Winds Of Jihad By SheikYerMami » Human shields

Shocka: AP notices that Taliban shoot from behind human shields…

sheikyermami — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:40:00 +0000

How will we ever win hearts & minds in the muslim world now? How can our reporters ever feel safe among our enemies again?

“Embattled Taliban rely on human shields”

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press

MARJAH, Afghanistan – Taliban fighters holding out in Marjah are increasingly using civilians as human shields, firing from compounds where U.S. and Afghan forces can clearly see women and children on rooftops or in windows, Afghan and U.S. troops said Wednesday.

Hamas human shields on rooftops/file photo

The intermingling of fighters and civilians also has been witnessed by Associated Press journalists. It is part of a Taliban effort to exploit strict NATO rules against endangering innocent lives to impede the allied advance through the town in Helmand province, 610 kilometers (360 miles) southwest of Kabul.

Two more NATO service members were killed in the Marjah operation Wednesday, the alliance said in a statement without identifying them by nationality.

Their deaths brought to six NATO service members and one Afghan soldier who have been killed since the attack on Marjah, the hub of the Taliban’s southern logistics and drug-smuggling network, began Saturday. About 40 insurgents have been killed, Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal said.

During Wednesday’s fighting, Marines and Afghan troops “saw sustained but less frequent insurgent activity,” mostly small-scale attacks, NATO said in a statement.

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told journalists in Brussels that most of the objectives have been achieved. “Perhaps the pocket in the western side of Marjah still gives freedom of movement to the Taliban, but that is the extent of their movement,” he said.

This is the biggest offensive since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, and a test of President Barack Obama’s strategy for reversing the rise of the Taliban while protecting civilians.

As Marines and Afghan soldiers press their offensive, they have been forced to hold their fire because insurgents are shooting from inside or next to mud-walled compounds where civilians are present — and restraint slows their advance.

Brig. Gen. Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander of Afghan troops in Marjah, said in some cases women and children may have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window of buildings where Taliban fighters are shooting.

Ghori said troops have to decide between firing on insurgents among civilians, or advance much more slowly to keep women and children out of the crossfire.

“They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians,” Ghori said.

Journalists embedded with the Marines have seen such cases: a neighborhood is alive with children, then the next minute the streets are empty and gunshots ring out. As the troops advance, children reappear, peering and grinning through half-closed doors.

Rocket-propelled grenades have been fired from behind groups of civilians, who scamper away as the Marines point their weapons toward the source of fire. Marines have come under fire in poppy fields as they are being tended by farmers.

“I myself saw lots of people that were shot, and they were ordinary people,” said Afghan soldier Esmatullah, who did not give his rank and like many Afghans goes by one name. Taliban “were firing at us from people’s homes. So in returning fire, people got shot,” he said.

NATO has confirmed 15 civilian deaths in the operation. Afghan rights groups say at least 19 have died.

Troops are forbidden to fire unless they identify a target displaying “hostile intent.” Marines cannot shoot at fighting-age men walking out of a building used by snipers unless the men are carrying a weapon or have been seen dropping one.

Public outrage over civilian deaths last year prompted the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to tighten the rules of combat, including curbs on airstrikes if civilians are at risk.

Afghan civilian deaths soared to 2,412 last year — the highest number of any year of the war, according to the U.N. But deaths attributed to allied troops dropped nearly 30 percent after the new rules were imposed, according to a U.N. report.

On Wednesday, an Afghan soldier climbed to the roof of an abandoned shop and raised his country’s green-and-red flag before provincial officials, hundreds of Marine and Afghan troops and a few civilians.

The market was calm during the ceremony and the Marines said they were in control of the neighborhood.

Signs of fighting were everywhere. The back of the building with the flag had been blown away. Shops were riddled with bullet holes. Grocery stores and fruit stalls stood open, hastily deserted by their owners. White metal fences marked off areas not cleared of bombs.

Afghan soldiers said they were guarding the shops to prevent looting.

A Marjah resident at the flag-raising said the area around the market has been devastated by the assault.

“The Taliban fired a few shots and then the troops came and bombed the area,” said Abdul Rasheed, a bearded, middle-aged man. “People fled their homes in a desert without food and water. Children and women are living in very hard conditions.”

