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Iraq
Terrorists Announce Death of 'Juba, the Baghdad Sniper' (ver. 1.72)
2007-09-24
h/t Jawa Report
A forum connected to al Qaeda has announced the death of 'Juba, the Baghdad sniper'. Several videos produced by The Islamic Army in Iraq purporting to be of 'Juba' began to appear online 2005. A 'Top 10' video went viral and 'Juba' became a pop phenomenon. It also caused outrage when CNN aired clips from the video showing an American being shot and killed.

The announcement of Juba's death claimed that the sniper had left the Islamic Army in Iraq to join al Qaeda when the latter group formed 'The Islamic State of Iraq'. Juba, the announcement claimed, had been betrayed by an informant and 'was killed like a hero'.

On hearing the announcement, the popular Canadian based pro-terror website Jihad Unspun, released a poem lauding 'Juba':
My targets were many
Crusaders and traitors
All on my hit list
For a bullet through their chest
Or mortal wound
As a warning to others

Jihad Unspun is a Google News source.

Of course, the problems with the announcement of 'Juba's' death are many. First, the claim that he left the IAI to join al Qaeda. Possible, but not likely.

Second, the claim that he was killed just a few days ago during Ramadan. In November of last year the Iraqis claimed they had captured a man named Ali Nazar al Jubori and that he was the original Baghdad sniper.

Third, it seems clear that even if there was a Baghdad sniper who called himself 'Juba' (there is a popular myth that the Americans named him that, but it's not true) that the vast majority of sniping videos were not of the same man.

How do we know that 'Juba' could not have been one man? Because the very first Islamic Army in Iraq produced "Juba Top 10 video" included footage of an American soldier being hit near his Humvee. What is not shown in the Juba footage is the fact that the American survived, the sniper was killed, and this "Juba's" sidekick who filmed the incident was captured down the road, videotape in hand.

Juba was a myth created for propaganda purposes by The Islamic Army in Iraq. The same group that murdered American hostage Ronald Schulz and Italian Red Cross worker Enzo Baldoni. This is also the same group that produced the Lee Tucker: Lee's Life for Lies video, which was also a complete fabrication.

So it's not surprising that a group which glorifies the murder of civilian hostages and makes propaganda films showing a 'dead anti-war' soldier would also lie and create a sniper 'hero' named Juba. It's also not surprising that the Islamic State of Iraq would lie about this 'hero' joining al Qaeda before being 'martyred' during Ramadan. After all, al Qaeda in Iraq is the same group that paid an actor to play the part of the leader of The Islamic State of Iraq.

So, we welcome the news that another Baghdad sniper has been killed. But he's not the Juba. If there ever really was a Juba, he was either killed in 2005 or captured in 2006. And if it just so happens that this Juba is the Juba, then all the better.
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Special: BONUS Idiot!
2006-11-09
Man hopes jail means no support payments

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Toronto-area man, already serving a four-year sentence for plotting to kill his ex-wife to get out of paying child and spousal support, is now using his incarceration as an excuse to avoid the payments. Ronald Schulz pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit murder, admitting he hired a hitman to break his ex-wife's neck. The "hitman" was in fact an undercover police officer, and Schulz ended up in prison.

In court this week, however, Schulz argued he still can't pay for support due to his incarceration, an argument that his ex-wife's lawyer called the ultimate in audacity.

"Chutzpah is the expression," said Marvin Kurz, who is representing the intended victim Sheryl Janssen. "It's like the child who kills the parents and then throws himself at the mercy of the court because he's an orphan... that's really what he did," he told Reuters Tuesday.
It gets even MORE idiotic at the link
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Iraq
Cypriot hostage ransomed
2006-01-01
A Cypriot man kidnapped in Iraq four months ago has been released after payment of a $200,000 U.S. ransom, relatives said Sunday.

"This was the greatest present for me. I spoke to him and he is fine," said his aunt, Rita Medzadourian. Garabet Jekerjian, 41, who holds both Cypriot and Lebanese citizenship, was kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad in August. It was unclear when he was released.

He was released on the same day as six kidnapped employees of Sudan's embassy in Iraq.

