Atlas Shrugs

Obama deploys troops to Mali

Obama is sending troops into Mali now? To fight what and who? He refuses to address the jihadi threat, so just whose side is he on in Mali? Mali fell to jihadists after Obama assisted in the removal of Qaddafi. And what did we get in return? Dead Americans, including an American ambassador. He has no coherent strategy and he refuses to accept the reality that jihad is the enemy. So what is he doing in Mali?

And how is it that this President sends our boys and girls into country after country without so much as a raised eyebrow from the enemedia? It's astounding.

Pentagon deploys small number of troops to war-torn Mali Washington Post 

Jihad in Libya: Car bomb targets French Embassy

Benghazi jihadists still waging war -- maybe the French will get to the bottom of what Obama ignored despite the deaths of Americans.

Car bomb targets French Embassy in Libya CNS, April 24, 2013

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — A car bomb targeted the French Embassy in the Libyan capital Tuesday, wounding two French guards and a Libyan teenager and underscoring the central government's inability to stop the oil-rich North African nation's slide toward deepening lawlessness.

There have been several attacks on diplomatic missions in Benghazi, but Tuesday's was the first in Tripoli since the civil war ended with Moammar Gadhafi's death. On Sept. 11, four Americans — including the U.S. Ambassador in Libya Chris Stevens — were killed when militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in the eastern city.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack on the French Embassy in Tripoli, but many blamed either Islamic extremists avenging France's military intervention in Mali or militias seeking to send a message that they're winning the struggle for control and that cracking down on them only backfires.

Christians Arrested in Libya on "Suspicion of Being Missionaries"

More of Obama's foreign policy handiwork. 

"Foreigners arrested for trying to spread Christianity in Libya" Straits Times

BENGHAZI, Libya (REUTERS) - Four foreigners have been arrested in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries and printing books about Christianity, a security official said on Saturday.

"They were arrested on Tuesday at a publishing house where they were printing thousands of books that called for conversion to Christianity," security official Hussein Bin Hmeid said.

"Proselytising is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100 per cent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security." Mr Hmeid said the government-affiliated security apparatus called the Preventative Security, for which he is a spokesman, had arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a US passport.

"We are still holding interrogations and will hand them over to the Libyan intelligence authorities in a couple of days," Mr Hmeid said, without giving further details.

#myjihad In Timbuktu: al-Qaeda Left Behind Islamic Manifesto

"Islamophobes" vindicated, yet again. I am surprised TIME ran this -- this from the same magazine that run covers like "Is America Islamophobic?" Is TIME islamophobic for running this article about the strategy of the global jihad?

Atlas reader David H points out: "The press report focuses on 'sharp divisions' on how to conduct their operations.  But it reveals that the only thing AMAW was having problems with was WHEN to impose the strictest possible Sharia law. He criticized his fighters for 'jumping the gun' on its strictest imposition. He makes it clear (to those of us who understand Islam and its already declared global jihad) that in the case of the gentle Malian citizens that they were 'babies' in 'the faith.'  That it would take time to nurse them along and bring them into the maturity where Shariah can be applied at its strictest.

"The full report still reveals that complete imposition of Sharia is still the full goal of Al Qaeda & its fellow Jihadists for all conquered peoples and nation states."

The strategy is to go slower and encourage deception (i.e. like we see with Hamas-CAIR's deceptive ad campaigns and "advocacy work"). The al qaeda leader insists that "there is no reason for you to show that we have an expansionary, jihadi, al-Qaida or any other sort of project.” He recommends that "we should also take into consideration not to monopolize the political and military stage. We should not be at the forefront,” he says. “Better for you to be silent and pretend to be a 'domestic' movement that has its own causes and concerns."

In Timbuktu, al-Qaeda Left Behind a Manifesto TIME Magazine

(TIMBUKTU, Mali) — In their hurry to flee last month, al-Qaida fighters left behind a crucial document: Tucked under a pile of papers and trash is a confidential letter, spelling out the terror network’s strategy for conquering northern Mali and reflecting internal discord over how to rule the region.

The document is an unprecedented window into the terrorist operation, indicating that al-Qaida predicted the military intervention that would dislodge it in January and recognized its own vulnerability.

(MORE: Timbuktu’s Ancient Libraries — Saved by Locals, Endangered by a Government)

The letter also shows a sharp division within al-Qaida’s Africa chapter over how quickly and how strictly to apply Islamic law, with its senior commander expressing dismay over the whipping of women and the destruction of Timbuktu’s ancient monuments. It moreover leaves no doubt that despite a temporary withdrawal into the desert, al-Qaida plans to operate in the region over the long haul, and is willing to make short-term concessions on ideology to gain the allies it acknowledges it needs.

The more than nine-page document, found by The Associated Press in a building occupied by the Islamic extremists for almost a year, is signed by Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, the nom de guerre of Abdelmalek Droukdel, the senior commander appointed by Osama bin Laden to run al-Qaida’s branch in Africa. The clear-headed, point-by-point assessment resembles a memo from a CEO to his top managers and lays out for his jihadists in Mali what they have done wrong in months past, and what they need to do to correct their behavior in the future.

Droukdel, the emir of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, perhaps surprisingly argues that his fighters moved too fast and too brutally in applying the Islamic law known as Shariah to northern Mali. Comparing the relationship of al-Qaida to Mali as that of an adult to an infant, he urges them to be more gentle, like a parent:

“The current baby is in its first days, crawling on its knees, and has not yet stood on its two legs,” he writes. “If we really want it to stand on its own two feet in this world full of enemies waiting to pounce, we must ease its burden, take it by the hand, help it and support it until its stands.”

He scolds his fighters for being too forceful and warns that if they don’t ease off, their entire project could be thrown into jeopardy: “Every mistake in this important stage of the life of the baby will be a heavy burden on his shoulders. The larger the mistake, the heavier the burden on his back, and we could end up suffocating him suddenly and causing his death.”

The letter is divided into six chapters, three of which the AP recovered, along with loose pages, on the floor of the Ministry of Finance’s Regional Audit Department. Residents say the building, one of several the Islamic extremists took over in this ancient city of sundried, mud-brick homes, was particularly well-guarded with two checkpoints, and a zigzag of barriers at the entrance.

Droukdel’s letter is one of only a few internal documents between commanders of al-Qaida’s African wing that have been found, and possibly the first to be made public, according to University of Toulouse Islamic scholar Mathieu Guidere. It is numbered 33/234, a system reserved for al-Qaida’s internal communications, said Guidere, who helps oversee a database of documents generated by extremists, including Droukdel.

“This is a document between the Islamists that has never been put before the public eye,” said Guidere, who authenticated the letter after being sent a two-page sample. “It confirms something very important, which is the divisions about the strategic conception of the organization. There was a debate on how to establish an Islamic state in North Mali and how to apply Shariah.”

While the pages recovered are not dated, a reference to a conflict in June establishes that the message was sent at most eight months ago.

