A Yemeni appeals court yesterday upheld the death sentence imposed on an extremist scholar for the assassination of a senior opposition politician three years ago. Ali Ahmad Jarallah, 28, confessed in July 2003 that he had acted alone in shooting dead Jarallah Omar, deputy leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party, at a congress in Sanaa of the Islamic-oriented Al-Islah party. He was arrested at the scene of the slaying.
In a 12-page ruling, the Sanaa court rejected the appeal for leniency by Jarallah who was convicted of shooting Omar several times at close range on Dec. 28, 2002. A lower court sentenced him to death last year. "We uphold the conviction of Ali Ahmad Jarallah and his sentence to death as prescribed by the Shariah," said the appeals court chief judge, Muhammad Al-Akwaa. Jarallah was to be executed by firing squad after the Supreme Court and President Ali Abdullah Saleh ratified the sentence, court officials said. Jarallah immediately blasted the verdict as unfair, saying the killing was part of a "holy war" against apostates and infidels.
This article starring:
ALI AHMED JARALLAH
Yemeni Islah Party
chief judge, Muhammad Al-Akwaa
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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I was rooting for anyone with the balls to take out a socialist politican untill I read the part about "...the killing was part of a âholy warâ against apostates and infidels." Then I was rooting for the Judges. In any case you take an action you have to be responsible for the outcome even if the offing of a scum sucking socialist politician is a good thing.
The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday upheld sniper John Allen Muhammad's murder convictions and death penalty for carrying out what it called a "cruel scheme of terror" that left 10 people dead around the Washington area. The court brushed aside arguments that Muhammad could not be sentenced to death under state law because he was not the triggerman. And it rejected claims that the post-Sept. 11 terrorism law under which he was prosecuted is unconstitutionally vague. "If society's ultimate penalty should be reserved for the most heinous offenses, accompanied by proof of vileness or future dangerousness, then surely this case qualifies," Justice Donald Lemons wrote. Muhammad was convicted on two counts of capital murder for the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers in Virginia during the three-week killing spree in October 2002. "I've had my fingers crossed all these months," said Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert, who prosecuted Muhammad. "Now I can uncross them."
I'd call that an indictment of our legal system, when you have to worry that scum like John Muhammad will get off...
Peter D. Greenspun, a lawyer for Muhammad, said he and co-counsel Jonathan Shapiro were "extremely disappointed."
"We were looking forward to him getting off. We were going to put him up at our houses and introduce him to all our friends!"
"There is a significant dissent, so we are going to review the entirety of the decision and continue to do everything we can to protect John Muhammad's interests and save his life," Greenspun said. The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the conviction based on the terrorism law but split 4-3 in upholding the conviction under the triggerman rule. The court's majority found that even if Muhammad's teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, pulled the trigger, Muhammad was eligible for the death penalty as an "immediate perpetrator" of a slaying. "Muhammad, with his sniper team partner, Malvo, randomly selected innocent victims," Lemons wrote. "With calculation, extensive planning, premeditation and ruthless disregard for life, Muhammad carried out his cruel scheme of terror."
I can remember that. But some of us don't have an attention span quite so long. And I guess some of us don't live so close to the scene of the slaughter...
The dissenting justices said Muhammad's actions - positioning the sniper team's car and telling Malvo when to fire - "were of the same character as those of a lookout or wheelman in a robbery."
See what I mean?
The court rejected Muhammad's claim that "intimidation" and other terms should have been defined in the terrorism statute. Muhammad's lawyers also had argued that the law was improperly used against Malvo because it was intended to address crimes such as the Sept. 11 hijackings. "Nothing in the words of these statutes evinces an intent to limit its application to criminal actors with political motives," the court said.
If shooting unarmed citizens from ambush isn't a terrorist act, I don't know what is.
