February 17, 2006

Imam in Pakistan Gets Involved Operationally with a Terrorist Action

The distinction between official Islam and a terrorist organization is being challenged by at least one imam in Pakistan:

Cleric: $1 Million to Kill Cartoonist

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistani cleric announced Friday a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, as thousands joined street protests and Denmark temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Police confined the former leader of an Islamic militant group to his home to prevent him from addressing supporters over the cartoons, amid fears he could incite violence, after riots this week killed five people.

Security forces were out in strength, particularly around government offices and Western businesses, as Muslims streamed onto the streets after Friday prayers. More than 200 people were detained, but most gatherings were peaceful.

In neighboring India, police used batons and tear gas to disperse thousands of angry worshippers who rioted in the southern city of Hyderabad. They burned Danish flags, pelted police with stones, and looted shops. Hundreds more protested in Bangladesh.

In the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, prayer leader Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi announced the bounty for killing a cartoonist to about 1,000 people outside the Mohabat Khan mosque.

Qureshi said the mosque and his religious school would give $25,000 and a car, while a local jewelers' association would give another $1 million. No representative of the association was available to confirm it had made the offer.

"This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.

Qureshi claims to be speaking on behalf of all imams: "This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam...". Is he in fact doing so? This would have substantial implications. Let's leave that question pending confirmation via further evidence.

Qureshi appears to believe that as an imam, he's untouchable; he believes that the free world can't treat him as it would any other terrorist leader, since doing so would outrage the Islamists. There are two objections to this:

• The Islamists are already about as outraged as they can get, burning embassies, threatening death to the West, etc. There would be little additional outrage generated were the governments of the free world to treat Qureshi as they would any other terrorist leader.
  
• Qureshi is now involved operationally with the attempted hit; he's financing it, and directing it. This forfeits any claim he might have to protection as a "prayer leader."
  

Like the cartoon protests, this action by Qureshi is a test, to see what the Islamists can get away with without repercussions. As Victor Davis Hanson has discussed, the absence of such repercussions is a prelude to war. It is highly advisable for the free world to identify and impose some repercussions on Qureshi for his action in becoming operationally involved with an attempt to murder a citizen of the free world.

WHITTINGTON, THE MAN SHOT BY CHENEY, SPEAKS TO THE PRESS.

Man shot by Cheney says it was 'accident'

WASHINGTON (AP) - The hunter shot by Vice President Dick Cheney said it "was just an accident" and reassured investigators alcohol was not involved, according a county sheriff's report.

In Texas, Harry Whittington "explained foremost there was no alcohol during the hunt and everyone was wearing the proper hunting attire of blaze orange," reported Kenedy County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Gilberto San Miguel Jr.

...The sheriff's report said Whittington declined the deputies' request to record the interview because he said his voice was raspy. Before a nurse asked the officers to "hurry up so Mr. Whittington could rest," he repeatedly insisted the shooting "was just an accident" and expressed concern that all the media attention would give hunting in Texas a bad image, the report said.

Naturally AP has to put the word "accident" in sneer quotes, in the headline quoted above.