Head of Islamic Jihad in Samaria meets 72 Virgins

* Not that his activities had anything to do with Islam, look away: nothing to see here!

*  He loved death, now he has it:

Now released for publication: Walid Abid, head of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in northern Samaria, was killed during an IDF arrest operation early this morning in the city of Qabatya, south of Jenin. Another Islamic Jihad terror operative, Ibrahim Fuad Ibrahim Abu-Rob, was arrested. Abid was killed during exchanges of fire that erupted after IDF forces arrived at the house where he was staying in order to arrest him. An M16 assault rifle with a telescopic lens was later discovered on his body.

* Link

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Big Bang in Beirut

Beirut bomb hits U.S. embassy car, kills three

By Tom Perry
BEIRUT, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A car bomb damaged a U.S. diplomatic car in Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least three people and wounding 16, and the U.S. State Department said no Americans died in the blast.

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The bomb sent a column of smoke into the sky, tore masonry from buildings and destroyed at least six cars in a Christian suburb north of Beirut, as well as damaging the armored embassy car.
The blast coincided with U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to Saudi Arabia as part of a weeklong tour of U.S. Middle East allies.
Bush is not visiting Lebanon, though Washington has been a strong backer of the Beirut government in its power struggle with the Hezbollah-led opposition backed by Syria.
The Lebanese government put the death toll at three but the State Department said the bomb killed four Beirut residents. None worked for the embassy.

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“There were no American diplomats or American citizens in the car at the time,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. A Lebanese national working for the U.S. Embassy and a driver were in the car when it was attacked, and the driver was slightly wounded, he said. An American passer-by was also hurt.
Lebanese and U.S. security officials were at the scene, where rescue workers covered a corpse with plastic sheeting. Pools of blood covered the road. Two of the dead were Lebanese and the third a Syrian, security sources said.

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* Which gets us another Picanninni Poontang statement:

“I’d like … to just state the outrage of the United States against the terrorist attack that took place in Lebanon today,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling with Bush, said in Riyadh.

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