A number of interesting facts -- some of them quite disturbing -- have emerged about the lone jihadi coward who killed one woman and wounded five others (two of them pregnant) at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle on Friday.

When it comes right down to it, though, I've got to fisk this article on the subject from the New York Times. Elements of it are beyond belief.

A day after a gunman killed one woman and wounded five others in the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the police identified a Muslim man on Saturday as the suspect and said he used the Internet to select the federation as a random target for his anger toward Jews.

I guess I'm confused by this -- if he spent time on the internet looking for a Jewish organization to shoot-up, how can this be described as a random target? It seems he carefully calculated what target would get teh most exsposure and cause the biggest bang. If it were trulyy random, he would have hit the nearest synagogue or Goldberg's Deli, not a major Jewish organization some distance from his home. Or he might have hit the office of the Israeli Consul General or the El-Al counter at Sea-Tac Airport -- though I'm sure he realized that at either of those locations he would likely end up in a puddle of blood on the floor. No, this seems to have been the typical sort of high-profile, low-risk attack that cowardly jihadi swine are known to attack.

As Jewish groups across the Puget Sound region moved to increase security on Saturday, the police identified the suspect as Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, whose family lives in Pasco, in southeast Washington, about 180 miles from Seattle.

At a court hearing on Saturday, a judge ordered Mr. Haq held on $50 million bail at the King County Jail pending formal charges of murder and attempted murder, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Haq entered the courtroom in handcuffs, chains and leg shackles, and a white jail shirt that labeled him an “ultra security inmate.”

The police are treating the shooting as a hate crime based on what they say Mr. Haq told a 911 dispatcher shortly before surrendering.

“He said he wanted the United States to leave Iraq, that his people were being mistreated and that the United States was harming his people,” Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske of the Seattle Police said Saturday at a news conference. “And he pointedly blamed the Jewish people for all of these problems. He stated he didn’t care if he lived.”

Well, at least they are willing to call it a hate crime -- but that they won't call it a terrorist attack is disturbing. The political motive itself should be sufficient to get it that label. I guess someone in authority wants to be "sensitive" to the Muslims rather than the Jewish community which was victimized here.

The chief said the gunman apparently selected the federation as a target by randomly searching the Internet for Jewish organizations in the area. The police confiscated at least three computers, he said.

Chief Kerlikowske described an intense and violent scene inside the federation, with some of the 18 people present jumping out of second-story windows and one young pregnant woman crawling to call 911 after being shot in the arm as she covered her abdomen. When the gunman later encountered her on the phone with emergency dispatchers, she refused to hang up.

“She was able to get him to take the telephone,” the chief said, calling her “a hero.”

Notice how it was that this woman was shot in the arm -- she was trying to protect her unborn child (for you pro-aborts out there, that is a child, not the "product of conception" or "blob of tissue") from a jihadi who was hoping for a "two-fer Jew-fer" by aiming for her abdomen. That shows you how low on the food-chain this guy is -- he's not just a terrorist, but a would-be abortionist as well.

A neighbor of Mr. HaqÂ’s family in Pasco said Mr. Haq had spoken of Jews as recently as 10 days ago, sometimes using stereotypes about Jewish influence in the United States.

“He was saying he wasn’t trying to be racial about it but how they had control over a lot of the newscasts and things, ownership and stuff,” said the neighbor, Caleb Hales, 21.

Colleagues of the victims said the gunman had identified himself as “a Muslim-American” who was “angry at Israel.”

The A.P., citing a statement of probable cause, reported that Mr. Haq had told a 911 dispatcher, “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

I wonder where such a member of the "Religion of Peace" would get such horrible anti-Semitic stereotypes? Would it be the mosque, or the mainstream media, both of which portray Jews (and Israel in particular) as the bad actor in every situation.

The Seattle Times reported Saturday that Mr. Haq was also facing a charge of lewd conduct in Benton County, in southeast Washington, accused of exposing himself in public.

So, not only is he a jihadi terrorist, he is also a weenie-wagger. Probably trying to attract a couple of those 72 virgins on earth, since he was unwilling to try to shoot up a place where he was likely to be injured or killed.

