Chad at In the Bullpen brings this WaPo article to my attention, which forwards the thesis of Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at London's King's College, that al Qaeda will begin to fragment and cease to be a global threat in the upcoming years. Chad's take is also very interesting. I would only add that al Qaeda's demise is ultimately meaningless for long-term security planning. It is the ideology of al Qaeda that threatens our way of life, not it's organizational structure. When al Qaeda ceases to exist, I will bid it good riddance. But another jihadi ideology bent on bringing about the global caliphate will only take it's place.

Clarke said he envisaged the network breaking down into smaller, disparate cells which would be more easily infiltrated and dealt with, bringing an end to the group's ability to carry out major attacks along the lines of the Sept. 11 attacks

"Terrorism will go back to being about more local issues. It will be reduced to a level which people can live with," he said....

Clarke pointed to Iraq, where Baathist supporters of deposed president Saddam Hussein were fighting alongside foreign Jihadists linked to al Qaeda although the groups had nothing in common.

Ultimately the Baathists would go their own way and pyramid would be weakened.

Clarke noted that even association with bin Laden's network had proved damaging to the cause of other militants such as Chechen separatists.

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I read Robert Spencer's two weblogs (Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch) on a daily basis, so I was pleasently surprised (and a bit flattered) when a few days ago he dropped a comment over here at the Jawa. An essay of his appears in today's Front Page Mag:

The problem, in short, is not the race, but the ideology of Muslim immigrants. For over thirty years, besotted EU officials have concluded pact after pact with the Arab League that made for massive Muslim immigration into Europe without assimilation. Would the new European Muslims accept European pluralism? That was assumed — betraying a shocking naivete and ignorance of what Islam has historically taught about the nature of society and the proper relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The problem is not racism, but precisely a clash of civilizations, or a clash between two radically opposing views of how society should be ordered. Another news item from Holland last week vividly illustrated that fact: when Dutch artist Chris Ripke commemorated van Gogh by painting a mural featuring the words “Thou shalt not kill,” a local mosque leader complained to police. The mural, you see, was “racist.” The police obediently sandblasted away the offensive message.

Patel insists that Hizb is no threat to the west, but part of it. But he adds that the west "needs to understand what is really an inevitable matter, and that is that Islam is coming back, the Islamic caliphate is going to be implemented in the world very soon ... The Muslim people need to realise that the way in which they will restore a form of dignity and bring civilisation back to the Islamic world is to establish a modern caliphate."

The call to re-establish the caliphate, the single Islamic state that existed for a millennium and a half, until the end of the Ottoman empire in 1924, forms the thrust of the group's message. But its call for Muslims to be strong is not just political; it is also religious: "Secularism has failed the world" declares a Hizb poster.

Bringing the caliphate back will not be easy: at one debate on the future of Iraq, held just off Brick Lane, an American journalist warned the audience that America, China and India would never tolerate an Islamic state "strung like a belt across the world. There would have to be a response."

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UPDATE 11/17: An image of the Sarin found may be found here.

UPDATE: Christian Science Monitor:

In the course of locating seven weapons caches in a single block around a mosque in northeast Fallujah, an Iraqi platoon Wednesday found a suitcase full of vials labeled "Sarin," a deadly nerve agent.

While further analysis determined that the find was probably part of a Soviet test kit with samples, its discovery in a room with mortar shells appeared to indicate an intent to weaponize the material.

According to NPR, Iraqi forces attached to Bravo Company found a truck that was loaded with weapons. In the truck was a briefcase with four packages containing ten vials each. The packages were labelled "Sarin-VGases" in English.

One Marine is reported as saying, "Awesome" upon the discovery of what potentially could be WMD, claiming that he now felt vindicated that the war was justified. The Marines also had intelligence that Sarin was in Fallujah and came prepared carrying gas masks.

It should be noted that the NPR report noted that the substances have not been independently analyzed yet. I was going to save this until it was confirmed, but since Glenn and James have put it out there, I figured I'd let my readers in on it too. Occasionally these reports turn out to be true, but often these early reports don't pan out.

Related logical string.

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UPDATE: Make that three hostages:

US troops have found three Iraqi hostages in the basement of houses in Falluja, handcuffed and starving, a marine officer said.

