They may really mean it this time
The founder of the jihadist website Jihad Unspun, Beverly Giesbrecht, is a Canadian convert to Islam who now goes by the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar — but her open allegiance to the global jihad didn’t stop jihadists in Pakistan from kidnapping her. Several weeks ago she made a video in which she said that her jihadist captors had set a deadline to behead her by the end of March. Now they’re saying the deadline is tomorrow.
One side says she is a spy, and the other says she is pro-terrorist. Neither is rushing to embrace her. “Taliban threatens to kill Canadian hostage if ransom not paid by Sunday,” from Canwest News Service, April 3 (thanks to TM):
Beverly Giesbrecht, a semi-retired Canadian publishing entrepreneur and convert to Islam, now calling herself Khadija Abdul Qahaar. Government officials in northwest Pakistan are trying to negotiate her release after she was kidnapped with three local guides Tuesday, a Pakistani newspaper says.
Taliban militants who are holding a Canadian woman hostage in Pakistan say they will kill her if their demand for a $2-million ransom is not met by Sunday, according to a report from a Pakistani newspaper.
The latest threat against Khadija Abdul Qahaar was made in a pamphlet circulated in parts of North Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, The International News reported.
Last month, the militants released a video in which the 52-year-old Qahaar pleaded for help, saying her captives planned to behead her if the ransom wasn’t paid.
“Time is very short and my life is going to end,” she said on the video, pointing at a long knife hanging behind her.
The militants set a March 31 deadline, which they later extended to April 3.
They say the new deadline of April 5 is final.
The former West Vancouver resident was kidnapped in November along with three guides while travelling to record video.
Qahaar, who changed her name from Beverly Giesbrecht after converting to Islam in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is the owner and publisher of a controversial pro-Islamic web magazine called Jihad Unspun, which is registered to a West Vancouver address.
Qahaar’s website was criticized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, which flagged it as “a Canadian pro-terrorist website.”
In the new pamphlets, the militants charged that Qahaar was not a journalist but rather a spy sent by the Canadian government.
“Under the Islamic laws, her punishment is death,” the pamphlet reads, according to the newspaper report.
“We once again ask the Pakistan and Canadian governments to accept our demands by April 5, or else we will kill Khadija Abdul Qahaar,” it said….