The police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have said they believe Mr. Haq was acting alone.

The chief said the Mr. Haq “was so enraged at first” but later calmed down and followed the emergency dispatchers’ instructions to leave the building with his hands up. He surrendered to the police at the federation offices near downtown 12 minutes after the shootings were first reported to 911.

Gee -- he was enraged at first. What was your first clue? Could it be that he went on a murderous rampage against unarmed women?

The police have not released the names of the victims, all women. Three of the survivors were in serious condition on Saturday and two were in satisfactory condition, according to the media relations office at the Harborview Medical Center. They range in age from their early 20Â’s to 40Â’s and had gunshot wounds in the knee, groin, abdomen and arm. Federation officials said the woman who was killed was Pam Waechter, 58, its director of annual giving.

Federation officials identified the wounded women as Dayna Klein, 37; Cheryl Stumbo, 43; Layla Bush, 23; and Carol Goldman, 35; and Christina Rexroad, whose age was not known.

Remember those names, and keep all of them and their families in your prayers. And given that the one fatality, Ms. Waechter, was the director of annual giving, I think a donation to the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle would be even more appropriate than when I suggested it on Friday.

Asked to describe her group’s general relations with area Muslim groups, Amy Wasser-Simpson, the federation’s vice president, said, “We have had no negative interactions with the Muslim community whatsoever.”

Robert S. Jacobs, regional director for the Pacific Northwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League, who knew several of the victims, said that the three with serious injuries are not Jewish, including Cheryl Stumbo, the federationÂ’s marketing director.

“These were really good, hard-working people who cared about the community and cared about their jobs,” he said.

At least the group hadn't had negative interactions with that portion of the Muslim community that rejects the extremist rhetoric that appears so common in Islam worldwide. But you have to ask how many mosques and other Muslim groups refused to ahve any interaction at all with the local Jewish community.

The gunman apparently hid behind a plant at the federationÂ’s offices and waited for someone to enter the building, and then forced his way inside at gunpoint when a teenager opened a locked door, Chief Kerlikowske said. The gunman had two semiautomatic pistols.

A half-hour before the shooting, Mr. Haq was ticketed for a minor traffic infraction on Third Avenue, the same street where the federation has its offices, the chief said.

So he had been hanging out, caing the site for some time. This wasn't an act of passion -- it was a premeditated assault on the most visible Jewish institution in Seattle. Again, that makes this more than a mere hate crime -- it makes it an act of terrorism.

Mr. Hales, the neighbor of Mr. Haq’s family, said he spoke with Mr. Haq on July 20,. Mr. Hales, whose family is Mormon, said Mr. Haq had talked about finding a job, perhaps in engineering. The conversation wandered, Mr. Hales said, with Mr. Haq expressing curiosity about Mr. Hales’s religion. “He told me he would stay up late up at night reading about people’s religions and cultural backgrounds,” Mr. Hales said.

I guess this was a case of "know your infidels."

His mother, Maureen Hales, said she believed that the Haqs were originally from Pakistan and that Mr. HaqÂ’s father, Mian Haq, was an engineer who worked at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Let's see -- a Pakistani engineer working at a US nuclear weapons facility. Anyone else troubled by that -- especially in light of the Pakistani development of nuclear weapons and continuing nuclear program? You have to ask how closely daddy was scruinized following the first Pakistani nuclear test. Or would giving him a closer look have been insensitive, and a case of ethnic profiling?

Also, I understand (but note that this article leaves the information out) that daddy was instrumental in founding the Seattle-area mosque the family attends (Sick Irony Alert -- the mosque is located on Bombing Range Road). In light of this act of terrorism, will this place receive appropriate scrutiny for other terrorist activity?

UPDATE: Apparently the cowardly jihadi not only targetted women, but he gained entrance to the building by holding a gun to the head of a thirteen-year-old girl. Makes you wish they would dump this pig into the general population for a few hours, doesn't it?

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Posted by: Greg at 09:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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