"We have found Iraqi hostages in basements, handcuffed by their hands and ankles, starving, thirsty and tortured," said marine Major P.J. Batty, adding that three hostages in total had been found.

A battered hostage, his wrists and ankles shackled to a wall, has been rescued by U.S. Marines moving through Fallujah, military officials said Thursday, providing further evidence that the rebel-held city was being used as a hideout for kidnappers.

Marine spokesman Maj. Francis Piccoli said the hostage was found about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday as troops engaged in a house-to-house sweep as part of the ongoing assault on Fallujah, the rebellious, mostly Sunni city about 35 miles west of the capital. Piccoli said the hostage's nationality was unknown. The rescued man said he was a taxi driver and that he had been held for 10 days without food or water.

In other news, Jeff Quinton confirms something reader Laura sent me this morning, that two Marine Cobra helicopters were shot down in Fallujah. Luckily, it looks like all Marines were accounted for and unhurt from the incident.

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***Exclusive to The Jawa Report***

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Is Dead, Several independent sources confirmed to the Jawa Report. Arafat's Inexplicably Diagnosed Syndrome is said to have caused a massive shut down of his entire immune system. Mrs. Arafat Is Doing Solace in her chic Paris home, but would not comment on whether or not Arafat's Illness Did Sew contention and confusion in the ranks of the PLO leadership.

Asked If Dozens of Infidels Saw the corpse, France's top military physician would not comment. His Immediate Version of the story was a simple statement, "Mr Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, has died at Percy military hospital at Clamart on November 11 at 3:30 am (0800 IST)" more...

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UPDATE: 4/22/05 Islamic Army in Iraq shoots down civilian helicopter, murders American survivor--report, video and images here.

UPDATE: This is an archive page. If you are looking for more recent news about terrorist communiques or videos, please go to our MAIN PAGE HERE. Updated daily.

****Exclusive**** Must Cite Jawa Report****

The Islamic Army in Iraq has shot down a US warplane, the Jawa Report has learned. Below is an image taken yesterday from a website claiming to speak for 'The Islamic Army in Iraq'. The website has since been shut down, possibly by certain unnamed patriotic hackers. Yesterday we reported the story, but unable to speak Arabic misunderstood the photo of the lone masked terrorist as a threat that jihadi forces now had unmanned drones that would be used against Coalition troops. Thanks to long-time friend Evariste for providing a translation of the website, we can now confirm that the photo is that of a US 'warplane' shot down by the Islamic Army in Iraq.

Continue below to see the 'warplane' photo and part of the translation of the threat that went along with it. more...

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Apparently earlier reports that Zarqawi had slipped away may have been true. One thing that struck me about this article, which is an AP wire story, is that the author lists the names of some of the French and British hostages, but not the Americans. If any one sees any photos of the so-called 'hostage slaughterhouse' I would be very interested in seeing them. Zarqawi has used several of these houses to murder in the past, and comparing this one to the many beheading videos might give us a clue as to the last time he was in Fallujah. My gut feeling is that he slipped out of Fallujah long-before the present assault started. USA Today:

Iraqi troops have found "hostage slaughterhouses" in Fallujah where foreign captives were held and killed, the commander of Iraqi forces in the city said Wednesday.

Troops found CDs and documents of people taken captive in houses in the northern part of Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan told reporters.

The most notorious abductions in Iraq have been by the al-Qaeda-linked group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was believed to be in Fallujah but who commanders now say likely fled the city before the huge offensive launched this week by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Mohan did not say that remains of captives were found and did not comment on whether the houses were believed linked to al-Zarqawi or any of several other militant groups that have claimed kidnappings.

"We have found hostage slaughterhouses in Fallujah that were used by these people and the black clothing that they used to wear to identify themselves, hundreds of CDs and whole records with names of hostages," the general said at a military camp near Fallujah.

Mohan was unsure if the hostage records included the names of any of the at least nine foreigners still in the hands of kidnappers — most notably, British aid worker Margaret Hassan, French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot and two Americans.

Other coverage: Digger, In the Bullpen, Command Post, Cranky Neocon, Kevin Aylward, and others.