The tone and timing of the letter suggest that al-Qaida is learning from its mistakes in places like Somalia and Algeria, where attempts to unilaterally impose its version of Islam backfired. They also reflect the influence of the Arab Spring, which showed the power of people to break regimes, and turned on its head al-Qaida’s long-held view that only violence could bring about wholesale change, Guidere said.

The letter suggests a change in the thinking, if not the rhetoric, of Droukdel, who is asking his men to behave with a restraint that he himself is not known for. Droukdel is believed to have overseen numerous suicide bombings, including one in 2007 where al-Qaida fighters bombed the United Nations building and a new government building in Algiers, killing 41 people. The same year, the U.S. designated him a global terrorist and banned Americans from doing business with him.

In a video disseminated on jihadist forums a few months ago, Droukdel dared the French to intervene in Mali and said his men will turn the region into a “graveyard” for foreign fighters, according to a transcript provided by Washington-based SITE Intelligence.

The fanaticism he exhibits in his public statements is in stark contrast to the advice he gives his men on the ground. In his private letter, he acknowledges that al-Qaida is vulnerable to a foreign intervention, and that international and regional pressure “exceeds our military and financial and structural capability for the time being.”

“It is very probable, perhaps certain, that a military intervention will occur … which in the end will either force us to retreat to our rear bases or will provoke the people against us,” writes Droukdel. “Taking into account this important factor, we must not go too far or take risks in our decisions or imagine that this project is a stable Islamic state.”

According to his own online biography, Droukdel was born 44 years ago into a religious family in the Algerian locality of Zayan. He says he enrolled into the technology department of a local university before turning to jihad, and his first job was making explosives for Algerian mujahedeen. In 2006, the group to which he belonged, known as the GSPC, became an arm of al-Qaida, after negotiations with Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s lieutenant.

As Droukdel rose through the ranks, he came into direct contact with bin Laden, Guidere said.

In the document found in Timbuktu, he cites a letter he received from bin Laden about the al-Hudaybiyah deal, a treaty signed circa 628 by the Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish tribe of Mecca, an agreement with non-Muslims that paved the way for Muslims to return to Mecca.

“The smart Muslim leader would do these kinds of concessions in order to achieve the word of Allah eventually and to support the religion,” he says.

Perhaps the biggest concession Droukdel urges is for his fighters to slow down in implementing Shariah.

When the Islamic extremists took over northern Mali 10 months ago, they restored order in a time of chaos, much as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, and even created a hotline number for people to report crimes. But whatever goodwill they had built up evaporated when they started to destroy the city’s historic monuments, whip women for not covering up and amputate the limbs of suspected thieves.

“One of the wrong policies that we think you carried out is the extreme speed with which you applied Shariah, not taking into consideration the gradual evolution that should be applied in an environment that is ignorant of religion,” Droukdel writes. “Our previous experience proved that applying Shariah this way, without taking the environment into consideration, will lead to people rejecting the religion, and engender hatred toward the mujahedeen, and will consequently lead to the failure of our experiment.”

The Assassination of Tunisian anti-Jihad Leader Chokri Belaid; Tunisian Media: Islamic Government Bears Political Responsibility For Assassination

More of the poisonous fruit of Obama's monstrous foreign policy, but no worries. The media will rewrite the narrative for the jihad stooge in the White House.

The Assassination of Tunisian Political Leader Chokri Belaid; Tunisian Media: Government Bears Political Responsibility For Assassination MEMRI

On February 6, 2013, Tunisians lost one of the leaders of the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution, when Tunisian secular and leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid was gunned down in front of his home in El Menzah VI, a residential neighborhood in the capital Tunis.

Belaid was coordinator of the left-wing Tunisian Democratic Patriots' Movement, a political party that was established in 1981 but legalized only in 2011 following the Tunisian Revolution. He was a prominent critic of the El-Nahda party, which won a relative majority in the Tunisian elections in 2011, and of the rise of Salafist movements in the country.

Belaid's was not the first political murder. On October 18, 1012, Lotfi Naguedh, coordinator of the secular party Nidaa Tounes, was killed after being beaten by members of the League for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR), a group close to El-Nahda; he was attacked in his office in Tataouine. [1] Nidaa Tounes leader Beji Caid Essebsi called Naguedh's death a "political assassination." 

At a February 1, 2013 El-Nahda Shoura Council meeting, El-Nahda members suggested that Naghuedh's killers should be freed.[2] A few days later, and the day before he was killed, Belaid said, during an appearance on a TV show on the North African channel Nessma TV, that by making this suggestion, El-Nahda had given a green light for political killings in the country.

Belaid, who lived in fear of assassination, had been threatened by the LPR,[3] which the Tunisian opposition considers to be El-Nahda's paramilitary armed wing.[4] It is thought by the opposition that the LPR is behind Belaid's assassination;[5] Belaid's widow, Besma Khalfaoui Belaid, has said that the she considers the El-Nahda party directly responsible for his death.[6]

On February 8, the Tunisian media outlet Kapitalis published a lengthy editorial, penned by Tunisian journalist Rachid Barnat, stating that stated that political responsibility for the assassination rests not only with El-Nahda but also with the ruling troika government comprising El-Nahda, the Congress for the Republic Party (CPR), and Ettakatol. The editorial accuses the troika of having done nothing to stop the rise of Islamism in the country, and states further that if the LPR is considered to be the militia of El-Nahda, then CPR leader and Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki can be considered to have flirted with the LPR – referring indirectly to a visit by an LPR delegation to Marzouki at his presidential palace in Carthage,[7] among other incidents.

The editorial also argues that the government has long since lost its political and moral legitimacy, since it was supposed to be transitional, formed with the aim of drawing up the Tunisian constitution in the aftermath of the revolution. The mandate of this government, he said, expired on October 23, 2012, a year after the election, and its extension makes it illegitimate.

Soon after Belaid's killing, El-Nahda PM Hamadi Jebali proposed the formation of an apolitical technocrat government. His party did not welcome the proposal, and the issue opened up a rift between Jebali and El-Nahda leader Rached Gannouchi.

Belaid's killing united Tunisians; 1.4 million[8] reportedly attended his funeral.

The following are excerpts from Barnat's op-ed, translated from the original French as published by Kapitalis:

"Some People Can Oppose Ideas And Freedom Only With Violence"

"Tunisia is mourning. It mourns a brave republican who fought for his ideas using as weapons only his intelligence and his force of conviction. He was shot in a cowardly manner for representing the conscience of this country, because some people can oppose ideas and freedom only with violence.

"Tunisia weeps. There is weeping everywhere, in every corner of the country and across the world: in Paris, Marseille, Toulouse, in Belgium, in Canada, and elsewhere.

Image circulated on Tunisian Facebook pages.

Scene of the attack on Chokri Belaid, near his home in Tunis[9]

"Tunisia grieves, and stands by Chokri Belaid's widow [Besma Khalfaoui Belaid] and her two daughters [Nayrouz and Nada]. His young innocent daughters, devastated by sorrow, do not yet understand what has happened. Only later, much later, when the mourning is over, will they and the entire country be proud of their father, who has entered the pantheon of brave men who died for an ideal...

