You knew it was coming. Islamonline reports this morning:
CAIRO – The Australian government and people have paid tribute to the role played by the Grand Mufti of Australia to secure the release of the Australian hostage in Iraq from his captors."He has made an enormous effort,” said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Sheikh Taj Aldin Al-Hilali has spent much of the past month in Iraq trying to negotiate the release of the Australian contractor, Douglas Wood, who was released during an Iraqi military operation Wednesday, June 15.
“Real credit should be given to him (Hilali) for the effort that he made and the risks that he took including to his own security and in assisting the team's efforts to try to get Douglas Wood released," Downer told ABC Wednesday, June 15.
The 63-year-old contractor was kidnapped in late April by a self-styled Iraqi group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, which initially demanded that Australia pull its 800 troops out of Iraq.
The top Aussie official also hailed the role of the Muslim minority in Australia in securing the release of the Australian national.
"That's one of the assets we have as a multicultural country, that people all came together as 'Team Australia', and they brought their different strengths and so we appreciate it very much the contribution Sheikh Al-Hilali and more generally the Australian Islamic Community made," he said.
Promise Fulfilled
Commenting on the news of releasing Wood, the Grand Mufti of Australia said he had met his promise on sparing no efforts to securre the release of the Australian hostage.
“I left Australia for Iraq on May 15, following the kidnap of the Australian national. I committed myself not to leave Baghdad without securing the release of the Australian hostage,” he told IslamOnline.net Wednesday during his stop-over in Cairo.
“After tireless efforts and contacts with different parties as well as breath-taking adventures, the efforts were crowned in success.”
Sheikh Hilali maintained that he engaged in contacts with two Iraqi groups involved in the kidnap process.
“One of the two groups helped me to define the hostage’s location, which was attacked by an Iraqi military team backed by US forces.”
“The hostage was released six hours before he was due to be beheaded and a number of kidnappers were arrested.”...
Call me sceptical, but instead of falling on his knees thanking the Mufti, what Mr. Wood actually said was, "God Bless America" and raised a beer with his Aussie mates. I haven't seen it reported anywhere that the Mufti gave the tip leading to the raid.
Update: The Herald Sun reports, "Tip came from the streets" with thanks to Vinegar Joe.
IRAQI soldiers rescued Douglas Wood after they were tipped off by a "walk-in" -- a civilian who simply walked off the street into a military checkpoint.The civilian told them of hostages being held in a house in the western suburb of Ghazaliya, one of Baghdad's most dangerous.
But until they found him under a blanket and strapped to a bed, the Iraqis had no idea it was Douglas Wood in the house.The informant's identity will remain secret, as will any reward he might have been paid.
Why shouldn't a Muslim be instrumental in securing the hostage's release. Not only did they accomplish this, they also invented mathematics, writing, the wheel, fire, discovered North and South America, domesticated wild animals, the airplane, etc. This must have been a walk in the park.
From what I've read, this was a fortuitous raid on what appeared to be a "strangely empty-looking looking" house in Baghdad, and that Wood was only discovered -hidden in a locked back room- because the people in the house starting shooting out, arousing the suspicions of the soldiers inspecting the place, who then returned fired, overwhelming the hostage takers, and accidentally finding Wood.
Three cheers for the troops!
OT- But DHIMMI AS HELL-
Saudi Arabia has been granted an exemption from nuclear inspections by the U.N. SEE:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050616/D8AONQMO0.html
P.S.
Sean Penn, playing a jouranalist in Iran, had his camera confiscated as he tried to film women protesting for their pre-1979 Revolution rights to be restored.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1421640/posts
The American military rescues the guy, but then has a press release and says the Iraqi military did it. Why? So they can feel good.
People don't get good moral about lies accept mulsims.
So the Grance Mufti and the Iraqi military are taking credit for it.
Wood was there and said there were no Iraqi military present.
Now if we wanted to have fun we could let the Iraq insurgants know the it was the Mufti that brought in tracking equipment while working with the Americans that got them busted. No..it is not true but then it would interesting to see him squirm.
According to Australian press reports, the tip-off came from an Iraqi civilian "walk-in"......
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,15636763%5E661,00.html
Please ignore john b.
He's just an arrogant POM who exhibits troll like tendancies. He has called posters at this site "paranoid crazyloons" and views America as "Saudi Arabia but with better shopping" and from what I hear advocates assassinating politicians supporting the Iraq war. A real piece of work this guy is. He's the British version of KT.