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More evidence that nations will only fight terrorism if they believe it is in their national security interests to do so. In the case of the House of Saud, it is because the jihadis wish to replace that regime with one that is even more harsh. Get it? The Saudi's Wahhabism doesn't go far enough. In the case of Pakistan, they help us because the alternative is a US invasion or harsh sanctions. In the case of the French....oh, sorry, my bad. Arab News:

Saudi security forces clashed with four suspected terrorists in the Al-Jamia district early yesterday morning. One terrorist was killed, and three were captured during the two-hour long siege. One of the three was a foreign national, the Interior Ministry said.

According to Brig. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, a ministry spokesman, two security officers were injured in the operation that resulted in the confiscation of eight Kalashnikovs, 100 locally made bombs, machine guns, hand-grenades and live ammunition.

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This is the first time I have heard of Ansar al-Jihad, which means Partisans of Holy War or Holy War Followers. Allawi, for his part, has refused any negotiations with the terrorists. Notice the article calls the terrorists 'militants'. Xinhuanet:

A militant group kidnapping three family members of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi threatened on Wednesday to kill them if Allawi doesn't order a withdrawal from the besieged Fallujah.

In a statement, the group known to be Ansar al-Jihad (Partisans of Holy War) claimed responsibility for the abduction and threatened to behead the three if Allawi fails to meet its demands in 48 hours.

"We demand the agent government liberate all the prisoners in Iraq, women and men, and lift the siege over Fallujah and stop the military action against the city," said the previously unknown group.

Gunmen have abducted at least two members of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's family from their Baghdad home on Tuesday. The militants are threatening to behead them if their demands are not met. ...

"We promise Allah and his messenger that if the agent government doesn't respond to our demands within 48 hours, they (the hostages) will be beheaded," the group says on the website.

Interim government spokesman Thair al-Naqeeb says the prime minister's first cousin Ghazi Allawi was seized along with the cousin's daughter-in-law as they were leaving their home in southwestern Baghdad Tuesday evening.

"Ghazi Allawi is 75 years old. He has no political affiliation, and is not holding a government post," the government statement said.

Reuters says Ghazi Allawi was taken along with his wife and son. Sources also tell Reuters that there had been a short gunbattle at the cousin's home before they were seized.

Ansar al-Jihad also said in its Web posting it abducted three people.

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This is an archive page. For the latest news about communiques and videos coming from terrorists in Iraq, please go to the MAIN PAGE HERE.
----------------------

The new website for the Islamic Army in Iraq had this picture posted at their website. On closer inspection, their new weapon seems to be nothing more than a model airplane. I guess you could strap some dynamite on to it..... The Islamic Army in Iraq operates south of the Sunni triangle. Allied forces should be on the lookout for these airplanes.

If anyone would like to translate, I'd love to hear the threat that went along with this.

UPDATE: We have a translation--this is really a plane they shot down. See this post.

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Last week the Taliban took 3 UN election workers hostage and released a video of them pleading for their lives [earlier post here]. The hostages are Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo, and Angelito Nayan from the Phillipines. I have previously noted that the deadline set by the Taliban terrorists for their demands to be met had passed. Luckily, the deadline seems to move back at a constant rate. Today, a a spokesperson for the terrorists threatened to behead Shqipe Hebibi tomorrow. Reuters:

Another militant spokesman, Mullah Sabir Momin, had said Hebibi would be killed first and the "beheading" shown on video. "The decision on the other two will be taken after seeing the reaction of the Afghan government and the U.N.," he said.

Momin said Hebibi seemed the most important hostage. "She says she is a Muslim. If a Muslim helps infidels or America, that Muslim will be punished first."

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The benefits to the Fallujah offensive begin already. If the residents of Fallujah are so keenly aware of the inner workings of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi' Al Qaeda in Iraq network, then why aren't we simply levelling the whole city? Winning the hearts and minds of a people begins with their own self aknowledgment that they have lost. It took a nuclear bomb to force the Japanese to admit to themselves that their resistance was futile, I'd say a few MOABs or maybe one of the new MOPs would do the job. Sierra Times:

Residents reported that a Saudi national known as Abu Waleed Saudi, a senior military aide to insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi's, was killed in fighting west of Fallujah.