The defense also argued that prosecutors improperly offered conflicting theories at the trials of Muhammad and Malvo. Muhammad's prosecutors portrayed him as a manipulator who molded his then-17-year-old cohort into a killer. Malvo's prosecutors, seeking to counter Malvo's insanity defense, depicted the teenager as a willful, independent thinker. But the court said the two approaches were not inconsistent.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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I certainly felt terrorized, especially when I bought gas anywhere along I-95 or the Beltway.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/24/2005 0:16 Comments ||
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#2
I will throw an extra steak on the "Barby", kick my feet up, relax...and toast the moment that he is DEAD!!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2005 11:25 Comments ||
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#4
The justice system better take care of terrorist scum like this and protect the public, otherwise the fear factor created by letting off these guys will lead to vigilantes.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2005 13:56 Comments ||
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#5
All we need now is a "Free Muhammad" movement fot the left and the story will be complete. In tecn years the left will elevate him to Mumia status because he was convicted under the Patriot Act. Actually they both were nothing more than common crooks who held the state hostage for $10 million. But if the Patriot Act puts both of these dogs down for good then I say GO FOR IT.
The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a 29-year military presence will be completed by Sunday, a senior military officer has said. "Tomorrow everything will be over," the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Saturday. He did not elaborate, but it appeared that the withdrawal would include the Anjar base in eastern Lebanon occupied by Syria's chief of military intelligence in Lebanon, Major General Rustom Ghazale. The same officer said earlier this week that Ghazale would evacuate Anjar by Tuesday.
On Saturday night, the largest number of Syrian troops to leave Lebanon in one batch vacated at least 10 positions in the northern part of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. Under pouring rain, dozens of trucks carrying hundreds of soldiers and 150 armored vehicles towing cannons and rocket launchers were seen heading to the Lebanese-Syrian Masnaa border point, witnesses said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
how many pullouts is this? Hope Lebanon is on birth control
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2005 11:06 Comments ||
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#4
They vacated part of the Bekaa? Now that's interesting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/24/2005 16:11 Comments ||
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#5
Steve---the thing I am concerned with is the large presence of Hizb'Allah in Lebanon. Being well financed by the MM's, they can fill in the void for Syria. They will be a tough nut to crack.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2005 17:08 Comments ||
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Unsurprising phenomenon - they are green troops of doubtful political reliability going up against Saddam's best, who have decades of experience in this kind of stuff. On the other hand, the reporter in question is Oliver Poole, whose previous reports have been a little too optimistic about guerrilla capabilities and dismissive of American capabilities. Even his casualty count is wrong - he rounded up and wrote 2 instead of 1.5.
Iraqi army and police units are deserting their posts after the recent escalation in insurgent attacks, according to reports from around the country yesterday.
The end of a relative period of calm after the election has posed the first real test for the embryonic security forces since coalition troops started cutting back on their military operations in February.
On average 20 Iraqis and two coalition soldiers have died every day this month.
Suspected Sunni insurgents set off two bombs yesterday near a Shia mosque in Baghdad that killed at least 15 people.
The attack came as political leaders continued to haggle over the formation of a new government. Iraq's new police and army units, instead of taking responsibility for imposing law and order, are abandoning patrols or taking refuge in their guardhouses when challenged.
On the Syrian border, US troops in the Sunni city of Husaybah report mass desertions. An Iraqi unit that had once grown to 400 troops now numbers a few dozen who are "holed up" inside a local phosphate plant.
Major John Reed, of the 2nd Marine Regiment, said: "They will claim that they are ready to come back and fight but there are no more than 30 of them on duty on any given day and they are completely ineffective."
In Mosul, which has been a hotspot since insurgents fleeing Fallujah effectively overran it last year, residents have complained to newspapers that police now rarely patrol and only appear in response to attacks.
But greatest concern has focused on Madain, the town 14 miles south of Baghdad that in the past few weeks has been at the centre of the biggest crisis amid conflicting claims of ethnic cleansing.
Residents say that since a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings began three months ago police have effectively abandoned the town.
Sunni and Shia communities say two to three people have been disappearing each day since, blaming either elements of the Shia Badr Brigade and Sunni Ba'athists for the kidnappings.