His brother, Avo Jekerjian, told The Associated Press that Garabet Jekerjian was released in Baghdad on Saturday afternoon after the family paid a ransom of $200,000 U.S. to the kidnappers. He said the company his brother worked for contributed, but would not say how much.

"It was the best present," he said by telephone from London. "Of course I'm happy, he's OK, he's fine. The ransom was paid and he's been released," he said.

The brother added that Garabet Jekerjian was going to Lebanon on Monday.

He worked for Geto Trading Ltd., a Cyprus-based company supplying food and alcoholic drinks to U.S. forces. Islam prohibits consumption of alcohol.

On Sept. 12, an organization calling itself "Propagation of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice Group" posted a video on an Islamic Web site. It showed a man who identified himself as Garabet Jekerjian and a masked captor pointing a gun at his head.

Medzadourian said she found out about her nephew's release Saturday and did not have any other details.

Saturday's other release came after the Sudanese government closed it's embassy in Baghdad on Friday following a threat by al Qaeda in Iraq to kill the six -- which included the mission's second in command.

There are numerous kidnap gangs operating in Iraq, most taking hostages and then releasing them once a ransom is paid. Non-Iraqis are usually sold to other gangs, while Westerners often wind up in the hands of militant groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Militants have kidnapped more than 240 foreigners and killed at least 39 of them over the past two years. The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed on Dec. 8 to have killed U.S. electrician Ronald Schulz, and other groups currently are holding a French engineer and four Christian humanitarian workers -- including two Canadians, a Briton and an American.
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Iraq
30 killed in Baghdad bombing
2005-12-09
A top Sunni party official predicted yesterday that Sunnis would vote in large numbers in landmark elections next week in spite of a campaign of violence that intensified yesterday with more than 30 people killed in a bus bomb and the first reported killing of an American hostage in more than a year.

Coalition military officials, meanwhile, predicted that Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab Zarqawi "is going to pull out all the stops between now and the elections."

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a Sunni group with an extreme Islamist bent, said on its Web site that it had killed an "American security consultant for the Housing Ministry" after the United States failed to fulfill its demand to release all Iraqi prisoners.

Ronald Schulz, an electrician from Alaska who worked in security monitoring, was shown on Al Jazeera television Tuesday sitting with his hands tied behind his back, his blond hair visible from under his blindfold.

"The war criminal Bush continues his arrogance, giving no value to people's lives unless they serve his criminal, aggressive ways. Since his reply was irresponsible, he bears the consequences of his stance," the group said in a statement, the Associated Press reported.

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber climbed aboard a bus after it had passed through a checkpoint and blew it up, killing at least 32 civilians and wounding scores more. The bus was full of Shi'ites traveling south for the Muslim weekend.

Police Lt. Wisam Hakim told the AP that a man jumped on board as the bus was pulling out of the station. "He sat in the middle of the bus and then the explosion took place," leaving a pile of charred bodies and mangled metal.

"We are not complacent. We know Zarqawi will conduct more operations in the week to the elections," coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters. "He's been trying since October, but we have been stopping him."

U.S. and Iraq authorities hope Thursday's elections, which will give Iraq a constitutionally elected four-year legislature, will undermine the Sunni-led insurgency by drawing Sunnis into the political process and isolating foreign terrorists such as Zarqawi.

Ala'a Makky, a member of political bureau of the Sunni Islamic Party, said in an interview that he thinks the Sunni turnout will be much higher this time than in elections to an interim parliament in January.

"I think most of the Iraqi population is now convinced that the elections and political solutions and reconciliation are the only solutions for the current problems," he said.

"I think the Iraqi people will go ahead and vote in the elections, as it is so critical," he said. "I don't think [Zarqawi] can disrupt this process."

David Satterfield, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, also said yesterday that attempts to draw Sunnis into the political process were working.

"Sunnis have come into the political process and they've come into it in a big way and they've come into it in an overwhelming way, in terms of numbers," he said during an telephone interview conducted from Washington.

Having spent most the past year boycotting the political process, Sunnis "will be elected proportionate to their population," Mr. Satterfield predicted.

