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GLOBAL JIHAD
Al-Qaida calls for more mutilations Communique encourages attacks like
those in Fallujah,
Mogadishu - Posted: April 9, 2004 - 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON The latest communique from al-Qaida calls for assassinations of world leaders,
kidnappings and mutilation attacks like those carried out in Fallujah and
Mogadishu, according to a translation and analysis by the Northeast
Intelligence Network.
The communication came in the form of the 14th edition of the Voice of
Jihad, an online publication believed to be produced by Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.
The communique offers support for the murders of four U.S. civilians in
Fallujah, Iraq, who were providing security for food deliveries in the
violent Sunni triangle. They were killed by militants, their bodies
dismembered, burned and hanged on display.
The four American employees of a private U.S. security firm who were
killed and mutilated in Iraq last
week were identified as highly trained former American military troops.
The al-Qaida report linked the mutilation deaths with those of Army
Rangers in Mogadishu in 1993 deaths that resulted in the withdrawal of
U.S. troops from that African nation. Bin Laden, according to some
intelligence sources, was in charge of operational planning for that
attack.
The Voice of Jihad encourages "holy warriors" to repeat such attacks
until the U.S. withdraws all troops from the Islamic world.
Blackwater Security Consulting, a firm that provides paramilitary
training for private and government
needs, confirmed that the four men killed in Fallujah were
employees. Blackwater declined to release their identities, but sources close to the
families said three of the men were former U.S. Special Operations
troops:
Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio.
Mike Teague, 38, an Army veteran from Clarksville, Tenn.
Scott Helvenston, 38, a veteran of the Navy. His hometown was not
known.
Other sources said the fourth man also had previously served in the
military, but his identity was not
immediately made public.
Blackwater Security Consulting, based in Moyock, N.C., recruits security
specialists for contract work from elite U.S. and other special operations
units worldwide. It also trains police and other government employees.
Television pictures broadcast outside the United States showed the
incinerated body of one of the four
contractors being kicked and stamped on by people in a jubilant crowd in
Fallujah, while another body was dragged down the road by its feet.
Two bodies also were temporarily hung from a bridge.
Last week, WorldNetDaily reported, a popular Islamic online site,
quoting a European sheik, justified
the mutilation of the bodies of enemies when it is part of
retaliation.
Responding to a specific question about Islam's view of mutilating
bodies of enemies in wartime, Sheik Faysal Mawlawi, deputy chairman
of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, wrote "it is permissible
to mutilate the dead only in case of retaliation."
"If any one cuts the ear of another, his ear is to be cut in return," wrote the
sheik. "If he inflicts any physical damage on anyone, he should be
retaliated against in the same manner. In case of war, Muslims are
allowed to take vengeance for their mutilated dead strugglers in the
same way it was done to them."
The sheik cited the Quranic verse: "If ye punish, then punish with the
like of that wherewith ye were
inflicted. But if ye endure patiently, verily it is better for the patient."
"This verse was revealed when the polytheists mutilated the corpse of
Hamzah ibn Abd el-Muttalib (may Allah be pleased with him)," the sheik
continued. "The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) swore to
mutilate seventy corpses of the polytheists in retaliation for what they
had done with Hamzah's dead body."
Other sheiks offered dissenting opinions on whether mutilation is ever
warranted or justified.
The Voice of Jihad communique also points to the assassination of
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as an action to be emulated.
It specifically encourages assassinations and kidnappings as a means of
advancing the efforts of the jihad and taking the struggle to greater
levels, reports Northeast Intelligence Network.
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