Chokri Belaïd and his two daughters.[10]

The Belaids' wedding.[11]

Belaid's widow, following the assassination.[12]

Belaid's daughter Nayrouz, on the day of her father's funeral. Her shirt reads, "Who killed my father?"[13]

"Chokri Belaid was assassinated by the same people he had defended against [former Tunisian dictator Zine Abidine] Ben Ali, and who, thanks to his struggle, were released from jail or allowed to return from exile and given the right of free speech... [But] they chose to deprive him of that same right – silencing him forever with their criminal and abominable act.

"We are still emotional, and that is normal. Emotion felt by an entire nation unites that nation. [El-Nahda leader Rached] Ghannouchi, with his Machiavellian strategy, has intentionally divided the Tunisians and pitted them against one another! Since this murder, they are united behind Chokri Belaid, more than ever before. They will all say: 'We are Chokri Belaid!'"

Image circulated on Tunisian Facebook pages: "One dies, one thousand awake"

"The Troika Is Responsible For This Crime!"

"But we must overcome this justifiable emotion and ask ourselves two very important questions: Who is responsible for this murder, and what must we do?

"When we talk of responsibility, we are not talking about those who actually carried out [the murder], the despicable people who opened fire. Those are just pathetic individuals – fanatics used by others, wretched mercenaries. The real culprits are those who gave the orders and created the toxic climate that made this happen!

"Please, refrain from talk about a [government] investigation […]. Let's spare the Tunisians the deception of a commission of inquiry – like the one established after the assassination of Lotfi Naguedh, or other inquiries into violent incidents, […] which have not been concluded to this day!

"We are talking of those politically responsible for this crime, and it is obvious who they are. The political responsibility falls upon those now in power – the Islamists who are ruling, starting with their leader Ghannouchi and his associates, including in the troika: [President Moncef] Marzouki and [Constituent Assembly President Mustapha] Ben Jaafar. The troika is responsible for this crime! [The troika] is accountable to the Tunisian people [for these crimes].

"He did not die under the Ben Ali dictatorship.... He was assassinated under the Troika 'democracy'"[14]

Belaid's funeral[15]

Image circulated on Tunisian Facebook pages: "Today, we counted 1.4 million at Djellaz [cemetery], attending Chokri Belaid's funeral"

"Let us analyze the [issue of political] responsibility [for this crime]. The first cause of this crime is the policy of the Islamists, who mixed religion into politics and forced on the Tunisians a way of practicing Islam that has been obsolete for many centuries – thereby injecting the population with the poison of division. They branded as 'good Muslims' [only] those who let themselves be colonized by obscurantists from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and by Bedouins from the Gulf, and as 'bad Muslims' all those who rejected this new politico-religious colonialism! The poison of mixing religion into politics is worse than any other cause of division, because the politicians who use it evoke God in their speeches and cause people to believe that they are speaking in the name of Allah.

"The second element of responsibility is that [the government] paved the way for the most backward, violent and regressive brand of Islam, namely Wahhabism – which the Tunisians had already rejected in the early 19th century – and also received with full honors preachers of hatred, and allowed them to distill their poison aimed at fostering dissent among the people. Isn't that true, Mr. Marzouki? Isn't this a major [reflection of your] responsibility?

Tunisian Salafis in the city of Sfax[16]

Martial arts display at a meeting of Salafis in the city of Kairouan. [17]

"But let's continue. This government has tolerated many calls for murder, especially by fanatic imams who still retain their positions unharassed. Is anything more detrimental to public order than a call for murder? [But] instead [of arresting these clerics, Interior Minister] Ali Larayedh preferred to arrest and charge artists, journalists, trade unionists, and teachers... for disrupting public order – when their only crime was to ask for reforms and for more freedom!

"Mr. Marzouki, isn't it true that this government has tolerated the League for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR), which is nothing but a fascist militia, which under the rule of law cannot be tolerated?

"This government has tolerated attacks on political gatherings, physical aggression against political figures, and destruction of mausoleums, and has taken no effective measures against these...

"How is it possible to not see [in all this] laxity – or worse, connivance that encourages crimes?

"How is possible, in such a climate, to avoid having some fanatics shoot a brave man?

"Yes, Ghannouchi and his double talk... Marzouki, Ben Jaafar and [PM Hamadi] Jebali: You are bear direct political responsibility for this crime, and History will attribute it to you.

"Let us remember what Ghannouchi used to say about 'Salafis' and about their activities: They're only kids, they're not from Mars, we need to be tolerant towards them because they are the bearers of culture and values! [But] attempts at murder and political assassination illustrate his considerations about Salafis, whose often-violent activism evokes his emotions and remind him of what he was like at their age!"

"If The Clearly Identifiable Culprits Had A Shred Of Dignity, They Would Resign"

"The shocking attitude of the interior minister, on February 6, in the [events that transpired during the] transport of the remains of the late lamented Chokri Belaid, at the height of Bourguiba Avenue, shows that he is totally unworthy of his position The cortege, followed by thousands of Tunisians crying their anger aloud, was harassed by Islamists – and, worst of all, the police of this state used tear gas against simple grieving bystanders, and against the ambulance that was being used as a hearse. Shame on them!

"Do you think that a government which has such a behavior should remain in power?

A man in a Tunisian flag suit in Tunis on February 6, the day of the assassination. Tunisians demonstrated against the assassination amid tear gas used by police.[18]

A Tunisian protester jumps to avoid tear gas fired by police to break up a rally outside the Interior Ministry following the assassination.[19]

"If the clearly identifiable culprits had a shred of dignity, they would resign, because they have failed. The most amazing thing is to hear the ministers of the Ghannouchi government telling us that they will take responsibility – thinking that with this word, they clear their consciences...

"[These events] should have led to the resignation of all the relevant ministers, if not [to the resignation of] the entire government, as happens in the democratic countries! And this should have happened long ago, because after every crisis that follows violent acts, there must be [some] resignations... But these gentlemen remain, chattering about responsibilities and legitimacy!...

"However, Tunisians do not believe in the dignity of these depressing figures. They must chase them out by themselves, because it is would be intolerable for the culprits in this crime to continue, in any way, to rule Tunisia. They are no longer worthy [of the posts they hold]."

The Government Has Lost Its Political and Moral Legitimacy

"All the keen forces in this country – civil society, and, first and foremost, the UGTT [the Tunisian General Labor Union] – must clearly say that it is no longer possible to continue with this rule, which as of October 23 2012 [when its mandate expired] has lost all juridical and political legitimacy, and has now lost its moral legitimacy.

"By the way, we can reproach the opposition and the UGTT for its failure to be adamant, on October 23, in demanding the recognition of the illegitimacy of the Constituent [Assembly] and of the powers deriving from it... Had they shown more resolve in demanding the end of the mandate, or had they at least firmly demanded respect for the conditions they proposed to the troika against an extension of their legitimacy... Chokri Belaid might still be alive today.