Once the town of 80,000 people is secure, NATO plans to rush in civil administrators to revive schools, health clinics and electricity in hopes of winning public support to discourage the Taliban from returning.

About 1,100 police, including 900 members of a paramilitary force, were sent to Marjah and the surrounding area Wednesday, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said in a videoconference with journalists in Brussels.

Mangal, the Helmand governor, said the neighborhoods will be turned over to Afghan police as they are secured.

“Life is returning to normal,” he said. “You can see the people are busy in their daily lives. Some shops are still closed but once they arrest the enemy, hopefully, the shops will reopen too.”

The town is probably safe enough now for a deputy district chief to move in and start setting up the government, said State Department official Frank Ruggiero.

He told reporters in Kabul that one obstacle is that the Taliban planted bombs all over abandoned government buildings in Marjah, including inside the walls of the district center.

___

Faiez reported from Helmand province. Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Heidi Vogt in Kabul and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

Things Muslims Do…

sheikyermami — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:34:24 +0000

(UK) Beheading Plotters Get Early Release – Back on the Streets…

….because we all know that long prison sentences “radicalize” Islamic terrorists .…

Anjem Chaudrey waves his dirty little book…

Spinning Out Of Control: Honor Killings and Media Bias

We are entering an all-spin zone, a wild, weird and spooky season and I am not talking about Halloween.

With a few exceptions, the mainstream media continue to kill stories about honor killings and attempted honor killings in North America. How often did you read stories about the honor killings that took place in Toronto (07), Dallas (08), Atlanta (08), Oak Forest, Illinois (08), Alexandria (08), Buffalo (09), and Kingston, Canada (09)—on and on, until the most recent attempted honor killing in Phoenix? More from Phyllis Chesler

Other News:

Taliban increasingly using children as bombers, human shields: Canadian military

“There is one place west of Kandahar City where they shoot at us every day through a shield of children. They actually stack them up, with eight-year-olds at the front and 15-year-olds at the back.”

Taliban Using Children As Human Shields And Bombers

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A 12-year-old boy caught in the act as he placed a homemade bomb under a road in the volatile Zhari District on Friday grabbed a baby as a human shield to protect himself from attack from the U.S. helicopter that had spotted him.

Somali Islamists Force Civilians to Watch Executions…

‘Flying imams’ case is settled at our expense

The “flying imams” and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are declaring victory in their legal war against law-enforcement personnel and safety procedures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Their “victory” — aided and abetted by a judge arrogantly dismissive of law-enforcement realities — is a major setback for transportation safety. Startribune

Obama Effigy Burned in Kabul…

Turkey Turns Down Christians Seeking Protection…/ Allah doesn’t like competition…

Jihad Watch:

Peaceful Iranian ship laden with peaceful weapon seized off Yemen

Weapons for the Shi’ites who are rebelling against the Yemeni government. “Iranian ship laden with weapons seized off Yemen,” by Nasser Arrabyee for Gulf News

“Incidents” in France after a “youth” dies evading police

“After his death, at least 50 youths took to the streets and started to break windows at the entrance of Gabelle, an outskirt of the city. The youths also burned garbage, tires, a motorcycle and five vehicles in a shipyard, said the police. When the Police and the fire-fighters arrived on the scène, protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails against them. Then, the police retaliate by firing tear gas but it was unable to enter into Gabelle.”

Think about that last sentence for a minute.

“France/Civil unrest: clashes erupted in Fréjus after a young man killed himself,” from ESISC,

Saudi prof misunderstands Islam, says suicide bombings okay in Tel Aviv, not in Riyadh

Actually this is based on Koran 4:92, which forbids Muslims to kill other Muslims. But Infidels are fair game. “Saudi University Professor Salman Al-Abdali: Suicide Bombings Okay in Tel Aviv, Not in Riyadh,” from MEMRITV

Here comes the brain police:

When in Europe Watch What You Say – EU Attempts to Restrict Free Speech. Media Missing in Action

If all goes as planned, the 27 member states of the European Union will soon have a common hate crime legislation, which will turn disapproval for Islamic practices or homosexual lifestyles into crimes. Europe’s Christian churches are trying to stop the plan of the European political establishment, but it is unclear whether they will be successful. The media are silent on the topic. Brussels Journal

Phillipino Jihad: MILF’s Must Be Chronic Misunderstanders of Islam

sheikyermami — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:22:34 +0000

MILF raids Philippine village, uses hostages as human shields

Bloody hell, where is Sherifa Zuhur when you need her?