When a convoy of police did try to install order, insurgents ambushed them. Those who survived were burnt to death.
The full extent of the lawlessness was confirmed last week when it was announced that 58 bodies of both sexes and all ages had been discovered in the Tigris between Feb 27 and April 20.
Both Shia and Sunni political groups have claimed that their communities are included in the dead. Police have failed to provide an explanation for their murders.
The failure of the victors of January's election to form a government has resulted in the defence and interior ministries being placed in limbo, and security experts cite this as partly responsible for the subsequent fall in army and police morale.
Ministerial initiatives against insurgents have all but ceased, many senior officials are due for replacement and recruitment has been hampered by confusion over future selection policies.
Looks like the first ones squealed like little piggies... How un-islamic!
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces arrested four more suspects in Thursday's downing of a civilian helicopter north of Baghdad, bringing the number apprehended so far to 10, the military said Sunday. All 11 passengers and crew were killed, including one shot by insurgents.
U.S. soldiers from Task Force Baghdad, working with Iraqi security forces, detained the suspects during the past 24 hours, a military statement said.
Iraqi civilians helped U.S. forces locate the first six suspects, who were captured early Saturday, the military said.
The Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter was shot down about 12 miles north of Baghdad. The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards from Fiji, officials said.
#2
Turn them over to the Iraqis for processing after they are done squealing. (maybe doing that already)
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2005 13:58 Comments ||
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#3
as I said yesterday - let our Bulgarian friends have them
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2005 14:04 Comments ||
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#4
Islamic justice may be better in this case. The punishment for a first offense is usually the loss of a hand. For the second offense, one can lose one's head. In this case, I'd settle for quadruple amputation - both arms at the elbow, both legs at the knee - and branding, so no one will ever feel sorry for them. Let them rot in the Baghdad sewers, with no chance for change in their condition.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/24/2005 14:57 Comments ||
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#5
Yeah, but even the Moslems haven't thought up some of the punishments the Blackwater people could think up. I'm talking Ming Dynasty stuff.
#6
OP, you're forgetting the limb the terrorists cherish the most, the appendage that muslim males think the universe revolves around.
Remember what one of the Abu Garib guys said (I'm quoting from memory here): 'They made us feel like women. That is the worst thing. To be like a women.' So my proposal is total sex change operations and double D boob jobs for the lot of them. Publicise well and drop them off at their homes for everyone to get a good look at. That would put a big dent in terrorist wannebes.
#7
I would like to force feed them pig shit and then choke them with a diaper. Then I will gouge out their eyeballs with dull razor blade and shove it up their asses.
Then I will just piss on them . Then I will pull out the nun-chucks and pummel them into islamo-chili.
Then I will pour gasoline on them and shit on them. Then I will set ablaze with a fine marbolo cigarette.
Whatever is left, I will force feed to the whore they call 'mother'.
Don't get me started.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2005 17:47 Comments ||
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#9
Dammit! These are NOT "Insurgents". They are Terrorists Murderers and should be lined up and shot just like the Geneva Convention allows!!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/24/2005 17:58 Comments ||
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#10
Illegal combatants.
Determine their guilt.
The for the guilty ones, a .45 to the lower back of the head, fired upward into the head from just under the base of the skull. Death is nearly instantaneous, so the process is relatively quick and humane. It causes the person to do a final "leap" and the force of the round and all those nerves firing push the person up into the air a bit. The Bulgarians know how to do this (they learned from the GRU and KGB). Let them handle it. For a proper extra touch, I beleive the Bulgarians would not mind showing them the fate they have earned; be sure to have a trench in front of them, full of pig carcasses. The Bulgarians would do it the old KGB way - no blindfold, so they can see that hell awaits them for their evil.
But be sure to send the tape of it to Blackwater with a proper noe, and the Jihadis with a note say "Sic Semper Satanis".
Iraqi insurgents struck across the country with bomb attacks on Saturday, killing at least 16 people, including an American soldier. U.S. forces captured six men suspected in the downing of a civilian helicopter and the shooting death of the lone survivor.