"Republicans of all stripes must join with civil society, in the framework of a dialogue yet to be defined, in order to create a government of National Unity – after first acknowledging the illegitimacy of the current rule, which has exceeded the time set for it the moment it was elected, which has missed its mission, and which, with this second crime against a political leader, has shown quite clearly its moral defeat.

"With regard to [PM] Jebali's decision to appoint a government of technocrats – this is simply surreal from a legal point of view. Who has the power to form a government, and who has the legitimacy to appoint a new government? There are still some lessons in law to be learned.

Tunisians dedicated Chokri Belaid Square.[20]

"It is only the Assembly that could still have the power to appoint a new prime minister and a government –but since October 23, this assembly has no juridical, political, or moral legitimacy. And we will repeat it endlessly: This assembly is no longer legitimacy. It was elected for the period of one year […] and had a specific task: to write the Constitution. We must acknowledge that this period has expired, and that [the assembly] has not fulfilled its mission. From where does it draw its legitimacy today?

"Furthermore, has this government succeeded in anything that might justify its legitimacy? Has it ensured political stability for this country? Has it managed to create stable institutions, which are the only guarantee of economic and social development? Has it ensured the security to property and to the people? To all these questions the answer is undoubtedly: NO!

#myjihad: Tunisian opposition leader critical of the JIhadist-led government and violence by devout Muslims is shot dead

How do jihadists and Islamic supremacists handle opposition to sharia and Islamic rule? They murder them, of course.

Chokri Belaid, a Tunisian opposition leader who was critical of the Islamist-led government and of violence by radical Muslims was shot dead, according to the government.

On February 6, 2013, Tunisians lost one of the leaders of the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution, when Tunisian secular and leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid was gunned down in front of his home in El Menzah VI, a residential neighborhood in the capital Tunis.

Belaid was coordinator of the left-wing Tunisian Democratic Patriots' Movement, a political party that was established in 1981 but legalized only in 2011 following the Tunisian Revolution. He was a prominent critic of the El-Nahda party, which won a relative majority in the Tunisian elections in 2011, and of the rise of Salafist movements in the country. (MEMRI)

Tunisia Assassination Upends Government Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2012

Opposition Leader Shot Amid Standoff Between Islamists, Secularists; Widespread Protests Pressure Prime Minister

European Pressphoto Agency

People in Tunis mob an ambulance carrying the body of Chokri Belaid after his assassination Wednesday.

A leader of Tunisia's secularist opposition was shot dead outside his home in the capital, sparking broad protests and an announcement by the prime minister that he would dissolve his Islamist-led government.

Tunisians shout slogans Wednesday as they protest the killing of opposition leader Chokri Belaid in Tunis.

A Tunisian opposition leader critical of the Islamist-led government and violence by radical Muslims was shot dead, according to the government. Charles Levinson reports on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images.

Chokri Belaid, a 47-year-old outspoken critic of the government, was shot at close range as he was about to get into his car and go to work on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Interior. It was the first political assassination in Tunisia since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was driven from office in January 2011.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in several cities after the attack. In the capital, Tunis, police used tear gas to disperse wailing demonstrators surrounding the ambulance carrying Mr. Belaid's body to the morgue. One policeman was killed during protests in Tunis, the government said.

Many protesters chanted "the people want the fall of the regime" and other slogans that echoed through Tunisia's streets during the revolution two years ago, witnesses said. This time, however, the ruling party, Ennahda, bore the brunt of the popular rage.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who is from the Islamist party, said late Wednesday he would dissolve the government and form a national-unity cabinet of technocrats, in a bid to head off the deepening crisis. Some moderate members of Ennahda and many in the opposition had been calling for a unity government for months, but negotiations over its composition had gone nowhere.

It was unclear whether Mr. Jebali's pledge to form a new, more inclusive government would satisfy opposition forces who accuse his party of encouraging political violence. Opposition leaders have called for a general strike on Thursday. Some threatened to withdraw from the elected, Islamist-dominated assembly tasked with drafting Tunisia's new constitution.

UPDATE: Jihadist government in Tunisia dissolved after critic's killing causes fury
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's ruling Islamists dissolved the government and promised rapid elections in a bid to restore calm after the killing of an opposition leader sparked the biggest street protests since the revolution two years ago. (Source: Reuters)

Tunisia: little girls with Islamic veil, revolt -- Preacher issued fatwa against Sponge Bob, 'homosexual, pervert'

There's lots of Mikes dying right now. And a lot more Mikes will die. Until we wipe out a system that puts daggers in the hands of five-year-old children. Cary Grant as Captain Cassidy in Destination: Tokyo

During World War II, we knew that we had to eliminate a culture that "put daggers in the hands of five-year-olds." The morality and reverence for life was understood. It was everywhere. It was in the water. Today Cary Grant would be called a racist-islamophobic-antimuslim-bigot for his call to victory.  Hollywood would never make such films today. And when a brave filmmaker like Kathryn Bigelow dares to touch the subject matter, media and political elites call for censorship.

Today we send cultures that strap suicide vests on five-year-olds and put AK-47s in the hands of five-year-olds billions of dollars, F16s and armaments that savage culture couldn't invent in a million years. Is it any wonder that this brutal and extreme ideology is taking over whole swaths of continents across the world?

Tunisia: little girls with Islamic veil, revolt in country ANSA, February 3, 2013 (thanks to The Religion of Peace)

Preacher issued fatwa against Sponge Bob,'homosexual, pervert'

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, FEBRUARY 1 - A dozen little girls, the older not even eight years of age, wore the Islamic veil when they posed around a Kuwaiti preacher who is visiting Tunisia to preach conservative Islam. The photos led to vibrant protests across the country with even 70 lawmakers in the Constituent Assembly signing a motion to condemn what the Tunisian association for the rights of minors slammed as a 'crime against children'. The little girls, the rights association said, were 'used to convey an idea which is far removed from our culture and the noble precepts of Islam' with a clear intention to indoctrinate the population.

The preacher at the centre of the controversy, Kamil Al Awhadi, said he did not come to Tunisia to change its society or impose religious choices.

Al Awadhi is known across the Middle East and North Africa thanks to his ability to use television to broadcast his ideas.

He is also well known for issuing a fatwa against cartoon character Sponge Bob accused of 'homosexuality' and of 'inducing children to pervert behaviour'.

His visit, which kicked off a week ago, has caused a major controversy in Tunisia with secularists accusing Al Awadhi of trying to exert an influence on Tunisians with his radical sermons. Meanwhile the cleric is continuing his tour from Zarzis - where the controversial photos were taken - to Sousse and Sfax in a tour 'surrounding' the capital until Carthage where he spoke at a mosque. Meanwhile in the capital Tunis, the el Fath mosque considered a haven of the Salafite movement would be reportedly ready to receive him with open arms. Al Awadhi has been warmly welcomed in his tour - with people in Cite' Kabaria acting like football fans - and seems to have reached his objective of broadening consensus in Tunisia around Wahhabism, a conservative form of Sunni Islam which is a minority in Tunisia but enjoys great financial wealth thanks to Gulf kingdoms. This strategy has political as well as religious implications as Tunisia still needs the help of allied countries like Kuwait and, even more, Kuwait. The help does not appear to be without its implications. (ANSAmed)

#myjihad in Mali: Jihadists torch library, burn ancient historic manuscripts, documents in Timbuktu

Obama say "respect it!"

