Militants: 12 Nepalese 'executed'....
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| Tue, 08-31-2004 - 9:20am |
An Islamic Web site has posted gruesome still images and videos of what it says is the execution of 12 Nepalese hostages by a militant group in Iraq.
Footage posted on Tuesday showed one beheading and 11 others apparently shot from an assault rifle at the back of the head.
The video shows a masked man in desert camouflage apparently slitting the throat of a blindfolded man lying on the ground, The Associated Press reported.
The blindfolded man moans and a shrill wheeze is heard, then the masked man displays the head to the camera before resting it on the decapitated body.
CNN is working to confirm the authenticity of the images. The still images appear to have been taken from the video.
"We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalese who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians ... believing in Buddha as their God," said a statement on the site by Jaish Ansar al-Sunna.
The claims came as another Islamic group held two French journalists hostage, threatening to kill them unless the government of France revokes a law banning Muslim children from wearing headscarves in public schools. (Full story)
The Web site statement vowed to keep fighting the Americans in Iraq.
"America today has used all its force, as well as the help of others, to fight Islam under the so-called war on terror, which is nothing but a vicious crusade against Muslims," the statement said.
At the end of the four-minute video, a man reads another statement off-camera, vowing to fight the Iraqi government.
"We will work on exterminating them until the last fighter," he said.
Iyad Mansoor, director-general of the Morning Star Company, a Jordan-based services firm which had contracted the 12 Nepalese workers for jobs in Iraq, said he had no information on the beheading of the Nepalese captives.
"I'm shocked to hear such news," he told AP. "The last I heard was that the Nepalese government was in contact with Iraqi clergymen and others in an effort to set the 12 men free."
Jaish Ansar al-Sunna said on August 23 it had kidnapped 12 Nepali citizens "for their cooperation with the United States in fighting Islam and its people" and described them as working for a Nepalese company that works under a Jordanian firm doing business in Iraq.
Last week a videotape was aired on the Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera purportedly showing the 12.
Nepalese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Prakash Sharan Mahat said then that his government had asked Al-Jazeera to help it establish a relationship with the militant group behind the abductions.
In that video, a masked man wearing military fatigues aimed a machine gun at the men.
More............ http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/08/31/iraq.main/index.html


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Nepali mosque attacked over Iraq killings.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=574847§ion=news
Nepali authorities have clamped an indefinite curfew on Kathmandu and warned violators will be shot after furious mobs attacked a mosque and went on the rampage to protest against the killing of 12 Nepalis in Iraq.
Protesters stormed inside the city's main mosque and lit a fire, but were driven out by police. Others burst into the offices of Saudi Arabian Airlines and Qatar Airways, smashing windows and taking papers and furniture into the street to burn.
Earlier, police had lobbed teargas shells at about 3,000 demonstrators burning tyres at a main intersection 200 metres (yards) from the Jame Masjid mosque in the heart of the city.
A pall of smoke hung over the city. Tyres had been set on fire at almost every major street corner, and mobs were bringing out logs, stolen furniture and other items to feed the flames.
City authorities imposed a curfew from 2 p.m. "to maintain law and order, and to protect the loss of life and property".
"The security forces can fire if anyone is seen violating the curfew," state radio announced. "Residents are urged not to come out of their houses in the specified areas under curfew."
A militant Iraqi group said on Tuesday it had killed the 12 Nepali hostages, who went to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm, and showed pictures of one being beheaded and the others with bullet wounds to the head and back.
Protesters shouted "Down with Islam", "Long live the memories of the 12 Nepalis", or called for the government to resign for not doing more to protect the victims.
There is no history of significant anti-Muslim protests or riots in mainly Hindu Nepal, but there have been widespread and sustained anti-government protests this year.
Tension was also high after Maoist rebels imposed a blockade on the capital earlier this month.
THICK CLOUDS OF SMOKE
Riot police cordoned off the mosque, which was obscured from afar by thick clouds of smoke rising from burning tyres on roads leading to the building.
"Demonstrators entered the mosque, threw stones and partially damaged it," said police official Binod Singh. "They tried to set the building on fire but police intervened and prevented them. The building has been cleared. No one was injured."
Offices of manpower companies which recruit Nepalis to work abroad were also indiscriminately attacked and their contents burned on the streets.
Impoverished Nepal does not allow its nationals to travel or work in Iraq because of security concerns but many go to the country from other nations in the Middle East.
About 3.5 percent of Nepal's 27 million people are Muslim.
"This inhuman act is against Islam," a Nepali Islamic group said in a statement on the killing of the 12, the largest number of foreign captives killed at one time by militants in Iraq.
Groups of protesters took to the streets of Kathmandu late on Tuesday after news of the killing spread. Relatives of the victims were among those accusing the government of not doing enough to help the victims.
"The government did not do enough to get their release," said Sudarshan Khadka, the brother of Ramesh Khadka, one of the victims, in his village about 25 km (16 miles) outside Kathmandu.
About 800,000 Nepalis work as labourers, drivers, guards, cleaners and cooks in different countries -- 200,000 of them in the Middle East.
They send about $800 million home to their families each year, a major source of income in one of the world's 10 poorest countries.
Nepal's embattled government is struggling to contain an insurgency by Maoist rebels seeking to replace the constitutional monarchy with one-party communist rule.
The government's mainstream political opponents have staged months of protests in a campaign for the revival of a parliament dissolved by King Gyanendra two years ago.
And speaking of the Swifties, why are you so afraid to read the their book or website? Are you afraid that they may seem credible to you? All the profits from the book are being donated to charity, so you don't have to worry about enriching these guys. Some of their charges are irrefutable, even Kerry doesn't try to refute them and has been forced to admit that they are truthful in more than one instance.
Check it out: www.swiftvets.com
"Many here could not believe the hostages had been killed as they felt the kidnappers would understand that the Nepalis had travelled to Iraq in search of work and not for any military role."
You see, they don't care about anyone's views about military action or anything else. They will kill you because you aren't a fanatical muslim. That is the only reason they kill. They will kill and kill any non-fanatical Muslims that they can until they are stopped.
And reread your post, this did have to do with what you wrote. You repeated the liberal mantra that we are "going it alone" which couldn't be farther from the truth.
As far as how Kerry has alinated our allies, I have heard nothing about that, so maybe you can enlighten me with mainstream media proof. All I could find was OP/Commentaries which were not exactly negative about Kerry and one out of date post from Drudge Report, hardly valid.
Indeed, and it may be a financial hit. Remember China and Japan hold our debt. We will wake up one day and discover the US in trouble, and everyone will be surprised.
About Kerry alienating our allies, read this from the remarks from the V.P.:
"When Senator Kerry speaks about the direction of the war on terror, he often returns to a single theme -- the need for international cooperation. He has vowed to usher in a golden age of American diplomacy. He is fond of mentioning that some countries did not support America's actions in Iraq. Yet to the many nations that have joined our coalition, Senator Kerry offers only condescension. More than 30 nations have contributed and sacrificed for the freedom of the Iraqi people, including Great Britain, Australia, Italy, Poland, South Korea, and Japan. Senator Kerry calls these countries, quote, "window dressing." They are, in his words, "a coalition of the coerced and the bribed."
I am aware of no other instance in which a presumptive nominee for President of the United States has spoken with such disdain of active, fighting allies of the United States in a time of war. Senator Kerry's contempt for our good allies is ungrateful to nations that have withstood danger, hardship, and insult for standing with America in the cause of freedom."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040426-8.html
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