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An Italian born aid worker named Andrea Cianferoni has been taken hostage in the Phillipines, probably by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist organization. The Abu Sayyaf jihadis are fighting for a seperate Islamic state in the Phillipines' southernmost islands. This is the same group that kidnapped American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham demanding millions of dollars in ransom. Martin Burnham was later killed by the terrorists during a rescue attempt. It looks like they are at it again:

An Italian aid worker was kidnapped in the Philippines early Tuesday by armed gunmen who demanded a ransom, Italian media reported here. The man was identified as Andrea Cianferoni, who works for Movimondo, an Italian non-government organization helping communities in conflict areas. Cianferone was kidnapped on the Philippines' main southern island of Mindanao, the center of a bloody Islamist separatist revolt.

Roberto Cianferoni, father of Andrea, the Florence-born agronomist kidnapped in the Philippines, attempted to call his son on the mobile. On the other end of the line, Roberto heard what were probably the voices of his son's kidnappers. A few moments later, however, the kidnappers hang up on him. The same happened the second time he tried to call.

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Arafat is said to be dead, again. You ever notice how the living dead never really die? Personally, I blame the worcester sauce. What will be Arafat's last words? That's easy. Via Jeff Quinton this news (or something like it) from Reuters:

Yasser Arafat may have only hours to live, a Palestinian source has said after Palestinian leaders discussed the president's health with doctors who are treating him at a French military hospital.

"They spent about one hour with the French doctors and heard a detailed report on his medical condition. He is not dead but we are counting the hours," the source said.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is dead, senior Palestinian political sources said on Tuesday.

The information from sources close to Arafat could not immediately be confirmed.

“He is dead,” one of the sources close to Arafat said in Paris, where Arafat has been lying in a coma at a French hospital. Officials in the West Bank said they had not been informed that Arafat was dead.

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MOAB: Bigger. Longer. Uncut.

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Complete Bilal Hussein Archives Here

Via Six Meat Buffet and Charles Johnson some interesting pics out of Fallujah. According to the Geneva Convention, soldiers caught wearing civilian clothing are not afforded protection and are thus subject to summary execution. I say we start with Bilal Hussein, the SOB working for the AP who is in Fallujah putting out enemy propaganda. If he's not already dead, that is. I give him 48 hours, tops. From the looks of it, he's hanging out in the exact areas that the 'shaping the battlefield' bombs are dropping. And now that the battle has begun in earnest, I expect to hear from journalistic rights groups complaining that we targetted him when the MOAB fell on his exact location (not that I have anything against targetting him. (PS-Is that MC Hammer and why is he wearing a mask?)

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I was checking out Aaron's Rantblog where he speculates on Arafat having AIDS, which would explain a whole lot of the mystery surrounding his illness. In that post he links to the Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation which claims to list a number of the odd writings of Ayatollah Khomeini. Look, I knew the guy was a psycopathic ideologue who was the leader of the most dangerous revolution in the latter half of last century--but I had no freaking idea was also a sick pervert. Aaron sites chapter and verse out of Khomeini's book Tahrirolvasyleh where these sayings come from. Can any one confirm Khomeini actually wrote this? Here is some of the more disgusting stuff:

-A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual act such as forplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed.

-A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels and so on. However he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village, however selling the meat to the next door village should be fine.

-If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrement become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as possible and burned.

UPDATE BELOW more...

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Via John Little this First Coast News story. Speicher was downed in the First Gulf War and was rumored to be alive and in Iraqi custody. When we liberated Iraq, an intensive manhunt was said to be pursued by the military in hopes of finding him alive.

First Coast News has learned a body has been found in Iraq and DNA testing is underway. Multiple sources tell First Coast News Captain Scott Speicher's family has been notified. They will not disclose the details of why they believe these are his remains only to say they have reason to feel confident these are his remains. Test results are expected within weeks.

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The BBC wants to know why Americans were dumb enough to elect Bush. Baldilocks says it for me:

I voted for George W. Bush to send a message to those who would like to see Western Civilization fall under the Islamic boot, as Islamist terrorist would prefer (yes, United Kingdom, you are on this hit-list as well): we will not go gently into that particular goodnight.