This goes hand in hand with a previous Atlas post today, "Muslims desecrate, ransack, urinate in, and almost burn to the ground Joseph's Tomb."  "......in any nation that Islam has triumphed, where the local holy sites were destroyed and razed to the ground in order to extinguish the culture and religion of the natives. However what is endemic in this continued assault on non-Islamic heritage sights, whether it is in Mali, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, The Byzantine Empire etc., is the hypocrisy and deafening silence on the part of the West to condemn these incidents."

Mali: Timbuktu mayor says Islamists burned texts Yahoo, January 28, 2013

SEVARE, Mali (AP) — Fleeing Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said Monday, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali's fabled desert city.

Ousmane Halle said he heard about the burnings early Monday.

"It's truly alarming that this has happened," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Mali's capital, Bamako, on Monday. "They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people."

The mayor said Monday that the radical Islamists had torched his office as well as the Ahmed Baba Institute — a library rich with historical documents — in an act of retaliation before they fled late last week.

He said he didn't have further details as communications to the city have been cut off.

Ground forces backed by French paratroopers and helicopters took control of Timbuktu's airport and the roads leading to the town in an overnight operation, a French military official said Monday. It marked the latest success in the two-week-old French mission to oust radical Islamists from the northern half of Mali, which they seized more than nine months ago.

French Col. Thierry Burkhard, the chief military spokesman in Paris, said Monday that the town's airport was taken without firing a shot.

"There was an operation on Timbuktu last night that allowed us to control access to the town," he said Monday. "It's up to Malian forces to retake the town."

The Timbuktu operation comes a day after the French announced they had seized the airport and a key bridge in a city east of Timbuktu, Gao, one of the other northern provincial capitals that had been under the grip of radical Islamists, who had turned it into a virtual replica of Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

The French and Malian forces so far have met little resistance from the Islamists, who seized northern Mali in the wake of a military coup in the distant capital of Bamako, in southern Mali.

Timbuktu, which lies on an ancient caravan route, has entranced travelers for centuries, is some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northeast of Bamako. During their rule, the militants have systematically destroyed UNESCO World Heritage sites in Timbuktu.

A spokesman for the al-Qaida-linked militants has said that the ancient tombs of Sufi saints were destroyed because they contravened Islam, encouraging Muslims to venerate saints instead of God.

Among the tombs they destroyed is that of Sidi Mahmoudou, a saint who died in 955, according to the UNESCO website.

Timbuktu, long a hub of Islamic learning, is also home to some 20,000 manuscripts, some dating back as far as the 12th century. Owners have succeeded in removing some of the manuscripts from Timbuktu to save them, while others have been carefully hidden away from the Islamists.

The destructions recall tactics used by the Taliban in 2001 when they dynamited a pair of giant Buddhas carved into a mountain in Bamiyan province. Around the same time, the Taliban also rampaged through the national museum, smashing any art depicting the human form, considered idolatrous under their hardline interpretation of Islam. In all, they destroyed about 2,500 statues.

#myjihad in Mali: "FRANCE MUST WITHDRAW FROM MALI OR ELSE IT WILL COME TO A BITTER END"

Obama's foreign policy -- four more years!

 

"FRANCE MUST WITHDRAW FROM MALI OR ELSE IT WILL COME TO A BITTER END" (Thanks to Urban Infidel)

Chants of "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews" at a Mali demonstration in Egypt.  Didn't know there were Jews in Mali.

UPDATE: Mali residences plead for French forces to never leave Thanks to Jack

#myjihad in Algeria: Hostage crisis "over" They killed them all

The attack and subsequent slaughter of non-Muslims is a symbol of the contempt and disrespect the global jihad movement has for the free world and its spineless leader, Obama. They do not fear the stooge in the White House, and they can count on an enemedia to cover for Islamic jihad.

Spokesman For Jihadi Group Al-Muwaqi'un Bi-Dimaa': 36 Hostages, Including Americans, Killed By Algerian Army; One Suicide Attacker Was From Western Country

On January 17, 2013, the news website Sahara Media reported that 36 of the 41 foreign hostages seized by the jihadi group Al-Muwaqi'un Bi-Dimaa at a BP gas plant in southeastern Algeria had been killed in an Algerian army incursion against the facility.

Algeria crisis: 'Captors and hostages die in assault' BBC, January 19, 2013

Algerian troops have ended a siege at a gas facility in the Sahara desert killing 11 Islamist militants after they killed seven hostages, Algerian state news agency APS has said.

Details are still unclear. The Algerian army is currently securing the site.

Foreign workers were among the hostages, but the nationalities of the dead are not known.

French President Francois Hollande defended the Algerian response to the crisis as being "the most suitable".

"When you have people taken hostage in such large numbers by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," he told journalists.

UK PM David Cameron confirmed the crisis was over after a phone call with Algerian PM Abdelmalek Sellal.

At a joint news conference earlier with his US counterpart Leon Panetta, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the loss of life was "appalling and unacceptable and we must be clear that it is the terrorists who bear sole responsibility for it".

Mr Hammond said the kidnappers' leaders would be "held to account for their actions".

"The full force of the UK and US and other allied countries will bear down upon them," he added.

The militants had been involved in a stand-off since Thursday after trying to occupy the remote site.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta: "We cannot accept attacks against our citizens abroad"

Details are still sketchy, but unconfirmed reports say the hostage-takers summarily killed the remaining seven hostages before themselves being killed in a final army raid.

At least 19 hostages and 29 hostage-takers in total are now thought to have died in the four-day stand-off.

On Friday, 573 Algerians and about 100 of 132 foreigners working at the plant were freed, Algerian officials said.

At the last count about 30 foreigners remained unaccounted for, including fewer than 10 from the UK.

The chief executive of BP group, which part owns the site, said 14 of its 18 staff were safe.

Bob Dudley said the fate of the other four was still unknown but that the company had "grave fears" for them.

The militants themselves said before the raid that they had been holding seven hostages.

Shortly before reports of the final assault emerged, the leader of the hostage-takers, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, said the government had to choose between negotiating with the kidnappers and leaving the hostages to die.

He said the area had been booby-trapped and swore to blow up the complex if the Algerian army used force.

Algerian national oil and gas company Sonatrach said the army was now clearing mines planted by the militants.

#myjihad in Algerian Jihad Crisis Continues: Muslim Terrorists still hold Americans, at least 20 non-Muslims hostage, 30 killed, death toll rising

Despite the attempted rescue by the Algerian government and the subsequent deaths of we don't know how many victims, non-Muslim hostages are still being held.

US confirms Americans still held hostage in Algeria Washington Post

The agency painted a chaotic picture Friday of what seemed set to be the largest and most deadly hostage crisis of recent memory, with militants reportedly taking more than 650 hostages. The news service said nearly all of the 573 Algerian [Muslim] hostages appeared to be freed, though only 100 of the 132 foreigners [Western, non-Muslims] from eight different nations, including the United States, had been accounted for.

