Dreams Into Lightning 2

Ramez Harb

Ramez Harb - Wikipedia:

Ramez Harb (? - 2012) was a Palestinian militant and commander. He served as a senior military officer in the resistance organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad's armed wing, al-Quds Brigades, until killed by Israeli forces during the ongoing Operation Pillar of Cloud.

Breitbart:

It is no surprise that the Los Angeles Times harbors an intense hatred for Israel; this is the same newspaper that to this day has suppressed the infamous video of Barack Obama honoring PLO leader Rashid Khalidi. But the lengths to which the Times will go to falsely indict and smear Israel reached another new level on November 20. The Jerusalem Bureau Chief of the Times, Edmund Sanders, wrongly identified Ramez Harb, an Islamic Jihad leader killed last week in an Israeli air strike, as a "Palestinian journalist." ...

CAMERA:

Following communication from CAMERA staff, the Los Angeles Times has clarified a Nov. 20 article by Jerusalem bureau chief Edmund Sanders which wrongly identified Ramez Harb, an Islamic Jihad leader killed last week in an Israeli air strike, as a "Palestinian journalist." The error and correction follow:

Error (Los Angeles Times, Edmund Sanders, 11/20/12): On Monday, Israel attacked the Sharouk communications building in Gaza City where it said four senior members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were meeting.

Among the dead was Ramez Harb, a Palestinian journalist. Israel said he was a legitimate target because he served in the information department of Islamic Jihad.

Correction (11/23/12): Gaza fighting: In the Nov. 20 Section A, an article about attacks by Israel and Hamas referred to Ramez Harb, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip, as a journalist. Although initial reports said Harb worked for a Palestinian news agency, he was a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad. ...

Morning Report: 2012-06-29

Chinese astronauts return home. BBC: 'Jing Haipeng, commander of the Shenzhou-9 crew, was the first to emerge from the return capsule, followed by his flight engineers, Liu Wang and the country's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang. Job well done. But their grin is shared across the whole Chinese nation today. ... The Shenzhou-9 mission posted a series of firsts. Liu Yang's presence in orbit obviously caught the headlines, but I was thinking more about the engineering milestones: the first manned automatic and manual dockings; the first long-duration spaceflight; and the first crew to live aboard a permanently orbiting module, Tiangong-1. ...' Space.com: 'By any measure, Shenzhou 9 — the nation's fourth human spaceflight mission, after efforts in 2003, 2005 and 2008 — appears to have been a big success. The spacecraft docked with the unmanned Tiangong 1 space module by remote control on June 18, and then again on June 24 while being piloted by the taikonauts (as Chinese astronauts are called). ...' The Telegraph has video.

US Ambassador to Kenya quits. 'The U.S. ambassador to Kenya has resigned just over a year after taking up the post, citing differences with Washington over priorities and his style of leadership, an embassy statement said on Friday. Scott Gration's departure came a week after the U.S. embassy warned of a threat of an imminent militant attack in the port city of Mombasa, angering the Kenyan government which said the advisory amounted to "economic sabotage". ...'

Syria: Hamas leader killed in Damascus. Ha'Aretz: 'A Hamas member was killed in Damascus Wednesday night, the French news agency AFP cited a senior official for the organization as saying, adding that Hamas suspected that the Mossad was behind the killing. The official, who spoke anonymously, said that "a group of people entered the home of Kamel Ranaja (also known as Nizar Abu Mujhad), and killed him. According to information that we have gathered, the Mossad is behind the attack." ...'

Abu Yahya al-Libi Gets His Virgins

Long War Journal:

US intelligence officials said they believe that Abu Yahya al Libi, al Qaeda's second in command and a top religious figure and ideologue, was killed in yesterday's drone strike in Pakistan.

Two US intelligence officials involved in the targeting of al Qaeda operatives and other terrorists in Pakistan told The Long War Journal that al Libi is thought to be among 15 people killed in yesterday's strike in Mir Ali in North Waziristan. The officials would not say how they confirmed that al Libi had been killed.

A Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters that his unit "intercepted some conversations between militants" and that "[t]hey were talking about the death of a 'sheikh,'" who is assumed to be al Libi. ...

This Ain't Hell: 'Personally, I wish we’d have executed a “snatch and grab” and asked him a few questions before giving him the opportunity to explain his sins to Allah instead of sending him by Hellfire express. But I guess we can’t have everything.'

MSNBC has more.

Jay Nordlinger: '... But even though al-Qaeda No. 2s have become increasingly easy targets after the death of Osama bin Laden, Libi’s death is a useful victory, as the Times notes, and thus, an important one for the program.'

Ammar Sahib Gets His Virgins

Long War Journal:

Last night Coalition and Afghan special operations forces again targeted the leadership cadre of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan during a raid in the northwestern province of Faryab. The IMU facilitator who was killed in the raid had previously been in Afghan custody for murdering two members of a Provincial Reconstruction Team and two civilians, but spent only six months in jail before being released.

The combined special operations team killed Ammar Sahib, who was also known as Qyamuddin, during a raid in the district of Maimana. The International Security Assistance Force said Ammar Sahib was shot and killed by Afghan soliders after he "confronted them with an AK-47." Two of his associates were detained "and are scheduled to be turned over to National Defense Security officials." ...

Pakistan Taliban Leader Reported Killed

Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike on January 12 in North Waziristan, according to Pakistani officials who cited radio intercepts.

US Kills 70 Taliban

... and loses no one. 'The Oct. 7 and Nov. 8 assaults on Combat Outpost Margah, in remote Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan, came almost exactly a year after one of the biggest pitched battles of the decade-long war. An October 2010 attack on COP Margah by hundreds of Taliban foot soldiers wielding rockets and AK-47s resulted in a lopsided tactical victory for the Americans. More than 90 Taliban died in a counter-barrage of gunfire, helicopter-fired missiles and satellite-guided bombs. As in the recent assaults, no Americans died — though the fighting left deep psychological scars. ...'