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front doesn’t seem to have any problem using civilian hostages in furthering the goals of its jihad.

Evidently this group is filled with still more Misunderstanders of Islam, right? Because we all know that this kind of behavior is not sanctioned in Islam, right?

In reality, procedures dictating what to do with hostages are deeply rooted in Islamic legal thought. The Shafi’i jurist al-Mawardi explained that Muslims who took hostages had four options: “As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, ‘When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks’ (Qur’an sura 47, verse 4)” – al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, (The Laws of Islamic Governance).

In this case they were freed, once they had served their purpose as human shields.

“Muslim rebels raid southern Philippine village,” from The News International, May 16 (thanks to Jihad Watch):

COTABATO: Muslim separatist rebels raided a southern Philippine village, ransacked stores and used about 20 hostages as human shields in their escape, the military said Saturday.

The hostages were freed unharmed before dawn Saturday, about 12 hours after Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas swept through the village of Basak in Sultan Kudarat province’s Lebak township, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, a local military spokesman.

Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said the Moro front was not responsible for the raid and that it could have been a spillover of an ongoing feud between a local rebel commander and the leader of another guerrilla group.

Taliban terrorizes 2,000 villagers as human shields

sheikyermami — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:51:41 +0000

H/T eye on the world:

Is living under the Sharia great or what?

(Times Online) TALIBAN militants who have seized swathes of North West Frontier Province in Pakistanhave inflicted a reign of terror on villagers, landowners and the police, using kidnapping, looting, pillaging and murder to impose their will.

* Damn. Where is Sherifa Zuhur when you need her? Don’t these ignorant Taliban folks know that kidnapping is totally un-Islamic?

Yesterday, as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat, it emerged that in one Taliban-controlled village, Pir Baba in Buner, the militants were holding 2,000 people as human shields in case the army attacked.

Elsewhere the Taliban appeared to be relying on kidnapping to extort funds and intimidate the population. Many of their victims have been members of rich families.

Taliban says weapons are ‘ornament of the Muslims’
Obama’s aid to Pakistan is misguided
“These Talibans have ruined the reputation of Islam”-Gee, I never knew the Taliban had a reputation to ruin…

“Kidnapping has become routine in our village. Armed Taliban were picking up people and then demanding a huge ransom for their release,” said an elderly refugee now living with his family in a tent in Timergara, a town in Dir.

Police officers were also being abducted or killed. Last Thursday militants kidnapped a local officer and 11 guards in Upper Dir, an area that had been peaceful. In Mingora, the largest city in Swat, three policemen were abducted by militants.

More…

Oslo: Jihadists use children as human shields during violent anti-Israel demonstration

sheikyermami — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:45:07 +0000

Because it works: children as shields in violent Oslo Anti Israel protest

thanks to JW

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iktdJVFpMrw[/youtube]

Oldies but Goldies:

Sweden: Former UN President Waves Hezbollah Flag in Anti-Israel Demo

Israeli Foreign Minister and Kadima leader, Tzipi Livni, under a swastika. Photo Björnbrum.

Former party secretary for the Social democrats Lars Stjernkvist under the Hezbollah flag.
Photo by Erik Svansbo.

From gudmundson.blogspot

Pali journo confirms what the world ignores — that Hamas uses civilians as human shields

And he doesn’t like it. The mainstream media in the West, meanwhile, continues to pretend that Israel is indiscriminately targeting civilians. “PA Newspaper Editor Attacks Hamas’s Use Of Gaza Residents As Human Shields,” from the MEMRI Blog

Hafez Al-Barghouti, editor of the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, has attacked the use of civilians as a human shield by Hamas’s military wing. He also said that the release of videocassettes showing Hamas members digging secret tunnels beneath Gaza residents’ homes permits Israel to excuse their strikes on the homes, and called on Hamas members to keep their distance from populated places, and to protect the lives of the citizens instead of using them.