Despite the American loss of life and the subsequent hostage crisis, the President has not commented or taken any leadership action on this act of war. He can not exploit this as he did the murder of children in order to pass unconstitutional legislation by executive fiat. Obama has consistently supported jihadists in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Burma et al..... and just as Obama's support for jihadists led to the murder of Americans in Libya, so it has in Algeria. The Daily Mail reports the Algerian jihadis have weapons from Libya -- so we supplied them.

The not so vanquished (despite Obama's hallucinogenic visions) al Qaeda is demanding a "trade" for the lives of non-Muslims. They want the Blind Sheik, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in '93, and Lady Al Qaeda. This is an objective of the global jihad. Muslim agitation and violence for the Blind Sheik is widespread, from Cairo to Libya to Algeria and in protests across the West. On September 11, 2012, the Muslims who stormed our embassy in Cairo and raised the flag of jihad over our embassy were agitating for the very same reason (Obama's response then was to apologize for hurting the feelings of Muslims).

Al Qaeda is also demanding that the US release Lady Al Qaeda, Aafia Siddiqui,  a US-educated Pakistani chemical weapon scientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for firing at American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan. "Lady Al Qaeda" was convicted of attempting to murder Americans in Afghanistan after she was found with plans for a "mass casualty attack" in the United States, along with a list of New York landmarks. Muslim Brotherhood groups like Hamas-CAIR and other "moderate" American Muslim Brotherhood groups have been agitating for her release here in America.

Leading American Muslim clerics have raised money for Aafia Siddiqui. It is an Islamic pattern that "moderate" Muslim groups like CAIR share the same objectives of murdering jihadists.

Aafia Siddiqui named Farha Ahmed as her legal counsel in a handwritten letter in October of 2010. Farha Ahmed was running for Republican office in Texas. Further proof of the infiltration of the GOP by jihadist elements. Despite the fact that she was able to compel craven quisling government officials like the local DA to write glowing letters to their constituents endorsing her stealth jihadist candidacy, and the fact that her terror-tied alliances were scrubbed from the web, she was defeated, thanks to pro-freedom activists in Texas. 

Farha Ahmed was leading the pathetic and barely attended anti-Geller protests outside my Sugar Land, Texas Tea party event (below) -- that's her with her head turned in the photo, holding the sign "Republicans against Bigotry." The joke's on us, eh? Pro-freedom activist tried hard to get a photo of her face, but she refused to be photographed -- that speaks volumes.

So the lines are drawn, are they not?

More Atlas reportage here.

"Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis" Reuters, January 18, 2013

More than 20 foreigners were still being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants, who threatened to attack other energy installations.

Thirty hostages, including at least seven Westerners, were killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors, said an Algerian security source.

The attack, which plunged capitals around the world into crisis mode, is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.

"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.

#myjihad in Algeria: 1 American dead, 60 dead or missing in Al Qaeda raid, one aim to "kill infidels and Christians," demand trade for WTC mastermind Blind Sheik and Lady Al Qaeda

Barack Obama said this last Friday: “We achieved our central goal … or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al-Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can’t attack us again.”

Fresh on the heels of that dangerous and deadly statement, al Qaeda attacked a BP facility, taking scores of Americans, British, Japanese, French, and Irish hostages in a pre-planned "large, well co-ordinated and heavily armed" operation. 60 hostages dead, missing in Algeria

Algeria: Irish Hostage Had Explosives Around Neck

One of the demands made by the jihadists who attacked a BP gas field was the release of World Trade Center mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman. On September 11, 2012, the Muslims who stormed our embassy in Cairo and raised the flag of jihad over our embassy were agitating for the very same reason (Obama's response then was to apologize for hurting the feelings of Muslims).

UPDATE: Al Qaeda is also demanding the release of Lady Al Qaeda, Aafia Siddiqui. Aafia Siddiqui is a US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for firing at American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan. "Lady Al Qaeda" was convicted of attempting to murder Americans in Afghanistan after she was found with plans for a "mass casualty attack" in the United States, along with a list of New York landmarks. Hamas-CAIR has been agitating for her here in America.

Leading American Muslim clerics have raised money for Aafia Siddiqui. And Aafia Siddiqui named Farha Ahmed as her legal counsel in a handwritten letter in October of 2010. Farha Ahmed was running for office in Texas. Farha Ahmed was leading the anti-Geller protests outside my Sugar Land, Texas Tea party event. So the lines are drawn, are they not?

The Obama administration was neither advised nor consulted on the raid on the al Qaeda jihadists ahead of time: further proof of our diminished hegemony and the lack of respect Obama has engendered for America across the world.

And while Obama declares al Qaeda dead, it is al Qaeda that is doing the killing, and according to Reuters, these jihadists were also threatening to attack other energy installations after the bloody raid. America, that is who you elected Commander-in-Chief.

Obama has backed jihadist revolutionaries in Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Syria, Tunisia ...... and just as Obama's support for jihadists led to the murder of Americans in Libya, so it has in Algeria. The Daily Mail reports the Algerian jihadis have weapons from Libya -- so we supplied them. 

Hostage crisis updates here.

'Battalion of Blood' gunmen had one aim... to 'kill infidels and Christians': American and up to THIRTY Brits among dozens of hostages killed in botched raid on Al Qaeda gang at Algerian gas field" Daily Mail, January 18, 2013

• An American from Texas is among those feared dead after the bloody raid by the Algerian military
• Of seven US hostages, two escaped unharmed yesterday from the hostage standoff
• Kidnappers want to swap two Americans for jailed terror figures
• Fierce gun battles erupted as troops moved in on the Islamists at a BP site in Algeria
• Source said 30 hostages were killed, of whom the nationalities of 15 had been established
• The Obama administration was not aware of the raid ahead of time
• Algerian officials said 18 militants have been killed but there were estimated to be 70 in total
• Captors are now threatening to attack other energy installations
• Algeria also ignored offers of help from the SAS and American special forces

An American and up to thirty Britons who were being held by Islamist militants in Algeria have been killed in a botched air raid by Algerian forces.

The raid, which was carried out in Algerian helicopters and special forces, was meant to wipe out the al-Qaeda-linked militants and free the 132 foreign hostages from at least 10 countries that were being held, but instead left scores of people dead and injured, with 60 people now unaccounted for.

Militants said seven Americans had been taken hostage and The Associated Press is reporting that a Mauritania website says kidnappers want to swap two of the American hostages for jailed terror figures, as the standoff enters its third day.Two Americans reportedly escaped unharmed yesterday.

One of the two terrorists the captors want freed is Omar Abdel Rahman, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Five other Americans who had been at the vast Ain Amenas complex were able to avoid being taken captive when the terrorists first attacked early on Wednesday. Neither the Obama administration nor the British government was aware of the Algerian military's raid ahead of time.

