BBC Reporter Murdered in Gaza?

Claim: BBC Reporter Murdered in Gaza

NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, April 16, 2007

LONDON — The BBC expressed deep concern at an e-mail on Sunday saying its missing correspondent in Gaza had been killed by Islamist kidnappers but the British broadcaster and Palestinian officials said the claim was not verified.

“We are deeply concerned about what we are hearing — but we stress, at this stage, it is rumor with no independent verification,” the BBC said in a statement after the claim from a previously unknown group that journalist Alan Johnston had been killed.

Britain’s Foreign Office said it was urgently checking the situation.

One of the few Western reporters based in the troubled territory, Johnston, who is British, has not been heard from since his car was found abandoned on March 12. He has now been missing for longer than any of the several foreigners kidnapped in Gaza in the past year.

Philippine retaliation kills 8 rebels in the south

And now for some good news.

April 15, 2007
MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine marines killed at least 8 Muslim rebels and captured two of their camps on Sunday in retaliation for a series of attacks that killed a child and two soldiers, military officials said.
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) commander Habier Malik and hundreds of followers fled to the jungles surrounding Panamao town on the remote southern island of Jolo after troops bombarded their bases.
Malik is a renegade member of the MNLF who is believed to have sheltered two suspected masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings. His group fired mortars on the marines’ headquarters on Friday night, killing a child that lived nearby.
His fighters later killed two soldiers and wounded eight in an ambush. Mortar rounds were also fired at a special forces’ base, injuring six soldiers.
Philippine troops overran his camp and another MNLF base killing at least 8 rebels and wounding 13.
“Malik is now isolated and on his own. Other MNLF commanders are not in favor of the actions taken by Malik and expressed that they will not support Malik,” Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro, a military spokesman, said.
Malik embarrassed the armed forces in February when he held a top general, a senior government official and their aides hostage for two nights. The captives were released unharmed after the government handed over money and sacks of food.
The Philippines, a largely Catholic country, has been trying to quell Muslim separatism for decades and signed a peace deal with the MNLF in 1996 that was meant to end a conflict that has killed over 120,000 people.
But the agreement was not properly implemented and there is sporadic fighting between government forces and disgruntled members of the MNLF.
Manila also suspects Malik and other MNLF forces of aiding the Abu Sayyaf, the country’s fiercest Muslim rebel group and members of Jemaah Islamiah, a regional terror network which uses Jolo as a base to plot and train.
Bacarro said Malik was believed to have sheltered Dulmatin and Umar Patek, members of JI who are suspected of planning the 2002 bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed over 200 people.
Since August, the Philippines has poured over 8,000 troops onto Jolo to flush out the Abu Sayyaf and its JI partners.
The ground offensive is aided by U.S. special forces, who are constitutionally barred from fighting in the Philippines but who advise the troops.

Analysis of Islam’s Hijacking

Who is hijacking peaceful Islam?

Laina Farhat Holzman
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Madeleine Albright, our former secretary of state, recently claimed that jihad is an “internal struggle,” not “holy war” Clever Islamists have been telling everybody from the president down that Islam is a “peaceful religion” that has been hijacked by some really violent people.

Bernard Lewis, the dean of Islamic studies, wrote “What Went Wrong” after we were attacked on 9/11 to try to explain Muslim anger and failure to thrive. A handful of brave Muslims have also published books discussing some horrific problems with Islam. And now a Muslim doctor, Tawfik Hamid, who was once a member of a terrorist cult, has published in the Wall Street Journal April 3 “The Trouble With Islam” and he says, “Sadly, mainstream Muslim teaching accepts and promotes violence” Mainstream!

Hamid shows that Islam was a violent religion from the very beginning. The Prophet Muhammad himself was violent, and the collected religious texts of Islam give multiple examples of this, usually explaining the necessity of such violence. Then how is this different from the violence in the Bible or the violence of such Christian practices as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Religious Wars of the 17th century? It is different. We don’t do this any more.

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