Terrorist incidents

There have been a series of terrible terrorist incidents that have been carried out recently that should give us pause. The most serious is the current attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, by terrorists of the Somali Al-Shabab organization. About a year ago, after several border attacks and incidents, the Kenyan Army invaded Somalia and flushed out the Al-Shabab rebels from several southern Somali cities. Al-Shabab vowed revenge and this attack is part of that response. As of now the reports are 63 people killed and many injured. At least a dozen heavily armed terrorists were seen entering the Mall and shooting the security guards. Although the Mall is surrounded by the Kenyan Army they are not yet in control of the building. It is reported that an Israeli commando unit is on site to help the Kenyan military. The terrorists chose to attack when there was a children's festival and it is feared that many of the dead are European women and children. This is how cowardly and degenerate are these Muslim extremist terrorists.

In Iraq, the pattern of inter-sectarian attacks continues apace. The latest one was the bombing in several cities of Shia targets, and in Sadr City in Baghdad the toll was over 65 dead. This was one of the deadliest attacks in several years, over 92 were killed throughout Iraq in one day. For how long can this continuous death toll be tolerated. Also in Yemen, another attack by Islamist extremists on an Army barracks left 31 soldiers dead and many injured. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are attempting to take over parts of Yemen in order to establish their own mini-state from which to launch greater operations around the world. In Pakistan, there was another bombing of a Church in Peshawar, part of a nation-wide campaign, that killed ca. 70 worshippers as they exited. The terrorists used a car bomb and two suicide bombers.

In Bat-Yam, Israel, an IDF soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, who worked in a restaurant was lured to the West Bank by a Palestinian co-worker Nadel Amar, who was in Israel illegally. Apparently the Palestinian has a brother who is in prison in Israel for terrorist-related activity. He hoped to use the soldier to exchange for his brother, so he lured him to his village near Kalkilya and there killed him and secreted his body down a well. The police found him and an accomplice very quickly and they are under arrest. Many people are angered by this incident because the Palestinian should not have been employed illegally in an Israeli restaurant and secondly it shows that the rule against Israelis going to the West Bank, especially soldiers, is very serious. Under the guise of friendship Palestinians murder Israelis.

Another shooting incident occured on the West Bank in Hebron yesterday, where after another riot an IDF soldier on guard at a checkpoint was shot dead by a sniper. The city of Hebron was put under lock-down while the IDF searched for the killer.

Finally, an incident in which a group of EU diplomats were involved in the Jordan Valley, when they took a truck loaded with tents and other "humanitarian" material into the West Bank in order to help some Palestinians whose homes had been demolished under a Supreme Court order. It may be that the Palestinians needed help, but to drive a truck into the middle of an ongoing riot and then to take the side of the Palestinians is hardly a diplomatic approach. During the rioting the cameras clearly caught a young French woman diplomat, Marion Castaing, fighting with the Israeli soldiers and hitting one in the face. She was then dragged out of the truck and thrown to the ground. She then claimed that her diplomatic immunity was breached. What hypocrisy, these EU diplomats come here and take a pro-Palestinian position, rather than act as neutral diplomats, and then complain when they are caught in the act. The EU has called for an investigation and Israel has lodged a complaint with the EU that its personnel are active anti-Israel combatants rather than diplomats.