Bloodbath in the desert: As many as 35 of the 41 hostages and 15 kidnappers are killed after the Algerian military launched an air strik

Siege: Algerian forces struck after the al-Qaeda gunmen reinforced their position around a liquid gas installation (file picture)

The Algerian military operation against the kidnappers was continuing on Friday and the nation's news service said special forces had resumed negotiations with captors as foreign leaders scrambled to find out the fates of their citizens.

According to Reuters, militants were also threatening to attack other energy installations after the bloody raid.

The American who was killed in the raid is from Texas although his or her name has not been released nor any other details

An American-registered plane landed at an airstrip 30 miles from the gas facility, possibly to evacuate American citizens, Reuters reported.

A U.S. official said while some Americans escaped, other Americans were either still held or unaccounted for. A total of 18 militants were killed and the plant's living quarters were secured, according to the Algerian government news agency, which cited security officials.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was briefed early Friday, a senior defense official told The Associated Press, but offered no other details because 'we view it as a sensitive, ongoing situation.'

Mr Panetta said in London that there was 'no justification for the kidnapping and murder of innocent people' in Algeria, and vowed the US government was 'working around the clock to ensure the safe return of our citizens.'

Hagel Group Called for Inclusion of Algerian Jihadists behind Hostage Crisis

The Hagel pick is consistent with Obama's pro-jihadist foreign policy. Obama has backed jihadist revolutionaries in Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Syria, Tunisia ...... and just as Obama's support for jihadists led to the murder of Americans in Libya, so it has in Algeria:

"Hagel funded group pushing talks with al-Qaida" Aaron Klein (thanks to The Religion of Peace.com)

Obama nominee wants legitimacy for jihadists behind hostage crisis

TEL AVIV – Secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel sits on the small board of a peace fund that finances an international “crisis management” group that long has petitioned the Algerian government to cease “excessive” military activities against al-Qaida-linked jihadists, WND has learned.

The organization, the International Crisis Group, or ICG, called on Algeria to grant legitimacy to the very al-Qaida-linked group reportedly behind the kidnapping of about 40 foreign hostages, including several Americans, at a natural-gas field in Algeria.

Two Americans escaped today unharmed as Algerian special forces launched a rescue operation, according to the state news agency. At least six people were killed, the Associated Press reported. Dozens more remained unaccounted for, including Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese, Algerians, at least one American and the captors.

ICG petitioned for the Islamist group to participate in the Algerian government.

Hagel serves on the board of The Ploughshares Fund, a George Soros-financed fund that pushes for a nuclear-free world.

[.....]

In a July 2004 ICG report obtained by WND, ICG calls on the Algerian government to curb military action against al-Qaida-affiliated organizations, particularly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, currently known as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is reportedly behind the hostage crisis currently under way in Algeria.

The ICG report also called for Algeria to open talks with an armed Islamic terrorist group known as Houmat Daawa Salafia, or HDS.

ICG names the two Islamic groups in its recommendations to the Algerian government.

“Give top priority to ending the remaining armed movements, mainly the GSPC and HDS, through a political, security, legal and diplomatic strategy,” states the ICG report.

“Avoid excessive reliance on military means and do not allow these movements’ purported links to al-Qaida to rule out a negotiated end to their campaigns,” continued ICG’s recommendation to the Algerian government.

ICG has issued at least six other reports recommending Algeria transition to a democracy that will allow the participation of the Islamic groups seeking to create a Muslim caliphate.

After Algeria’s president, Bouteflika, won more than 80 percent of the vote against Islamic opposition groups in 2004, Robert Malley, an ICG associate, recommended, “Rather than exclude all his opponents from the policy making process, he could empower them.”

ICG’s Malley was an adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas. WND reported Malley long had petitioned for dialogue with Hamas.

WND also reported ICG has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.

ICG released a report urging the Egyptian regime to allow the Brotherhood to establish an Islamist political party.

In a June 2008 report titled “Egypt’s Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration,” Soros’ ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.

The report dismisses Egypt’s longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as “dangerously short-sighted.”

The ICG report called on Hosni Mubarak’s former regime to “pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers’ participation in political life,” including by allowing for the “establishment of a political party with religious reference.”

ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party several times in its 2008 report.

ICG and its personalities also long have petitioned for the Muslim Brotherhood to be allowed to join the Egyptian government.

U.S. ICG board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Jimmy Carter; Samuel Berger, who was Bill Clinton’s national security adviser; and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who made headlines in 2009 after meeting with Hamas leaders and calling for the U.S. to open ties to the Islamist group. Another ICG member is Malley.

Read the rest

#myjihad in Algeria: Jihadists Tell Hostages 'We Only Kill Christians and Infidels'

That's #myjihad, what's yours?

The media is tying this to Mali. I am not so sure. The jihadists knew the base very well. This was a well-planned act of war in moderate Algeria. It's just the spread of Islamic supremacism, emboldened by a weak and feckless American President.

But the priority for Obama and the enemedia is gun control. Hiding behind the skirts of children, a dictatorial Obama usurped Congress and approved 23 executive actions -- by executive fiat, of course.

Algeria Gunmen Tell Hostages 'We Only Kill Christians and Infidels' Reuters,Thursday, 17 Jan 2013 

Islamist gunmen who seized hundreds of gas plant workers in the Sahara told Algerian staff they would not harm Muslims but would kill Western hostages they called "Christians and infidels", a local man who escaped said on Thursday.
In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's dawn raid deep in the desert, a local man employed at the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "We will kill them, they said."

His voice choking with emotion - "I'm a lucky man," he said over the sound of children playing and a television relaying the latest news - Abdelkader described how he managed to escape along with many of the hundreds of Algerians initially detained.

He asked that his family name be withheld.

"I am still choked, and stressed," he said, adding that he feared many of his foreign colleagues may have died. "The terrorists seemed to know the base very well," he said, "Moving around, showing that they knew where they were going."

The kidnappers said they were retaliating for last week's French offensive in neighbouring Mali, and demanded that Paris call off the operation and that Algeria withdraw cooperation.

Security experts said, however, that the raid appeared to have been planned well in advance - although the decision to launch it now may have been influenced by events in Mali.

An Algerian military operation to end the siege appeared to be continuing late on Thursday. Twenty-five foreign hostages had escaped and six were killed, Algerian sources said. On Wednesday, the militants said they held 41 Westerners, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans of various nationalities.

#myjihad in Algeria: Jihadis, copter attack kills 35 hostages and 15 kidnappers in Sahara standoff

While Obama hides behind the skirts of children in his jihad to disarm law-abiding American citizens:

Militants: Algerian copter attack kills 35 hostages and 15 kidnappers in Sahara standoff

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- Militants: Algerian copter attack kills 35 hostages and 15 kidnappers in Sahara standoff.

Report: Algeria hostage crisis ends; death toll unclear -USA TODAY-7 minutes ago

Algeria's special forces have completed their operation to free hostages from a natural gas complex deep in the Sahara desert, but provided no information on a possible death toll, Algeria's state news agency reported.

Reports on the crisis have been comflicting.