Source: Al-Hayat Al-Jadida , Palestinian Authority,

In 1987, the Arabs living in the territories occupied by Israeli in the 6-Day war began a series of riots and violent confrontations known as the Intifadeh, a movement quite independent from PLO leadership. Soon after, Islamic militants founded the Hamas movement. The movement was formed from the Mujama movement, which had been a political party with no military ambitions that was given some encouragement by Israel earlier in the decade, as a means of countering the influence of the PLO, and perhaps because the opposition of the Hamas to an international conference that would adjudicate the problem of Palestine, coincided with the policies of the Begin and Shamir governments.

The Hamas has a ‘military’ wing or wings that engages in terrorist acts and a ‘civilian’ wing that supposedly confines itself to education and ‘good works,’ Israel successively assassinated its leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Sheikh Ahmed Rantissi, forcing the leadership underground. However, in January of 2006, candidates representing the Hamas swept to victory in Palestinian elections, overcoming the traditional leadership of the Fateh and PLO.

Click here for details of Hamas history.

The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. “

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

Ami Isseroff

Use every means — the state tax bureau, for example, need only start finding out which cash-only businesses — gas stations, convenience stores — have been fiddling them, and they will be amazed to find what a high proportion are owned by Arabs — to stop up all the ways, other than the Saudi money that comes in, that help keep afloat the would-be murderers in our midst. Keep your own silent boycott, for your own very good reasons — well, not completely silent, for you can quietly convey your thoughts to others, and urge them to do the same. Point to the streets of Western Europe, point to what will inevitably happen, is happening, in Western Europe, for what must be learned from, and avoided.

Deport, deport, deport, all those who have not yet managed to obtain citizenship. Come down hard on those who make those false marriages of convenience. Enroll black ministers — and pay them, too — to conduct campaigns of counter-Da’wa in the prisons. Identify all the means by which the psychically marginal are attracted to Islam, and figure out what other outlet for their mental desarroi might be found, might be substituted, for menacing Islam.

Close down those consulates, and even embassies, in all countries that show any signs — the slightest signs — of having nationals who are engaged in violent Jihad. Do not trust the locals to properly vet those who apply to visit as tourists or students, and simply cut off all of that altogether. We don’t need, we must not do, anything that swells the already dangerous-to-our-society’s-wellbeing ranks of Muslims. Thos who can openly, clearly, convincingly, make the case that they are real refugees from Islam, akin to those who were refugees from the Nazis, and from the Communists (and the former did not, once here, work to make this country safe for Nazism, and the later, once here, did not work to make this country safe for Communism), and can show it, by thought, word, and deed.

“The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” sand Mr. Justice Jackson famously. Nor should our Immigration and Naturalization Service, be a facilitator of national suicide. It makes no sense. Those who presume to protect us simply must start understanding things, understanding that what is written in the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Sira really does exist, really does have a powerful effect, an amazing effect, on the minds of the vast majority of Muslims, who by Islam itself have been encouraged in the habit of mental submission. Keep vigilantly in mind that there is a very great distance from the very occasional and old-fashioned, even pioneerish-little-house-on-the-prairie use, by Christians, of that phrase “the Lord works in mysterious ways” and the constantly-used Muslim phrase, Alla Ta’allah, or “Allah Knows Best.

These last ten days have been instructive. These demonstrations, by aggressive, violent, hate-filled, at times nearly-hysterical people, who all over Europe have inspired, in non-Muslims who until now have been inclined to swallow the drip-drip-drip of the anti-Israel propaganda fed them by their political and, especially, media elites, a great revulsion. It has happened in Italy, where the spectacle of thousands of Muslims choosing to burn Israeli flags and end their antisemitic demonstrations in front of, right in the parvis of, the Duomo of Milan, and to do the same thing in Genoa, has infuriated not only bishops and cardinals, but people who may be as indifferent to organized religion, or even perhaps as anti-clerical as they come. And in Malta, the two hundred Muslims who marched have attracted all sorts of attention from the Maltese none of it favorable, for Malta, after all, is the place famous for holding out, historically, against Muslim would-be conquerors.

