From AP, with thanks to Rebecca Bynum:
About 500 members of Iraq’s police and army swept through buildings in the Rashid neighborhood along with a “couple hundred” American soldiers, detaining 65 suspected militants, said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division….
In the western town of Qaim, witnesses said insurgents hit the main gates of a U.S. military base with twin suicide car bombs Monday morning. At least three civilians were hospitalized with injuries, said Ammar Fuad, a doctor at the local hospital. U.S. military officials had no immediate comment.
On Sunday, the family of a Pakistani embassy employee kidnapped in Baghdad appealed to his captors to release him, and al-Qaida’s ally in Iraq claimed to have kidnapped and killed a senior police official.
Malik Mohammed Javed, a consular and community affairs employee at Pakistan’s embassy, went missing in Baghdad on Saturday after leaving home to pray at a mosque, officials said Sunday.
The previously unknown Omar bin Khattab group claimed responsibility for his kidnapping, and Javed called the embassy to say his abductors had not harmed him, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement….
Javed’s son appealed to his father’s kidnappers to release him.
“Everyone is crying here,” Bilal Malik, 20, told The Associated Press by telephone Sunday. “My father has done nothing wrong. He was only going to offer his prayers. They are Muslims. They should release our father who is also a Muslim.“
According to Islamic law, Muslims should never kill other Muslims (Qur’an 4:92), but of course, by cooperating with the infidels, this Pakistani Muslim became an apostate in the eyes of the jihadists. Thus he can be killed by the true believers without offending Allah, who, in fact, not only condones, but demands the death of apostates.
The kidnapping comes nine months after insurgents abducted and killed two Pakistanis working for a Kuwaiti company in Iraq. Their abductors had demanded that Pakistan promise not to send any troops to Iraq. Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, has refused to deploy peacekeepers and has urged its citizens to avoid coming here.
Also Sunday, the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed to have kidnapped and killed Najaf police Brig. Gen. Bassem Mohammed Kadhim al-Jazaari while he was visiting Baghdad. “After his confessions, God’s verdict was carried out against him,” said the statement, which could not be independently verified….
Boyohboy, we’re making great progress in Iraq! As Rich Lowry of National Review recently said, this whole war with the global jihadists should be wrapped up “within four years.” Oh yeah, no sweat, piece of cake. Democracy for all by 2009.