Earlier, Algeria's news agency (ANP) said the operation involved air strikes and a ground operation to free the hostages, who were picked up by military helicopters. Algerian TV had said that four foreign workers, two Britons and two Filipinos, died in the operation and that 600 hostages were freed.

However, a spokesman for the terror group Qatiba told a Mauritanian news outlet that Algerian military helicopters strafed the gas complex, killing 35 foreign hostages and 15 of the kidnappers, the Associated Press is reporting. Seven survived, including two Americans, the spokesman told AP.

#myjihad in Algeria: Muslim Leader vows to kill American, British, French, Japanese etc hostages one by one

That's their jihad, what's yours?

Algeria: islamist leader, hostages to be killed one by one ANSA Med, January 16, 2013

Dozens held in oil facilities. Algiers refuses negotiation

(ANSAmed) - ROME - Referring to the terrorist attack today at the BP oil facilities in Algeria, in which an Algerian and a British citizen died , the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) leader Omar Oud Hamaha has told the German daily Die Welt that ''we have taken 41 British and French soldiers hostage and we will kill them one after another if the French attacks do not cease''. MOJWA is the group which Moctar Belmoctar joined after having fought with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). ''More and more Islamists from across the entire region are coming to help us,'' he added.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said that the authorities ''will not meet the demands of terrorists and refuse to engage in any sort of negotiations'', according to APS. Algeria has always maintained an intransigent stance as concerns terrorists.

Meanwhile, some of the hostages being held have been released. According to APS, the latter are Algerian workers. However, approximately 150 Algerian employees of the French company CIS Catering are still being held in the BP facilities after the attack conducted by ''about 60'' attacked from neighbouring countries, said the company's managing director Régis Arnoux. ''I have about 150 Algerian workers who have been left free (to move around) on the base, but who cannot yet get out''.

According to what was reported to French newspaper Le Figaro by one of the hostages, the terrorists claim to have mined the base. ''They are holding about forty foreigners hostage, but we are not all in the same place,'' said the hostage contacted via telephone. After a very violent phase in which a number of shots were fired, the situation now seems to be ''calmer''. ''They have asked for water and food for about 60 people, and have loaded vehicles belonging to British Petroleum,'' he added, noting that the hostage takers are armed with rocket-launchers.

According to what has been reported to APS by Crisis Unit sources from Illizi, the foreigners taken hostage number about twenty and are for the most part Norwegian, British, American French and Japanese. (ANSAmed).

#MyJihad in Libya: Muslims bomb church, murder two

Again, we ask, where are the plaintive cries from American Muslims decrying such bloodlust in the cause of jihad? Where are the denunciations and condemnations of this jihad, ethnic cleansing and Islamic supremacism from the "moderate" Muslims? Why, they are in a froth denouncing my ads enforcing the blasphemy laws under the sharia -- in effect, helping advance the global jihad.

#MyJihad in Libya: Muslims bomb church, murder two Jihadwatch December 20, 2012

And yet there are people in the world who focus their moral indignation not on the perpetrators of acts such as these, but on those who dare to call attention to them and to the ideology that inspires them. This is a monstrous moral evil. It must not prevail.

"Libya church blast kills two Egyptians: embassy," from AFP, December 30 (thanks to Lookmann):

AFP - An explosion rocked a Christian Coptic church near the western Libyan city of Misrata on Sunday, killing two people and wounding two others, all of them Egyptians, an Egyptian diplomat told AFP.

"Two Egyptians were killed and two were wounded," said the diplomat at the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli who declined to be named.

"The church explosion was in the town of Dafniya in Misrata (province). The consul went directly to Misrata to find out the details. We still don't have clear information," the diplomat said.

Earlier, a security official said one Egyptian was killed and three others were wounded in the blast at a Coptic church. The Egyptian diplomat said that one of those hurt in the explosion died later at the hospital.

Residents said the explosion took place in the early afternoon at a Coptic church in Dafniya, a Mediterranean town 30 kilometres (18.5 miles) west of Misrata, where brigades made up of former rebels hold a major checkpoint.

Libyans Say Sharia Will Be Law of the Land

Even the The Daily Beast states the obvious, despite their best effort to put a shine on a very dull knife. Libya under the Muslim Brotherhood looks like Benghazi and it looks like this ......

"Libyans Say Sharia Will Be Law of the Land" Daily Beast Dec 11, 2012

Most Libyans—even women’s-rights activists—accept that their new Constitution will be based on Islamic law.

“Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular!” Islamist supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi have taken to chanting this slogan during street protests in Cairo. While the mantra fills opponents of the Egyptian president with dread, as does a Morsi-backed draft Constitution ensuring laws and rights will be strictly subordinated to sharia law, such chants would hardly prove controversial in Libya, Egypt’s neighboring Arab-Spring country—nor would they propel tens of thousands onto the streets of Tripoli or Benghazi to express dissent.

The constitutional debate that Libya is likely to have in the coming months—once its new rulers have decided on how to proceed with a draft—is going to be different from Egypt’s, and less about whether Islamic law should figure in the Constitution. Across the political spectrum, there’s a general acceptance that the country’s new laws must reflect religion and that sharia will figure prominently—only a small minority question this.

During the campaign for the country’s elections last July, party leaders—even those from moderate parties, such as Mahmoud Jibril, leader of the National Forces Alliance—acknowledged that sharia would significantly influence any Constitution. New laws should have a “reference to sharia,” Jibril told The Daily Beast, arguing, “Sharia law, when it was understood in the proper way, managed to create one of the great civilizations in human history. The problem is not with sharia or Islam; the problem is with the interpretation of sharia.”

Even among women agitating for a greater role in public and political life here, there’s agreement that sharia law should be at the heart of the country’s new Constitution. The only disputes are about the drafting process; whether the members of a 60-strong drafting panel should be elected or appointed by the country’s new Parliament, the General National Congress; and whether sharia should be the “only source of law” or a “principal source of law,” with the latter allowing greater possibility of adopting laws used in non-Muslim countries.

“Libyans wouldn’t accept a Constitution that isn’t informed by Sharia,” says 20-year-old Issraa Murabit, a second-year medical student from the town of Zawiyah and vice president of The Voice of Libyan Women, an NGO campaigning for greater women’s rights.

She says that a majority of women involved with civil-society activism are broadly comfortable with sharia and don’t see any contradiction between Islamic law and their demands for gender equality and a bigger role for women in Libyan society.  Some women activists argue that women’s rights are, in certain cases, better protected under sharia than they are in the West. They cite property protections afforded to divorced spouses. “In the West, they think we are the oppressors of women and they have the best rights for women, but we have a different perspective,” says Murabit, who was raised in Canada until her early teens. “Islam doesn’t undermine women’s rights—the problem is with Muslim men and how they try to use sharia against women.”

For Western commentators, the mere mention of Islamic law prompts, at best, suspicion and oftentimes pure horror. “A dangerous pattern is emerging,” Bonnie Erbe, host of the PBS show, To the Contrary, wrote recently. “Islamic countries more often than not replace tyrants with religious dictators who can become even more despotic than their predecessors. Look at Iran. Unfortunately, look at Egypt.”