 Algerian police have arrested a former leading member of an Islamic group for voicing support for Iraqi fighters as the country mourned the death of two of its diplomats killed in Iraq. Ali Belhadj, formerly deputy head of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was arrested at his home on Wednesday and taken to a central police station after making the comments on Aljazeera television, his brother Abdelhamid said, on the same channel. His arrest came as the country mourned the deaths of two of its diplomats murdered in Iraq. The group linked to al-Qaida in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in an Internet statement it had killed the head of Algiers' diplomatic mission in Baghdad, Ali Belaroussi, 62, and attache Azzedine Belkadi, 47, in line with the verdict of an Islamic tribunal. In his interview Ali Belhadj said he "saluted the mujahidin on the soil of the resistance in Iraq ... may God help them face with firmness and determination, the looting occupier, his agents and acolytes ... inasmuch as history has taught us that jihad (holy war) and resistance are the only answer to occupation."
| When you're an Islamist, jihad's the only answer you've got for every question, to include "what's for breakfast." Presumably the Algerians are tired of that nonsense by now. |
He said that the two kidnapped diplomats had been seized in their capacities of diplomats and ambassadors. "Now, in accrediting ambassadors and diplomats (their) state only legitimises this occupation, which is unacceptable on the levels of sharia (Islamic law) and politics."
| I've noticed, in my perusal of such vaporings and posturings, that pretty much anything you want is unacceptable on the levels of sharia and politix, unless you want them to be acceptable, in which case a fatwah might be called for. My friend Humpty Dumpty said something to the same effect, in fact. At least, I think that was what the words meant. |
However, the leader of the National Reform Movement in Algeria denounced the killing of the two Algerian diplomats. Sheikh Abdullah Jab Allah said in a statement - a copy of which was obtained by Aljazeera - that "this illegitimate act does not fall within the norms of resistance, but would confuse the legitimate resistance and defame and distort its image before the Arab and Islamic public opinion, and the rest of the world as well."
| As I've pointed out before, killing diplomats is a piece of barbarity that's beyond any pale of civilized behavior. The lefties and the Emma Goldman crowd are niggling over hair-splitting interpretations of international law, while Zark and his savages are indulging in behavior that Gilgamesh would have found primitive. |
|