Could this Sheik Taj Adin Al-Hilali, Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, possibly be any relation to Sheik Taj Adin Al-Hilali, who also calls himself Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, and who has not only claimed that Australia belongs to the Muslims because the aborigines had, he claims, Muslim names, but that suicide bombing fi sabih Allah -- in the Path of God -- is always and everywhere legitimate.
Below is what I discovered in the Jihadwatch archives (always worth going to; they seldom date) about that other Sheik Taj Adin Al-Hilali, the impostor, the very bad one who could not possibly have anything in common with the very good Sheik Taj Adin Al-Hilali who has just been fulsomely thanked (in the real, and not the assumed, sense of the word "fulsome") by Australia's Foreign Minister for his, Al-Hilali's, "tireless efforts" to free Mr. Wood -- efforts which in fact had nothing to do with the tip-off from an Iraqi, and the ultimate rescue.
Here goes:
February 17, 2004
Mufti of Australia: this was Muslim land
Before shrimp on the barbee, Foster's Lager, and Crocodile Dundee, evidently there was the burqa, the book, and the Prophet. MEMRI is reporting that the Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali, is claiming that Australia was originally Muslim land, settled by Afghans. The Aborigines are their descendants:
"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called 'Allahu Akbar,' they said, 'We have heard this song from our ancestors...' When they asked us 'What is this song you are singing?' we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad..."
This sort of thing may just seem silly, or even cute, until one realizes that to anyone who takes the Sheikh's claim seriously, Australia is now Muslim land. Islamic law stipulates that Muslims possess by right any land that once formed part of the House of Islam; this is a key element of the claim to Israel put forward by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The same claim has been advanced, by the way, for America.
Al-Hilali, meanwhile, has already endorsed violent jihad in other contexts:
Following a meeting with Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Al-Hilali said: "I blessed Hizbullah for liberating the prisoners and the bones of the Shahids and I praised it and its sacrifice. Hizbullah has become a model for all the Mujahideen in the world... Most of the Australian people do not support the policy of the Australian government, which has placed Hizbullah on the terror list out of submission to the U.S., and the Australian prime minister will pay the price for this in the next elections..." . . .
"We are proud of the Islamic resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir, and everywhere in the world that seeks to achieve its legitimate rights in accordance with the international resolutions, the human rights conventions, and the U.N. resolutions...
"We are also proud of the Islamic resistance that liberated southern Lebanon, led by Hizbullah, the legitimate Lebanese national movement, that forced the Israeli occupation army to withdraw from southern Lebanon, dragging trails of disappointment and shame behind it.
"We are also proud of what Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are both doing in the occupied territories. We support the resistance and support, with all our might, the martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian liberation movements, operations that are a legitimate act against the cruel occupation, according to all international norms and conventions.
"Also, whoever carries out a martyrdom [operation] is a pure Shahid and one of the men of Paradise. Moreover, he stands at the head of the Shahids."
That is, of course, a suicide bombing.
Al-Hilali also memorably dubbed Bush, Blair, and Australian PM John Howard the "axis of evil." But who is really behind it all? One guess:
Sheikh Al-Hilali said on another occasion: "The media all over the world are controlled by Zionist fingers, particularly the Western media, and that includes Australia, in which the media are under Zionist hegemony. But in Australia, which unlike the West and the U.S. is multicultural, the media are less racist in their enmity to Muslims and Islam. This is evidenced by the fact that we won the last media battle in Australia and succeeded in forcing the Australian people to treat us with respect. We have not suffered from persecution or disrespect to the same extent that Islamic communities in Western countries and in America have suffered."
ADDENDUM: Susan has referred me to two particularly egregious examples of Islamic mythmaking about a pre-Columbian Muslim America. Go here and click on "History."
UPDATE: After being condemned by the Australian Prime Minister and many others, Hilali is denying he called for jihad at all. No one seems concerned about his claim that Australia was originally Muslim. (Thanks to Kevin and Jean-Luc.)
Posted by Robert at February 17, 2004 04:36 PM |
I didn't know there were two Sheik Adin Haj Al-Hilalis in the world, much less two each of whom claimed to be Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand.
They appear to be two entirely different men.
Can someone please help sort this out?
Bill the Crusader:
Please elaborate or did you forget a sarcasm tag.
Why shouldn't a Muslim be instrumental in securing the hostage's release. Not only did they accomplish this, they also invented mathematics, writing, the wheel, fire, discovered North and South America, domesticated wild animals, the airplane, etc. This must have been a walk in the park.
