associated Press. It did not name the country but said he would have been under detention there as well. The U.S. military accused al-Utaybi, 30, of being a member of a militant missionary group, Jama'at Al Tablighi. He was born in Al-Qarara, Saudi Arabia, according to a Department of Defense list of Guantanamo detainees. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention center, said he did not know whether al-Utaybi had been informed about the transfer recommendation before he killed himself.

Otaibi is one of those Soddy clans whose members keep showing up in inconvenient places, usually hollering jihad and waving bloody swords. I doubt the princelings would miss any of them all that much.

U.S. authorities allege Ahmed, 28, was a mid- to high-level al-Qaida operative who had key ties to principal facilitators and senior members of the group. Throughout his time in Guantanamo, he had been noncompliant and hostile to the guard force, and was a long-term hunger striker from late 2005 to May 2006, the Defense Department said. Ahmed was born in Shebwa, Yemen, according to the Defense Department list.

Al-Zahrani, 21, was accused by the U.S. of being a front line fighter for the Taliban who facilitated weapons purchases for offensives against U.S. and coalition forces. He was allegedly involved in the November 2001 prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan that resulted in ~~the capture of Johnny Walker Lindh and also~~ the death of CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann. Al-Zahrani was born in Yenbo, Saudi Arabia, according to the Defense Department list.

None of the three had been formally charged.

Yeah yeah, Geneva Convention, human rights, Bush Bad, yadda, yadda, yadda. And now for the full Fifth Column Treatment:

The Guantanamo detainees, some of them in custody for 4 1/2 years, are being held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Many claim they are innocent or were low-level Taliban members who never intended to harm the United States. Only 10 detainees have been charged with crimes and face military tribunals ordered by President Bush. While U.S. officials argue the suicides were political acts aimed at hurting American standing in the world, human rights activists and former detainees say prisoners are desperate after years in captivity and view suicide as the only way out even though Islam forbids it.

"A stench of despair hangs over Guantanamo," said Mark Denbeaux, a defense lawyer who visited a client at Guantanamo on June 2. "Everyone is shutting down and quitting," said the law professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey who along with his son, Joshua, represents two Tunisians at Guantanamo. He said he was alarmed by the depression he saw in his client, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, who was "trying to kill himself" by hunger strike. "He is normally a gentle, quiet, shy person," Denbeaux said late Saturday. "He sat there in a subdued state that was almost inert. He was colossally depressed." Denbeaux said he had intended to cheer Rahman up by showing him a newspaper article quoting President Bush as saying he wanted to close the jail. But the lawyer said guards confiscated the article because detainees are barred from seeing news of current events. "We wanted to say, 'We have some hope for you,'" Denbeaux said. "They wouldn't let us give him some hope."

Bloody bastards. Won't even give a nice quiet shy gentle terrorist any hope, or even mash notes from their fellow travellers at Reuters.

That afternoon, Rahman was force-fed, the lawyer said. Force feeding involves strapping a hunger striker into a "restraint chair" and feeding him through a tube inserted into the nose. In the wake of the suicides, international demands to close the prison mounted. Two senior U.S. senators also expressed concern that most of the prisoners have not been charged with any crimes. A Saudi Arabian human rights group called for an outside investigation of the deaths.

Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen, who supported Bush in the Iraq war, said the detention center's procedures violate "the very principle of the rule of law" and weaken the fight against terrorism. Swedish Foreign Minister Jan Eliasson said the deaths underlined the need to close the camp and bring detainees to trial or free them. Eliasson said the 25-nation European Union believes the facility should be closed.

See? See? Even the Swedes and the Danes can't bear it. O the humanity!

A hearing scheduled this week for one was suspended after the suicides. Authorities were considering suspending all this month's hearings pending a Supreme Court on whether Bush overstepped his authority in setting up the tribunals.

There's a little more, but I can't stand the smell.

Link

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