Three Islamic gunmen armed with fully-automatic AK-47s walked into the Paris offices of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo around midday today and opened fire, killing at least twelve people. 10 journalists and two police officers were killed, and another five people were seriously injured. The shooters were picked up by a getaway car driven by a fourth terrorist. The killers then drove to Porte de Pantin in north-east Paris, where they abandoned the first automobile and hijacked another car.
8 February 2006: Charlie Hebdo republishes the Danish Mohammed cartoons, adding its own “It’s a Drag Being Loved By Idiots” cartoon as a commentary on the cartoon controversy.
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“Charlie Hebdo Must Be Veiled!”
7 February 2007: Charlie Hebdo and its’s publication director Philippe Val went on trial before the Correctional Tribunal of Paris
facing accusations by Islamic Organisations of France and the Grand Mosque of Paris that reprinting the cartoons was a violation of French laws prohibiting “publicly slandering a group of people because of their religion.†The charge carried a possible six-month prison sentence and a fine of up to $28,530.
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22 March 2007: Charklie Hebdo & Philippe Val acquitted.
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Translation: “One hundred lashes if you don’t die laughing!”
2 November 2011: Charlie Hebdo intended to commemorate the Islamic victory in the elections in Tunisia by temporarily renaming itself “Sharia Hebdo†and appointing the Prophet Mohammed “guest editor†and putting his portrait again on the cover.
The “Sharia Hebdo†edition had not even appeared, when during the night the paper’s Paris offices were fire-bombed and its web-site attacked and taken down.
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Captions: “Untouchables 2 — Must Not Mock”
Captions: top: “The film which embarrassed the Muslim world.” Mohammed says: “And my buttocks. Do you like my buttocks?” below: “Mohammed a star is born!”
19 September 2012: France closed 20 embassies and Charlie Hebdo’s web-site was shut down and its offices surrounded protectively by riot police after the magazine published its raunchiest Mohammed cartoons yet.
A few sources this morning are linking the recent massacre of school children in Peshawar with the December 7th handover by the Obama Administration to Pakistan of Latif Mehsud, second in command of the Pakistani Taliban.
According to Reuters, only eight days before the Taliban faction known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) brutally massacred over 130 school children in Peshawar Pakistan on Tuesday, Obama released the terror group’s second in command, Latif Mehsud.
U.S. forces captured Latif Mehsud, the former number two commander in Pakistan’s faction of the Taliban, in October 2013, in an operation that angered then Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Mehsud, a Pakistani, and his two guards were secretly flown to Pakistan, two senior Pakistani security officials told Reuters. The U.S. military confirmed it transferred three prisoners to Pakistan’s custody on Saturday, but would not reveal their identities.Taliban terrorist-led attack on Pakistan school leaves at least 141 dead, including 132 children
Taliban: “We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America.†Muslim Terrorists who attacked an army-run school in Peshawar claim it’s retaliation for U.S.-backed efforts to crush a group that’s helped protect al Qaeda.FOX News The horrific attack in Peshawar, carried out by a relatively small number of militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, a Pakistani militant group trying to overthrow the government, also sent dozens of wounded flooding into local hospitals as terrified parents searched for their children.
After thousands of American lives had already been sacrificed to capture known terrorists in the Middle East, Mehsud had finally been apprehended by U.S. forces during an operation in October 2013. Up until Sunday, the convicted terrorist had been held in the Afghanistan prison. But according to officials, he was handed over along with two others to security officials in Islamabad.
“TTP senior commander Latif Mehsud who was arrested was handed over to Pakistani authorities along with his guards,†one Pakistani security official said. “They reached Islamabad.â€
Although the Obama administration could try to claim that the release was due to the fact that the United States will no longer be allowed to keep foreign prisoners in Afghanistan when the mission led by the U.S. ends later this month, there were still other viable options available rather than handing these terrorists over to Pakistan.
In an interesting statement, a U.S. embassy spokesperson commented on the release, referring to the convicted terrorists released by Obama as merely “third-country nationals.â€
You know, just normal everyday guys.
“We’re actually just going through and returning all the third-country nationals detained in Afghanistan to resolve that issue,†the spokeswoman said.
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Or was the attack revenge for Meshud not being released?
On Sunday 07 December President Barack Hussein Obama ordered the release of the second in command of the Pakistani Taliban. Latif Mehsud was transferred from a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan to the Pakistani government.
It is unclear if Mehsud was subsequently released from custody by the Pakistanis or is still incarcerated. The Taliban motive for its attack on the school, which was run by the Pakistani military, is yet unclear. It may have been revenge against the Pakistani government, perhaps because Mehsud remains in jail?
Witnesses said the soldier [standing guard at the Canadian National War Memorial with an unloaded rifle] was gunned down by a man dressed all in black with a scarf over his face.
“I looked out the window and saw a shooter, a man dressed all in black with a kerchief over his nose and mouth and something over his head as well, holding a rifle and shooting an honor guard in front of the cenotaph point-blank, twice,” Tony Zobl, 35, told the Canadian Press news agency.
Zobl said he witnessed the incident from his fourth-floor window directly above the National War Memorial, a 70-foot, arched granite cenotaph, or tomb, with bronze sculptures commemorating World War I.
“The honor guard dropped to the ground, and the shooter kind of raised his arms in triumph holding the rifle,” Zobl said.
Zobl and other witnesses said the gunman then ran up the street toward Parliament Hill, and later entered the main building there, where dozens of shots rang out.