LMFAO
Lol u maggot. Muslim's didnt invent maths my ancestors (Indians) did (numbers actually). Writing what a pile of crap as far as i know Egyptians (not those Arab colonisers in Egypt) did. Wheel and Fire were "invented" (how can anybdy invent fire) 50000 yrs b4 Mohammed concocted Islam. As for discovery of Americas, the Spaniards did it. Why do Muslims need to domesticate wild animals seeing that most of them behave exactly like one. Airplane! man u need to see a doctor. Muslims are often given a credit for dicovering various sciences while they're merely translating Indian works on science! THE ONLY INVETION THAT MUSLIMS MADE WAS THAT OF ALLAH! Most Muslims were,are and will b peabrained barbarians forever incapable of any positive contribution towards human civilization...
Vikrant:
Perhaps you and Bill the Crusader should get together and share your medications. I should have realized - never try a bit of parody with someone lacking the intelligence to understand it.
Just a suggestion, please avoid Monty Python or P.J. O'Rourke as I'm afraid they are beyond your grasp. Stick with the Three Stooges - you should understand their humour.
Hugh, thanks for being on the ball and doing a search for us. Sometimes I forget that not every reader is familiar with every story...I feel like we've been with the Mufti so long, I know him better than my own kin. I just put in a link to one of the many stories on him archived here that has a nifty picture to boot.
Love to all,
Rebecca
Not only does the au mufti claim that australia was originally muslim land so apparently does the incredibly gullible au pm alexander downer. If anyone cares just go to… http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/2004/040823_aus_cscap.html
australia’s government didn’t have a thing to do with the rescue of their own citizen held hostage and neither did their stupid sheik or the au military. australia can’t even get schapelle corby freed from the islamic hellhole of indonesia.
PS: australia is the worst producer of global warming greenhouse gases in the world.
PSS: Why do the empty suits in government positions continue to sell out the people? If this doesn’t stop soon there is going to be a huge pendulum swing to the far right which will make bush, blair, howard etc look like kennedy, galloway etc.
Time for the libs to wake up, they better get behind the US effort and stop printing subversive articles and stop being sticks in the mud or else the people are going to react and swing way to the right you stupid f****** morons.
Sheikh Taj Aldin Al-Hilali has spent much of the past month in Iraq trying to negotiate the release of the Australian contractor, Douglas Wood........
NICE TRY SHAKE AND BAKE but you had nothing to do with this hostage's escape. You had no pull with the local Jihadist psychos in Iraq. I'm just glad you didn't FUBAR the situation.
Allah FUBAR!!!
Wretchard has an interesting theory over at The Belmont Club.
"Hilaly (or Hilali if you prefer) left Iraq without negotiating any release at all on June 9. Two possibilities emerge. The most likely scenario is that the Sheikh Hilaly was surveilled until the Australian Emergency Response Team (trust Canberra to give a Special Forces unit the name of an ambulance service) felt there was enough info to signal a go-ahead to an Iraqi rescue force."
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
Scroll to The Six Weeks.
Note - may be too complicated for Vikrant_Camberleykar and Billy the Crusader
The despicable Al Hilali, described by FM Downer as an 'asset' in our multi-kulti-society didn't do f*#@k- all in Iraq.
He certainly didn't secure Woods release. I just wonder who paid for his wild-goose chase.
What he most certainly did:
He went there to congratulate his Muslim brothers for the Jihad they are fighting against the US invaders and told them that there are many more Shahids and martyrs in Australia who are just 'dying' to get to Iraq to bomb themselves to the 72 virgins (don't forget the 24 boys) and to send as many US troops to hell in the process.
I think I better get myself another downer...
http://www.terrorists-suck.org/fight/winds_of_jihad.html
http://www.terrorists-suck.org/shoebomber
belmont club has excellent piece on this guy unwittingly helping to find the hostage its the article titled 6 weeks http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
The article from Islamonline overplays the role of Hilali and Downer's comments. They must have taken every positive thing Downer must have ever said about Hilali and stuffed it into this one article. Nothing I've read in other papers or heard on the radio or TV has puffed up Hilali like this. The exception being the leftie rag Sydney Morning Herald which wrote about the importance of Muslims to Australia's national security and economy (LOL!).
Wood was rescued in a gun battle, not released. By Iraqi and American forces. Hilali claimed he had been recently moved to a safe house, whereas CNN quoted Wood as saying he had been in that location for the past 35 days.