The suspects in the helicopter downing were caught after U.S. soldiers from Task Force Baghdad were tipped off by an Iraqi civilian who told the Americans that he knew where insurgents had stashed a blue KIA pickup truck that was used in the attack and led them to the site, the military said in a statement.
Soldiers searched two nearby houses shortly after midnight Saturday, arresting three men and seizing bomb-making material in the first home. Three suspects were grabbed from the second residence and all were being questioned, the military said.
U.S. forces did not identify the captives or say where they were taken into custody.
The Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter, flying from Baghdad to Tikrit, was shot down about 12 miles north of the capital on Thursday. The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards from Fiji.
Two groups claimed responsibility for the attack and released video to support their claims.
In one video, insurgents are seen capturing and shooting to death the lone survivor, identified as a Bulgarian pilot.
The aircraft was owned by Heli Air of Bulgaria and chartered by Toronto-based SkyLink Aviation Inc. The six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting — a subsidiary of security contractor Blackwater USA of Moyock, N.C. Four of its employees were slain and mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah a year ago.
In other violence, Associated Press Television News cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was shot and killed when gunfire broke out after an explosion in the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim, no relation to the dead man, suffered shrapnel wounds in the same incident. While at the hospital, Mohammed Ibrahim was escorted away by U.S. forces along with his brother and their whereabouts could not immediately be determined. The U.S. military said it was investigating the incident.
Iraq has experienced a surge in militant attacks that have caused heavy casualties in recent weeks, ending a relative lull after the country's historic Jan. 30 elections. Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a Cabinet that will include members of the Sunni minority, believed to be the driving force in the insurgency.
A series of explosions shook the Iraqi capital Saturday. The most deadly was a roadside bomb that exploded near an Iraqi army convoy on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20, police said.
Some of the surviving soldiers opened fire in response, shooting and killing the driver of a civilian car, police said.
The attack occurred near the Abu Ghraib prison, which was at the center of a prison abuse scandal last year after photographs were publicized showing U.S. soldiers humiliating Iraqi inmates.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a U.S. patrol detonated on a busy road that links to the perilous highway leading to the airport. One Iraqi was killed and seven wounded, hospital officials said. Three U.S. soldiers also were injured in the blast, which knocked down power lines and destroyed one military and two civilian vehicles, U.S. forces said.
In al-Haswah, west of Baghdad, a U.S. soldier assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force was killed when a roadside bomb exploded Saturday near the convoy in which he was traveling, the U.S. military said.
An Iraqi civilian was killed by a roadside bomb on a highway in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army convoy in Mosul, wounding three soldiers, police and hospital officials said.
Mortars slammed into an Iraqi military base in southern Baghdad, injuring seven soldiers, police said.
A bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in Abu al-Khasib, a town near Basra in southern Iraq. Two charred bodies were pulled from a destroyed car and at least two Iraqis were injured, police said. A leading Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the attack in a statement late Saturday, calling it a "hideous crime" and warned the militants they "will not crack our unity and sow dissension between us by spitting out your venom."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/24/2005 12:10:45 AM ||
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Berlusconi's $10m bribe to release the journalist is providing the cash for this wave of car bombs. Sigh.
"That's a really nice beard you got there, Qazi!"
"Why, thank you, Syed! You got a nice beard, too! And you look very well fed!"
"Takes a lot of calories to run a major terror organization!"
Following up on an offer made by its Pakistan-based leader, the Hizbul Mujahideen's local chief has said the group was ready to consider any ceasefire offer from New Delhi. Just ahead of President Pervez Musharraf's New Delhi visit last week, Syed Sallahuddin, the PoK-based chief of HM, said the group was willing to stop violence in the Kashmir Valley if the Indian forces reciprocated by stopping anti-militancy operations. On Friday, Gazi Misbahudin, the chief operational commander of the group in Kashmir, told a local news service he was serious about a ceasefire. "If they (Indians) are serious about it, Hizbul would seriously consider it," he said.