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Kevin Vickers, Canada’s House of Commons’ Sergeant-at-Arms, just after shooting Bibeau.
Canadian MPs barricaded the door of the House of Commons chamber with furniture and hid, while 58-year-old, retired-Mountie Kevin Vickers, who occupies the largely-ceremonial post of Sergeant-at-Arms of the Canadian Commons, went to his office, retrieved a 9mm pistol from his desk, and engaged and killed the gunman.
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Kevin Vickers, understandably, received a hero’s welcome when Parliament opened the following day.
Con Coughlin, in the Telegraph, profiles the al-Qaeda bomb-maker generally regarded as the terrorist most likely to devise a way to evade Western security and bomb a civilian target.
He has been described as the world’s most dangerous terrorist. The ingenious explosive devices designed by Ibrahim al-Asiri explain why intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic have raised fresh concerns about airport security.
The 32-year-old, originally from Saudi Arabia, is a leading figure in the Yemeni-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and has been the brains behind a number of high-profile aircraft bomb plots.
These have included the so-called “underpants bomber†who tried to blow up a plane as it approached Detroit airport on Christmas Day 2009, and the ink cartridge bombs uncovered at Dubai and East Midlands airport the following year.
British explosives experts had examined a consignment of suspect printers without locating the device concealed in one of the ink cartridges, and they were about to be loaded on to a cargo flight to the US when a last-minute tip-off from Dubai, where the authorities had discovered a similar device, averted disaster.
Asiri’s fanaticism is such that he even blew up his own brother, Abdullah, in a failed attempt to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s head of security. Asiri built a device that was concealed in his brother’s rectum and detonated by remote control from a mobile phone. Abdullah was killed instantly, although the Saudi official suffered only minor injuries.
Intelligence officials believe Asiri is now trying to develop a device that will escape detection by even the most sophisticated scanning equipment. His latest technique is to use an explosive known as pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, which has no odour, and therefore foils sniffer dogs and X-ray machines.
Not surprisingly the threat he poses has made him one of Washington’s most high-value targets, with President Barack Obama putting a $5 million (£3 million) price on his head.
Procol Harum, who came to fame with their 1967 single A White Shader of Pale, have been blamed for the horrific kidnapping after people confused them with radical militant group Boko Haram.
Many across the internet have asked why the British progressive rock band would do such a thing and wondered how the hippie groovers had become “terrorists”.
One Twitter user said: “It’s shocking that Procol Harum’s records are still being played on the radio after what they did in Nigeria.”
Another wrote: “Wow! What happened to Procol Harum? Whiter Shade of Pale was a great song, but it doesn’t excuse terrorism.”
Yet despite the controversy, it seems most of the comments are tongue-in-cheek.
But it was reported that an expert with “knowledge of Nigeria” did also make the blunder too, calling Boko Haram “Procol Harum” throughout a radio interview.
This isn’t the first time that the band have been confused with the terrorist organisation.
Last July, vocalist and keyboard player Gary Brooker was forced to clear up the mess between the two groups whena US senator confused them live on Fox News.
Members of Boko Haram burned down churches and attacked a local community.
And Mr Brooker said: “We have had nothing to do with the church burning and bombing of district police headquarters in Northern Nigerian states, or any Nigerian states for that matter.
“You have us mixed up with the Nigerian terrorist organisation, Boko Haram.
“We are Procal Harum, completely different, just the name sounds a bit the same.”
The confusion led to the head of the Nigerian secret service calling for the band’s extradition.
He reportedly said on air: “As part of my investigation I have been listening to the back catalogue of Procal Harum and have to admit I am positively confused. Can somebody please tell me what on earth a ‘fandango’ is?
“We would be interested to start extradition proceedings ASAP.”
Brooker responded to the accusations, saying: “I don’t think Boko Haram have released any progressive rock albums, at least not to my knowledge, so that should prove our innocence.
A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said.
The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is fighting the Shiite-dominated army of the Iraqi government, mostly in Anbar Province. But they are also linked to bomb attacks elsewhere and other fighting that has thrown Iraq deeper into sectarian violence.
Twenty-two ISIS members were killed, and 15 were wounded, in the explosion at the camp, which is in a farming area in the northeastern province of Samara, according to the police and army officials.
The Daily Mail reports that a former Royal Marine, carrying a concealed handgun, happened to be drinking coffee in the Nairobi Mall at the time of the terrorist attack and was able to lend a hand, entering the mall’s interior repeatedly to lead as many as a hundred civilians to safety.
A former marine emerged as a hero of the Nairobi siege yesterday after he was credited with saving up to 100 lives.
The ex soldier was having coffee at the Westgate mall when it was attacked by Islamists on Saturday.
With a gun tucked into his waistband, he was pictured helping two women from the complex.
His story emerged as sporadic gunfire continued to ring out from inside the mall early today as Kenyan security forces battled Al Qaeda-linked terrorists into a fourth day. …
The former soldier is said to have returned to the building on a dozen occasions, despite intense gunfire.
A friend in Nairobi said: ‘What he did was so heroic. He was having coffee with friends when it happened.
‘He went back in 12 times and saved 100 people. Imagine going back in when you knew what was going on inside.’
Sources said the soldier was in the Royal Marine and now lives in Kenyan. He cannot be named for security reasons.
The British military regularly train and operate out of Kenya, and have been involved in tracking UK citizens involved with hardline Islamists in Somalia and Yemen.
Former members work with both the UK and Kenyan governments and security firms across East Africa.