Latest thing I read is that Keysar Trad, the mufti's spokesperson is being criticized for "inflating the role" of the mufti, and thereby "jeopardizing" his image. It's obvious that this event was a pathetic attempt to improve the negative image of Muslims in Australia.
As more news comes out, it is clear that Hilali had little, if anything, to do with Wood being free. And it's embarrassing for him and his PR machine. Nobody likes it when somebody tries to take the credit for something they didn't do.
Wood was rescued, it has been reported, during the recent combing operation in Baghdad. Coalition soldres entered an apartment; those holding him explained that he was a "sick relative" but when the soldiers pulled off the bedclothes Wood, bound hand and foot, was discovered. This does not sound as though Al-Hilali deserves any credit.
Why,then, did the ordinarily sensible Alexander Downer praise Al-Hilali? No doubt it was for the purposes of insurance -- insurance that if praised, and another such occasion were to arise, Al-Hilali would once again offer his so-far apparently worthless services. The idea of being grateful to an Australian Muslim for what he should be expected to do in any case, and to feel that one must praise him in order to stay in his good graces, sets a bad precedent. It is Al-Hilali who should be made to feel that what he did was a duty, and had he not done it, it would have gone hard with him and with other Muslims in how they are regarded by Australians -- and that is how he should, in any case, even with this absurd praise, he should continue to be regarded, not least for his previous claims (see the posting about him below).
Weedwackers for allah...
Whats so hard to understand...all this nit picking...it's simple...An old mullahs tale...Allah created the Earth and called it Islam...he looked at his work and called it good. But as it rained and the grasses grew, Islam was looking a little ragged, so Allah created Adamallah, the first muslim, to do janitorial and yardwork around Eden/Islam. Allah was impressed with his prowess with the weedwacker, and said, "man cant live by weedwacking alone, so he rewarded Adam by creating Eve. Eveallah was Allahs second muslim. Soon Adamallah "knew" Eveallah and they had several muslim children. The first born in Islam. Muslims began multiplying. Those evil early muslims (misunderstanders of Islam) were up to no good, so Allah decided to wreck Islam with a flood. He showed the muslim Noahallah how to build a boat. Noahallah gathered muslim animals by the pairs and gathered his muslim relatives for a 40 day boatrip. We are all decendants of Noahallah,
we are all muslims...the planet belongs to Islam.
Allah willing...
Disclaimer: We know this story is fictional because weedwackers were not invented untill 1993, by the then Vice Prez of the US, Algore.
An interesting opinion on this whole saga was that the Wood family deliberately aligned themselves with Hilali as part of a well-orchestrated public relations campaign. They hired a public relations expert, Neil Smail, who told them all what to do and not to do. Examples: that Mrs Wood should lay low to play down Douglas' US links, not to condemn Douglas' captors, and to look like they were working together with the Oz Islamic community, etc.
At best, chumming up with Hilali just delayed any plans for his captors to kill Wood, giving the Iraqis, Americans and Australian military and intelligence teams to rescue the man.
From the Sydney Daily Telegraph, June 17, 2005
Mufti man's video blooper
Doug Wood looked and sounded remarkably healthy in the third and final video released by his captors.
The Daily Telegraph was granted exclusive access to the video footage which was delivered to the Australian embassy on May 29.
It was later shown to the Mufti of Australia, Sheik Tak el-dene Elhilaly, on the strict understanding that he not reveal its existence.
One of his spokesmen did reveal the vital information and placed the entire rescue operation in jeopardy.
The Mufti was read the riot act by the head of the government's hostage response team, Nick Warner, and told that he had endangered Mr Wood's life.
The Mufti made the claims on June 5 through his spokeman and left Iraq soon after.
.........................."
Strange that the SMH has not printed this - too full of fawning letters and articles praising the shiek to notice that there several glaring discrepancies in the story, no doubt.
Sure, Muslims had hand in the rescue of Wood. The Iraqi soldiers supported by the US troops were probably Muslims (maybe a Christian or Mandaean or two as well); and the "tip from the street" probably came from some Muslim Iraqi pissed as Jahannum at having thugs taking up residence nearby, and saw troops in the area as a good excuse to help rid his community of troublemakers.
Next, may all the diseases of the House of Herod the Great infect the kidnappers.
Hugh, horrifying thought, that there could be two Hilalis in Oz. No, they are one and the same. One Hilali is more than enough for one country. But then he's better than that Hook creature the UK is infested with. Marginally better.