Abu Hafs al Shahri Gets His Virgins

Long War Journal:

Abu Hafs al Shahri, whom US intelligence officials have described as al Qaeda's operations chief for Pakistan, has been confirmed killed in the Sept. 11 Predator airstrike in Pakistan's tribal agency of North Waziristan. Shahri, whose real name is Osama Hamud Gharman al Shahri, was listed among the 85-most-wanted terrorists by Saudi Arabia in 2009. ...

Full article at the link.

Bin Laden

Fox has photos and the latest:

A series of photos that a Pakistani security official sold to Reuters reportedly show three dead men lying in pools of blood at Usama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, allegedly unarmed.

Two men were dressed in traditional Pakistani clothing, while another was in a T-shirt. The photos showed the men with blood streaming from their mouths, noses and ears, Reuters reports.

Obama will not release any photos.

Debka takes stock of conflicting versions of the killing.

Bin Laden wife Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, also known as Amal Ahmed al-Sadah is subject of speculation. 'At first the White House said she was used by Osama bin Laden as a human shield and shot dead by U.S. forces who stormed his compound. Then it was said that she was shot in the leg, but not killed, when she “rushed” one of the Navy SEALs. ...'

Obama had to sleep on it. It took him sixteen hours to make up his mind.

Bin Laden's Death

Paul Berman::

The United States adheres to its own theory of history, even if most of us do not like to acknowledge anything of the sort. In our own liberal and democratic theory of history, doctrines like Al Qaeda’s are doomed to defeat. This is because, in our estimation, the mad and fantastical doctrine about resurrecting an ancient caliphate is comparable to other such doctrines that we have encountered during the last century—e.g., the doctrine about resurrecting the Roman Reich in an Aryan version, or the doctrine about resurrecting the ancient Russian peasant communes in the form of a proletarian Soviet civilization. We, the liberals and democrats, believe that doctrines of that sort are merely reactionary protests against the authentic march of progress—reactionary protests that, if we struggle sufficiently against them, can never succeed.

Leon Wieseltier:

The explosion of patriotism in Lafayette Park seemed to me also like a moral expression. For one thing, I was surprised, and delighted in a dark way, to discover that the wound of September 11 was still so fresh, not least for people who were young when the attack occurred: the pressures of American materialism, and of the manic American way of life, upon American collective memory are immense, and not even the two wars that we are fighting abroad, both of them legacies of September 11, seem to have focused American attention for very long on the principles of our conflict with medievalist tyranny. Bin Laden himself no longer posed the threat that a decade ago he did; he was by now mainly a symbol of his evil, a figure whose power was chiefly mythic. But symbols and myths are also real, and the revelers in Lafayette Park had not forgotten the atrocity of a decade ago; and they knew, too, that, whatever the deterrent effect of bin Laden’s destruction, justice had been done. The operation in Abbottabad was an act of revenge, certainly; but no mob had ever appeared at the gates of the White House calling for such revenge. It came only to affirm it when it was done. “Osama bin Gotten,” as one sign said. The kids last night were not bloodthirsty. They were merely aware that we have enemies. There was nothing awry with their feeling that the enemy of their country was their enemy, too.

Remarks. Notice that Wieseltier understands that an "explosion of patriotism" can also be at the same time "a moral expression". Both he and Berman point to the patience of the American people in seeing the pursuit through to its conclusion.

Osama bin Laden is Dead

Just in case you've spent the past 24 hours in a high-walled building with no phone or internet connection, Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

GayPatriot remarks on

how truly American an operation it was, not just in the determination to see it through, but in the fact that leading figures in both political parties played a key part in carrying it out.

In from the Cold reflects:

There is something eminently satisfying about the death of Osama bin Laden. Almost a decade after the terrorist attacks of 9-11, and more than 10 years after the bombing of the USS Cole and our embassies in Africa, the Al Qaida mastermind finally met his fate on Sunday, with a bullet fired from a Navy SEAL. One shot, one very important kill.

And, we should take great pleasure that the world's most wanted fugitive is on the lam no more. Instead, he's now shark food in the Indian Ocean, after a hastily-arranged burial at sea. ...

Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club discusses the element of surprise:

Bill Ardolino has a posted a sketch provided by US government sources showing the layout of Osama Bin Laden’s safe house. It is shaped like a truncated isosceles triangle with one vertex lopped off. The triangular compound was surrounded by high walls. But it was also internally subdivided, like a ship, in order to make it impossible for a landing force to alight directly within it. The living quarters were grouped in a keep, walled off from the rest of the compound by an alley to either side.

It was designed to delay an assault team long enough for reinforcements to arrive. But the SEALs apparently brought the helicopters down into the confined space anyhow. ...

Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal has more details:

The US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is also thought to have resulted in the deaths of his wife and son, US officials said during a White House press briefing today.

Khalid bin Laden, one of Osama's younger sons, and Amal al Ahmed Sadah were reported to be among those killed yesterday during the daring raid by US Navy Seals and CIA operatives on a fortified mansion in an upscale area of Abbottabad in Pakistan, according to John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser. Two of bin Laden's couriers, who have not been named, are also reported to have been killed during the raid. In all 22 people were reported to have been killed or captured.

Little is known about Khalid, who was in his early 20s. He is believed to have been with his father in Afghanistan during the US invasion in late 2001. In January 2010, Khalid issued a letter calling on Iran to release more than 30 of his family members who were under protective custody in Iran. ...

And finally, news of bin Laden's death drew mostly positive reaction in Hollywood.

More to follow.