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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Palestinian Terrorists in Iraq |
| 2005-02-28 |
| From our own Dan Darling's former boss, Michael Ledeen, in the National Review. Severely edited for the stuff we didn't know. Bit by bit, we are getting a fuller picture of our enemies on the ground in the Middle East, and the fanciful legend of a bunch of religiously inspired fanatics is eroding. Listen to Iraq the Model last Friday: The (televised) confessions have shown that some criminals have strong connections with the Syrian authorities from where they get instructions and support. The interesting part of the show was the interrogation with Khalidah Jasim the sister of Khalid Zakiyah who's one of the most wanted criminals in Mosul who got arrested a while ago in Tikrit. She stated that she was in her 2nd year in college studying psychiatry and that she was a member of a Palestinian military organization that was led by George Habash. Khalidah Jasim had succeeded her brother at the head of a terror gang, which is the first clue that we are not dealing with an Islamist organization (anyone who thinks that bin Laden or Zarqawi would tolerate a lady in charge had better go back and repeat Terrorism 101). And she says that, quite explicitly, when she tells us that the organization was led by Habash, a Greek Orthodox Palestinian who created the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the infamous PFLP. The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist organization, not a jihadist band. So some of the Mosul terrorists are Marxists, not Sunnis, not Baathists, and, at least at the leadership level, not even Iraqis. They are foreign, Christian Marxist killers. And for those who like to keep track of such things, notice that Habash was a medical doctor, and that Khalidah Jasim was studying psychiatry (as Walter Laqueur noted many years ago, medical doctors are oddly prevalent at the highest levels of terrorist groups). Iraq the Model continues: She confessed that she has taken her brother's place in leading the terror group and she's specialized in preparing TNT used in roadside bombs. She also didn't deny one of the group members statements that she offered to sleep with him twice in order to persuade him to plant land mines and perform attacks against Iraqi and American troops. So much for the religious fanaticism of the terrorists. This is a sex-for-murder deal: You do some killing, I give you my body. For these thugs, there is no need to wait for the 72 nubile babes in paradise; Khalidah is available in the here and now. And you don't have to martyr yourself either; just plant some land mines and send your enemies to their graves. Iraq the Model doesn't spell it out, but the Syrian connection is obvious to anyone who follows the terror network. Habash lived (and may still live) in Damascus, where he received respectful treatment from the Assad family. All of which brings us back to the basic sermon: We are engaged in a regional war against a terror network that cannot be reduced to a simple, ethnic or religious, element. The network is bound together by a common hatred of us and our friends and allies, not by a single religious fanaticism, and the terrorists come in all shapes and descriptions. Their effectiveness is largely due to support from the terror masters in foreign countries, and we cannot win the battle of Iraq without destroying the terror masters in Tehran, Damascus, and Riyadh. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |