And a dead high-ranking terrorist is a great way to brighten up one's morning!

The leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq has reportedly been killed in a firefight today.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri died in an "internal battle" between militants near a bridge in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi interior ministry said.

If true, the death would represent a huge blow for the Islamic fundamentalist organisation. The United States had regarded al-Masri as the number one threat to the stability of Iraq, and placed a $5 million bounty on his head.

Brigadier-General Abdul Kareem Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, suggested that US and Iraqi forces had nothing to do with the killing - blaming it on an internal power struggle within al-Qaeda's Iraq cell.

"The clashes took place among themselves. There were clashes within the groups of Al Qaeda. He was liquidated by them. Our forces had nothing to do with it," he told Iraqi state television.

He later told the Reuters news agency: "We have definite intelligence reports that al-Masri was killed today."

And isn't it great that what we have here is these criminals killing each other? And now that we see the internal divisions splitting the terrorists in Iraq, do we really want to adopt the Democrats' "flee in terror" strategy?

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It's good to know that the Democrats have the terrorists on their side in their efforts to undercut our troops.

"Here are the Democrats calling you to withdraw or even set a timetable and you are not responding," al-Sadr's statement said. "It is not only them who are calling for this but also Republicans, to whom you belong."

"If you are ignoring your friends and partners, then it is no wonder that you ignore the international and Iraqi points of view. You will not benefit from this stubbornness," he added.

And Muqtada al-Sadr would certainly know what is best -- for the terrorists and Iranians.

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Dead Taliban!

Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.

As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

And that isn't even the good part -- die, terrorists, die!

I am curious, though -- why is this story appearing in a British newspaper, and not an American one? You don't suppose it could have anything to do with the bias of the MSM, do you?

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Lynne Stewart is no longer a lawyer.

he's still out on the street, but convicted terror helper Lynne Stewart is out of the legal profession.

A state appeals court yesterday formally disbarred Stewart, officially ending her 30-year career as a lawyer.

The Appellate Division made the disbarment retroactive to Feb. 10, 2005. That's the date she was convicted of providing material support to terrorists by helping her jailed client, blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, communicate with his followers. He is the suspected mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing .

The unsigned decision by the five-judge panel also rejected Stewart's bid to resign from the bar, which her lawyer made 18 months after she was convicted.

I can't wait for her to rot in jail after her appeals are over.

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Thanks to James Taranto over at Opinion Journal for pointing out these two pictures.

Reuters has a couple of amusing photos from a mass gathering in the Palestinian territories. This one shows a guy brandishing a rifle in his right hand and shaking his left fist. At least one more rifle is visible among the crowd walking behind him.
This one shows another guy, holding a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher. Both photos have the same caption:

Palestinians attend a demonstration against violence in Gaza April 23, 2007.

We've often noted that many so-called pacifists seem to have a taste for tumult, but only in Palestinistan would a peace protester carry an RPG launcher. Or should we say only in Reuterville?

Gotta love those anti-violence Palestinians!

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Hamas just can’t stop attacking Jews – and they don’t care who knows it.

Hamas militants in Gaza fired rockets and mortar shells at Israel for the first time in five months Tuesday, retaliating for deadly Israeli raids in the Palestinian territories and leaving a largely successful Gaza truce in serious doubt.

The barrage, which came on Israel's 59th independence day, did not cause any damage or injury, but it marked the first time Hamas acknowledged firing shells toward Israel since agreeing to the cease-fire. Hamas is tightly organized, and Israel says attacks from Gaza have the tacit approval of the militant group's political leaders.

Hamas gave conflicting predictions about the future of the truce — some officials said it was over, while others said everything depends on Israeli actions.

The cease-fire, announced by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in November, declared an end to Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli attacks, including airstrikes at Gaza militants and punishing invasions of towns in northern Gaza.

Israel stopped most of its military activity but kept Gaza in a stranglehold by closing vital crossings, citing security threats. And while Hamas rocket squads stayed on the sidelines, other groups, like Islamic Jihad, kept up fire of homemade rockets almost daily at Israeli towns and villages just outside Gaza.

“A largely successful truce”? Only if “successful” is defined as Israel being under attack by surrogates for Hamas, and Hamas doing nothing to stop those attacks -- all while Israel receives international condemnation for seeking to root out those who break the cease fire.

It strikes me as long past time for Israel to clean out the rat hole that is Gaza.

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One more act of terrorism against Christians in a Muslim country -- but at least they weren't detained by police and made to miss their flight home.

Three people have been killed in an attack on a Turkish publishing house which prints Bibles and Christian literature, according to media reports.

CNN Turk television said the victims' throats had been cut and that police had detained six people in connection with the incident on Wednesady at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya.