I wanted to help elect an American leader that will defend liberty; not just in word, like GWB's predecessor, but in deed.

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Today is the 25th anniversary of the day the jihadis declared war on America. On Nov. 4, 1979 Islamist students in Tehran overan the U.S. embassy and took 66 Americans hostage. The hostages were held for 444 days. They were released on Jan. 20, 1981--the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

But the hostages were not released simply because the Iranians feared Reagan's wrath. Jimmy Carter may be responsible for our present woes. You see, Carter negotiated a deal with the terrorists. The deal was that the US would unfreeze $8 billion dollars in Iranian assets in return for the hostages. The jihadis learned a vluable lesson: America will give in to their demands when American lives are on the line.

The Iranian revolution was an Islamist revolution. It took secular and forward looking Persia down the path to the Middle Ages of barbaric Islamic law. While the Shia Islam of Iran may seem more moderate than Wahhabism to many in the West, the Islamic law of the Islamic Republic is that which routinely sentences people to death for blasphemy, adultery, or other religious crimes.

The worst part of the Iranian revolution was that it exported the notion of the Islamic revolutionary state. From Marxism it imported the notion that society could be completely revamped--that a sort of utopia could be found in Islamic law. And like Marxism, it took on a missionary zeal to export the Islamist ideal to the rest of the Muslim world.

Through funding and sponsorship of Hamas, Iran has destabilized an already volitile region. Through funding and sponsorship of Hizballah, Iran brought down an entire nation and thrust Lebanon into a bloody civil war. Iran funded those that murdered hundreds of American troops in the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut. Iran continues to fund organizations that murder Jews wherever they may be found, revolutionary movements in North Africa, and is bent on turning any future Palestinian state into an Islamic Republic modeled after their own barbaric country.

Iran was a peaceful, forward looking nation until the Revolutionary zeal of the Islamist ideology gripped it. Like the French Revolutionaries before them, the Iranian jihadis were not content to murder their own intellectuals, businessmen, and non-orthodox religionists--they had a higher calling to spread the utopian Islamic state abroad. Napolean found that the English would not tolerate his Imperialistic goal of spreading the French Revolution, and so Europe was plunged into a war that would cost the lives of millions. The English people, though, were saved the misery of the Napoleonic wars by virtue of the English Channel. Enlish soldiers would bring the fight to the French Revolutionary Army and not wait for Napolean to bring the war to Brittain.

Like the English before us, America found itself in the position of standing between the Iranian revolutionaries and their vision of the global caliphate. The US became the 'Great Satan', the obstacle, the one nation with the power to stall the inevitable coming of Sharia law to all Muslim nations (and eventually beyond). So, the jihadis declared war on that day. Their war aims were simply stated and straightforward--weaken American resolve so that jihad could spread unchecked throughout the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia. Unlike the English before us, America retreated, only fighting the jihadis through our proxies and never fully aware of the dangers of this cancerous ideology. We had bigger fish to fry. The Cold War seemed much more imminent and the stakes certainly were much higher. We slept.

September 11th may have awakened us to the fact that we were at war, but that war had been declared long ago. It was declared 25 years ago today by the extremists in Iran. Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking nuclear technology--technology that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons--and the Europeans have taken the Carter route in dealing with the mullahs. For each concession given to them by the Europeans, the jihadis in Iran see Western weakness. They saw this weakness in the US as we gave them cash in exchange for the hostages. They saw this weakness as Reagan retreated from Lebanon. We can bear to show them weakness no more.

The time has come to realize when and who first began this Third World War of Islamists bent on taking one-third of the world back to the darkest days of the Middle Ages versus those that would see freedom and liberty become the inheritance of all mankind. That war was started 25 years ago today, and it was the Iranian revolutionaries that fired the first shot.

Earlier today, a friend of mine said: "I'm incensed that I can't find a single word in any newspaper about today being the 25 year anniversary of an unambiguous but unrecognized declaration of war against America." I'm doing my part. Please help spread the word.

Below is a list of others who are commemorating this anniversary. It looks like the Revolutionary Council is issuing fatwas against them. Please visit.

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