He said the United States would like to see Iraqis elect "a representative, cross-sectarian government that is capable of meeting the needs of the Iraqi people" and that he expected precisely that sort of government to emerge from the elections.

Mr. Satterfield also noted that security has improved to the point where all the candidates are able to campaign openly. During balloting in January, many candidates were named on party lists but kept those names secret.

The reported killing of Mr. Schulz follows a fresh wave of kidnappings of Westerners.

Four humanitarian workers -- two Canadians, one Briton and one American -- were last shown apparently in orange jumpsuits and in shackles, held by a group called the Swords of Righteousness, which also demanded the release of all those in jail in Iraq.

A German woman kidnapped separately is also under death threat unless Germany stops dealing with the Iraqi government.

Gen. Lynch said 95 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq are foreign fighters brought in just for that purpose.

The military spokesman said there had been a "significant increase" in the capture of foreign terrorists, with 292 captured since June.

A chart released by the military showed that 67 foreign nationals were arrested in November, including 22 from Kuwait, 16 from Syria, eight from Egypt and eight from Saudi Arabia.
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Iraq
Iraq Insurgents Claim to Kill U.S. Hostage
2005-12-08
An Iraqi insurgent group said Thursday in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security consultant it had taken hostage. The claim's authenticity could not be immediately verified. The Islamic Army in Iraq said it had killed "the American security consultant for the Housing Ministry," after the United States failed to respond to its demand of the release of Iraqi prisoners.

A video issued by the group was aired Tuesday on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera showing the hostage — identified as Ronald Schulz, 40, an industrial electrician from Alaska — sitting with his hands tied behind his back. Thursday's statement, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, did not identify the hostage and provided no evidence he had been killed, but said pictures of the slaying would be released later. Schulz graduated from Jamestown, N.D., High School in 1983, then joined the Marines. His brother, Ed, said he served in the Marine Corps from 1984 to 1991 and after his discharge, moved to the Anchorage, Alaska, suburb of Eagle River.
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Iraq
N.D. Man Says Iraq Hostage Is His Brother
2005-12-07
A man shown as a hostage on an insurgent video aired on Arab television is "my brother, there's no question about that," a North Dakota man said Wednesday. The man shown in the video is Ronald Schulz, 40, an industrial electrician who has worked in Iraq, said Ed Schulz, of Arvilla, N.D. He said he last spoke with his brother on Nov. 4, when Ronald Schulz was at his home in Anchorage, Alaska.

The video, broadcast Tuesday by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera, claimed insurgents had kidnapped a U.S. security consultant, and displayed a blond, Western-looking man sitting with his hands tied behind his back. The video bore the logo of the insurgent Islamic Army.
The video also showed a U.S. passport and an Arabic identification card with the name Ronald Schulz, but the spelling of the name was uncertain because it was written in Arabic.

Ed Schulz said both he and his mother, Gladys, identified his brother on the video. "She's convinced it's him and the FBI is running like it's him," Ed Schulz told The Associated Press. Ed Schulz, 42, said the FBI had asked family members to give reporters only limited information.
"I don't want to get my brother killed," Ed Schulz said. "But the fact that he has blond hair and blue eyes might get him killed. God only knows with these people."

He said his brother's last known location was Amman, Jordan. "The FBI is trying to retrace his steps," Schulz said. "They're not even sure what country he's in."

The authenticity of the video had not been confirmed. Liz Colton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said U.S. authorities were investigating the Al-Jazeera report. Ed Schulz said his brother worked for several companies, and that it was not unusual that he had not heard from him for several weeks. "He built a feed mill in China once and he disappeared for three weeks," Schulz said. He said his brother had visited relatives in North Dakota during the summer. Ronald Schulz graduated from high school in Jamestown, and served in the Marine Corps from 1984 to 1991, Ed Schulz said.

Jamestown Mayor Charlie Kourajian said if the person shown in the video is confirmed as the Ronald Schulz who grew up on a farm near Jamestown, it would be "quite devastating for us because we aren't a big town."
About 15,500 people live in Jamestown.
40 year old ex-Marine, worked for several companies, disapppears for weeks at a time, pops up in China, Jordan and Iraq. Well, he could be a traveling electrician.
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