Television pictures showed casualties being carried out of the building and one man

The attack follows the murder earlier this year of Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish editor, by an ultra-nationalist.

Dink's killing prompted extra security measures to be taken for writers and journalists.

I guess they recognize the importance of shutting down a publisher of Bibles -- for the Truth will set men and women free from the evil that ensnares them. And so we have this day three more saints in heaven.

H/T Gateway Pundit

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This is the best case for stopping lawsuits against watchful citizens that I've seen put forth.

Nothing can prevent a passenger who believes he has been wronged by the screening process from filing a lawsuit. What is outrageous is to hold good Samaritans liable simply for doing what any reasonable person observing suspicious activity should do. This is pure and simple intimidation.

In the interests of national security, Congress cannot allow this to happen. While the House has taken the initiative to insert protective language in a public transportation bill, that bill does not go far enough. Such protection needs to be comprehensive, extending to the public at large rather than just those using airplanes or other public transportation. (Obviously, such a law should not protect anyone whose motivation is based on personal profiling.)

The good Samaritan law in “Seinfeld” created a duty to act. In the real world, such a law would obviously fail judicial scrutiny. Not even in fighting the war on terrorism could a legal duty to report suspicious activities be imposed upon observers — although, one would hope, good citizens would feel a moral obligation to do so.

What can be legislated, however, is a good Samaritan federal law to protect anyone motivated to report concerns in good faith from suffering the consequences of civil liability for speaking up. We need to understand that it takes a collective effort to keep us safe, and we need to protect those who act with that in mind.

And let's remember what the folks targeted in the Flying Imams case believed they were seeing.

Witnesses described conduct that suggested something ominous might in fact be in the offing. The imams, the passengers reported, prayed loudly in the open terminal before boarding, sat in different seats on the plane from those assigned, positioned themselves near exits, asked for unneeded seatbelt extensions (which they then placed under their seats) and, most disturbingly, made anti-American comments.

Do we want to encourage or discourage the reporting of such unusual behavior on aircraft and in airports? While any single element of their behavior could be seen as innocent, taken together they should at least raise a red flag or two in the mind of even the most trusting, pro-Muslim passenger.

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Let's get more like him -- and lock him away.

A federal grand jury indicted an Ohio man on charges of joining al-Qaida and conspiring to bomb European tourist resorts and U.S. government facilities and military bases overseas, officials announced Thursday.

Christopher Paul, 43, a U.S. citizen and resident of Columbus, spent time learning hand-to-hand fighting and how to use grenades and assault rifles at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, according to a federal grand jury indictment. He then joined the terrorist group in Pakistan and told al-Qaida members he was dedicated to committing violent jihad.

The investigation into Paul and his activities spanned four years, three continents and at least eight countries, FBI agent Tim Murphy said Thursday, shortly before Paul appeared before a federal judge.

"The indictment of Christopher Paul paints a disturbing picture of an American who traveled overseas to train as a violent jihadist, joined the ranks of al-Qaida and provided military instruction and support to radical cohorts both here and abroad," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said in a statement.

Bill Hunt, first assistant U.S. attorney, declined to say whether any of the alleged plots were carried out. People whom Paul associated with in Europe have been arrested, he said.

Paul, who was arrested Wednesday outside his apartment, is charged with providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide support to terrorists and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, which carries the most serious penalty of up to life in prison.

Have a nice stay in the big house, you jihadi pig.

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This guy needs to be D-E-A-D -- dead.

Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shiite cleric and power broker, exhorted Iraqi security forces on Sunday to unite with his militiamen against the American military in Diwaniya, an embattled southern city in Iraq where fighting has raged for three days.

Mr. SadrÂ’s statement did not explicitly call for armed struggle against the Americans, but it still represented his most forceful condemnation of the American-led occupation since he went underground after the start of an intensified Baghdad security crackdown nearly two months ago. It also came as his followers streamed out of Baghdad and other cities to join a mass protest in southern Iraq organized by Mr. SadrÂ’s aides to denounce the American occupation of Iraq on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The arteries winding to Najaf, the holy city where Mr. Sadr has his headquarters, were clogged with vehicles carrying protesters

* * *

The strife that is taking place in Diwaniya was planned by the occupier to drag down the brothers and make them quarrel, fight and even kill each other,” Mr. Sadr said in a written statement. “Oh my brothers in the Mahdi Army and my brothers in the security forces, stop fighting and killing because that is what our enemy and your enemy and even God’s enemy hope for.”

Mr. Sadr added: “God ordered you to be patient and to unite your efforts against the enemy and not against the sons of Iraq. They want to drag you into a war that ends Shiitism and Islam, but they cannot.”

He's declared his enmity against the United States -- treat him as such.

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