Any good words about Hilali in this saga is out of politeness. He's been "thanked for his efforts", that's all. He wasn't some superhero who had Wood released, as some of our media is eager to make us think. Just like when you lose against the other team, they tell you "good effort". Don't read anything else into that. Downer is polite to a tee. It would look petty and nasty to come out and say Hilali had nothing to do with the rescue of Wood. Besides, they've done that themselves ...
Islamic Councils slam Trad's claims
June 17, 2005
THE Australian Federation of Islamic Councils say a spokesman for Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has jeopardised the cleric's standing in the community by inflating the mufti's role in securing Douglas Wood's release and contradicting the Australian government's version of the rescue.
A spokesman for the federation says it's angry with Keysar Trad's claims that the Sheikh had advanced knowledge of Mr Wood's release and that he was dropped off at a safe house rather than rescued in a random military raid.
The federation member says Mr Trad's claims contradict the Australian government's version of events.
Mr Trad has told The Australian newspaper the Sheikh played a key role in Mr Wood's release despite being in Cairo at the time.
Federation president Ameer Ali says Mr Trad does not belong to the leading Islamic body or the influential Lebanese Muslim Association in Sydney.
AAP
Source: http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=3299998
So they were happy to let Trad yap away over the past few weeks, with breathless updates on Wood's imminent release, but have now turned their backs on him as the truth has come out.
Shhhhhh:
All wrong: Hilali went there, got to know all the Jihadi's and promised them all the support they could get from Australia. He then sold all the information (and their names) to the CIA who promtly raided the kidnappers hide-outs and Hilali couldn't be blamed by his Muslim-brothers because he was already in Aegypt...
I swear this is the truth, by Mohammeds beard, by Allahs toenails and by my Jewish grandmothers gold-teeth...
William the Crusader and Vikrant:
You are confusing two different posters, johnb (anti-jihad) and john_b.
You owe johnb (a regular) an apology.
Re the suggestion that Hilaly is responsible for the release of Douglas Wood;
My Response is now, and always was from the first day he became involved in the attempts to secure his release are as follows.
Well at least the Sheik and Douglas Woods' captors are on the same team he should be able to reason with his pals a lot easier than say an Australian SAS officer, I mean he would know exactly where his pals had him locked up, he would not have to go searching all over Iraq looking for him.
Poor Sheik it all came undone when he had to leave Iraq after having achieved NOTHING apart from falsely claiming to have seen Douglas Wood "eye to eye" this LIE later amended to having seen Douglas Wood on a DVD made by his Terrorist Kidnapping pals.
Under instructions from "Tribal elders" he quickly left Iraq and has been floating around the Middle East ever since, because they had heard down the grape vine that he was about to be taken into custody by anti terrorist forces due to his way too "cosy relationship" with Terrorist’s, oops, sorry insurgents? Nope that’s not it either that’s right "Minutemen" that’s right I got it.
Australians were told that he had possibly "torn a Heart- lidge” and was in Egypt receiving the necessary checks. This is his usual fall back position along with been "taken out of context" and "incorrectly translated" whenever the s**t hits the fan, weather it's for criticism of his public praise and justification for the attacks of S11 or been arrested for assaulting police in Australia after a simple traffic matter that soon escalated into gangs of Muslim thugs and hoodlum's surrounding and threatening the life of the officer concerned and requiring rapid back up response from Police reinforcements or in this case him been taken into custody by his "enemies" US Australian & Iraqi Coalition forces.
The fact that he is claiming responsibility for the release of Douglas Wood is, I believe nothing more than the usual MO of this most disgraceful “Holy Man”
As for Prime Minister John Howard thanking him for his “assistance” “role”
what do you think he is going to say? The Prime Minister was ultimately responsible for doing EVERYTHING and saying ANYTHING that could then and God forbid in the future secure the release of an Australian citizen illegally held hostage any where in the world.
Yes we were LUCKY but you make your OWN luck as best you can.
Congratulations US, Iraqi, Australian Coalition forces for the roles they played in his release, and if the Australia hating,Jew hating US hating Hilaly had any part in Douglas Woods’ release then I thank him as well.
Douglas Wood Articles re his initial capture and eventual release.
Douglas Wood :Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly advised to leave Iraq by "tribal elders"
Links for previous post
http://aussie_news_views.typepad.com/aussie_news_views/douglas_wood/index.html