NationStates Jolt Archive

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050707/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_egyptian_ambassador


CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in
Iraq said in a Web statement Thursday that it has killed Egypt's top envoy in Iraq, posting a video of the blindfolded diplomat identifying himself.

"We announce in the al-Qaida in Iraq that the verdict of God against the ambassador of the infidels, the ambassador of Egypt, has been carried out. Thank God," a written statement in the Web posting said.

The video does not show the envoy, Ihab al-Sherif, being killed.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said a day earlier that it had sentenced al-Sherif to death as an "apostate" for his country's support of the United States and the Iraqi government. The group has previously beheaded several foreign hostages, including three Americans.

Al-Sherif, who was sent to Baghdad in early June, was abducted from a Baghdad street late Saturday.

The video shows a man who appears to be the diplomat, blindfolded and wearing a polo shirt. He identifies himself as al-Sherif, says he is the head of the interests section in Iraq and gives his address. He then says he worked previously in
Israel, where al-Sherif was part of the Egyptian embassy. (art. cont.)

Does anyone else think they've decided to shoot themselves in the foot with this sort of tactic?

You have to understand several things.

1. They kidnap people precisely so they can kill them.
2. They kill people to show Westerners that they are serious and mean business.
3. Each time we capture someone and do not kill them, they see this as a sign of weakness.
4. They aren't thinking the same way we are. To us, demonstrations of humanitarianism, and refraining from overt attacks on civilians is seen as a good thing. They see it as weakness, and are emboldened every time they kill one person on video, and see us restraining ourselves. It gives them great hope.

You have to understand several things.

1. They kidnap people precisely so they can kill them.
2. They kill people to show Westerners that they are serious and mean business.
3. Each time we capture someone and do not kill them, they see this as a sign of weakness.
4. They aren't thinking the same way we are. To us, demonstrations of humanitarianism, and refraining from overt attacks on civilians is seen as a good thing. They see it as weakness, and are emboldened every time they kill one person on video, and see us restraining ourselves. It gives them great hope.
I know, but now they are killing diplomats from other muslim countries that while allied with the US, are on the side at least partially symathetic to their cause. They seem to be trying to erase that partial sympathy for some reason and turn it into strict antipathy

I know, but now they are killing diplomats from other muslim countries that while allied with the US, are on the side at least partially symathetic to their cause. They seem to be trying to erase that partial sympathy for some reason and turn it into strict antipathy

As far as they are concerned, any so-called Muslim living in Egypt is not really a Muslim. They believe that any Islamic country with friendly ties to the West is not part of Dar al-Islam (including Saudi Arabia, which they view to be under the rule of apostates).

So they don't mind killing any Egyptian, no matter how many Egyptians they piss off.

They even had a recent ruling by one of their imams that it's even OK to kill your own loyal Islamic followers, or their women and children, by accident, as long as that causes the death of a non-Islamic person.

The name of the game is Chaos. The rules are as follows:

1) Kill people
2) Cause disruption and promote a sense of fear in all parts of society
3) Repeat

That is literally the AQ game plan in Iraq. If they "promote" a government model of their own, it can be shown as ineffective. If they simply tear down everything and anything that isn't THEM, they can sustain themselves on hate and fear indefinately.

WL is more or less right. These people have no wish to promote their way of life in Iraq. That can come later as far as they are concerned. Right now the object is to destory everything, so that they can build up from the ruins of society. Look at Afganistan's past. They gained power only after the Northern warlords, Russia, the US, everyone had cleared out.

It makes perfect sense to someone who believes that on a very real level, the lifestyle of the people is inherantly godless and evil, the only way to save humanity in their eyes is to destroy all traces of other lifestyles.

Does anyone else think they've decided to shoot themselves in the foot with this sort of tactic?
I think they're just very pragmatic about this. Iraq is an US-project, and they're at war with the US. So they work to ruin the project.
Apart from the fact that right now they can recruit thousands and thousands of disaffected Iraqis and other Arabs because of the mess there.

They have had a busy day or so then

the attacks that took place today were just to show off basically.

Al Qaeda are saying that "yeah you can protect yourselves, you can even have the G8 summit a couple miles away, but we are still gonna attack and we are still gonna get you guys."

unlike 9/11, which had a distinct purpose, (to just turn our economy into crap) this had no point. these guys breed on uncertainty, hopefully those nations finally get the picture that we need to stop these radical muslims. but not go into the misconception that all muslims suck

AQ claims everything.

Egypt is not a democracy and also a country that practice torture. Alot of the people getting torture and inprisoned is radicale muslims. So killing a egyptian representative is logic also because egyptic diplomatic relationships with Iraq can bee seen as and acceptans of the USA prscence in Iraq.

All this say I don't like there actions but I can partly understand them.