No, these demonstrations have actually been most instructive, most useful. More and more Europeans, even those indifferent too, or until now even mildly hostile to (because so steadily misinformed about) Israel, are way ahead of their leaders. They are worried about Islam, and that worry will only grow, and grow.

Posted by: Hugh at January 7, 2009 12:49 PM

Hamas Explains Use of Civilians as Human Shields

sheikyermami — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:21:48 +0000

By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

“We desire death as you desire life.”

* A variation of this theme (“Kuffar we love death and you love Pepsi Cola”) can be found in sheik yer’mami’s song “Never do a thing like that”, here…

The UN announcement that 51 civilians have died in the conflict in Gaza must be understood in the context of Hamas’s declared ideology to use civilians as human shields for Hamas fighters. Indeed, Hamas continues to emphasize and promote the religious ideology that death for Allah is an ideal to be actively pursued.

* Israel tries to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas tries to maximize them

* Hamas Women Vow to Become ‘Martyrdom-Seekers’ and Blow Themselves Up Among ‘the Apes and Pigs’

* More than 700,000 Israelis now in range of Hamas missiles

The Palestinian rocket that hit the Israeli town of Beersheba detonated without causing injuries – but the shock waves are still reverberating through the Jewish state.

The goal is to convince Palestinians, including women and children, not to fear death but even to face it at the front to protect Hamas fighters. Hamas’s placement of its military installations and fighters among civilians reflects this ideology, and has led to these 51 deaths.

A Hamas representative in the PA legislative council this year expressed pride in the fact that women and children are used as human shields in fighting Israel. He described it as part of a “death industry” at which Palestinians excel, and explained that the Palestinians “desire death” with the same intensity that Israelis “desire life.”

The following is the full text of the comments by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad: “For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life.”

To view video in English click here.
To view video in Hebrew click here.

To comment on this story, email to comment@newsblaze.com

Taliban ‘used civilians as human shields’ when British attacked

sheikyermami — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:24:09 +0000

* Traditional Muhammedan warfare. Why is anyone surprised?

Telegraph UK By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

Taliban forces deliberately used a compound sheltering civilians for an attack that led to British troops bombing the home and killing an Afghan woman and two children, defence sources said.

* Leave or face more deaths, Taliban warns Canada

Royal Military Police investigators have begun collecting evidence on the incident in which three guided missiles were fired into the building that resulted in three civilians dead and four injured.

Men from the 2Bn The Parachute Regiment, who have suffered 10 fatalities and at least 50 wounded this summer in Sangin town, were patrolling the area when they received intelligence that an attack was imminent from the building.

Paras from the snipers’ section, equipped with sophisticated sights, positively identified Taliban fighters on the roof of a compound.

Clearance was then received to fire three extremely accurate missiles from the Royal Artillery’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System that all landed on the target.

The insurgents “took a pasting” with a number of enemy dead but, unbeknown to the British, at least seven civilians were sheltering in the home including the fatalities, a six-year-old boy and a girl, believed to be eight, and a woman.

Four injured civilians were evacuated to Sangin District Centre by car with the support of British paratroopers who provided medical treatment before they were flown to Bastion hospital with their two relatives.

One of the injured children received specialist treatment before being evacuated to the French-run Mother and Childrens’ hospital in Kabul. The remaining three injured family members are recovering at Bastion following the incident on Saturday.

Lt Col David Reynolds, the British military spokesman in Helmand, said: “This was a tragic incident, a family member can never be replaced and it is always painful when civilians, particularly women and children are involved.

“While it is unclear exactly what caused their death an investigation is underway. What is clear is that Taliban fighters were in the area and showed a total disregard for the presence of civilians near them.”

A spokesman for Gulab Mangal, Helmand’s governor, expressed his sympathy for the loss and added that the Taliban’s ruthless tactics were often responsible for incidents involving civilians. He said: “The Taliban use tactics in which they cause civilian life to be at risk. They have no regard for the Afghan people and support for the Taliban in Helmand is reducing.”

A Nato spokesman said it “deeply regretted” the deaths of the civilians caused “a result of an imminent insurgent attack from a position where they would have known women and children were present”.

He added: “The enemies of Afghanistan have yet again shown a complete disregard for the lives of the innocent who they claim to fight for.”