The HM is considered the biggest militant group in the Valley but in recent months its fighters have not been involved in most of the attacks. The terror attacks against the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus was, for instance, blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba and other smaller groups which are striking sporadically with suicide attacks. A ceasefire with the HM may not reduce violence, but could dampen the pro-Pakistan sentiment in the Valley and give greater room to manoeuvre the separatist groups. Neither the state government nor the Centre has reacted to the apparent olive branch, which comes at a time when the groups are facing a severe crunch of men and material and are on the run.
This article starring:
GAZI MISBAHUDIN
Hizbul Mujahideen
SYED SALLAHUDIN
Hizbul Mujahideen
Hizbul Mujahideen
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The first time, ever I saw your Fez...
Posted by: Roberta Flack ||
04/24/2005 11:13 Comments ||
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#2
I like the guy on the right's black vest. Now he needs something like a bow tie or a bolo tie and he will be a storekeeper or some other extra in a western movie. The hat will have to go. Maybe a derby?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2005 13:50 Comments ||
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A senior member of the ousted Taliban movement has surrendered, the latest in a series of defections to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government by Taliban commanders. Mofti Habibur Rahman, chief of the criminal department at Taliban's interior ministry, also said other high-level and low-ranking Taliban officials inside and outside Afghanistan would take advantage of a government amnesty offer. "The reason is that we now have an elected and legitimate government," Rahman told reporters on Saturday after surrendering to local authorities in Khost, the southeastern province near the order with Pakistan which is a hotbed of Taliban activity. When asked if Jalaluddin Haqqani, the top Taliban commander for the southeastern region would also give himself up, Rahman said: "I cannot say this because of security reasons." He said other Taliban officials who were prepared to join the government were living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Say, how's that spring offensive going?
This article starring:
HABIBUR RAHMAN
Taliban
JALALUDIN HAQQANI
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Egyptian authorities have arrested 28 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest Islamist organization, said police and Brotherhood members. The arrests followed a 15,000-strong protest in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, where 23 of the arrests were made late Friday and early Saturday, said Ali Abd al-Fattah, a senior member of the Brotherhood. Five others were arrested in nearby Menoufia province, he added.
Police confirmed the arrests, and the number of protesters, but did not link the demonstration - thought to be the largest of late by Brotherhood supporters - with the detentions or give any reason for the crackdown. An Egyptian legislator and member of the Brotherhood, Isam al-Aryyan, said none of the detainees had been charged. "No on knows about the accusations leveled in such cases, as the arrest was just a punitive measure," al-Aryyan told Aljazeera on Saturday. Abd al-Fattah said the group had not notified authorities ahead of time about the protest, as is customary, and claimed it had begun spontaneously and then grew fast. ''We didn't plan to hold a demonstration; it was only a conference on (political) reforms held inside the doctors' syndicate,'' he said. ''When the number of attendees increased, we had to leave the conference hall to the streets.'' Protesters raised small copies of holy Quran, waved banners and chanted slogans calling for comprehensive political reform, including an end to emergency laws, imposed after the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They also demanded the abolition of laws limiting the formation of political parties. The arrests late Friday and early Saturday bring to about 80 the number of Brotherhood members detained since a wave of arrests on 27 March, al-Aryyan said.
This article starring:
ALI ABD AL FATTAH
Muslim Brotherhood
ISAM AL ARYYAN
Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Yemeni appeals court yesterday upheld the death sentence imposed on an extremist scholar for the assassination of a senior opposition politician three years ago. 
The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday upheld sniper 
The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a 29-year military presence will be completed by Sunday, a senior military officer has said. "Tomorrow everything will be over," the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Saturday. He did not elaborate, but it appeared that the withdrawal would include the Anjar base in eastern Lebanon occupied by Syria's chief of military intelligence in Lebanon, Major General 
A senior member of the ousted Taliban movement has surrendered, the latest in a series of defections to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government by Taliban commanders. Mofti 
Egyptian authorities have arrested 28 members of the outlawed 
