Al Qaeda: Explosives Expert Among 4 Afghanistan Leaders Killed

The following news item should help set right anyone's mythology that the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere are hurting "poor innocent Arab shepherds" who only want to raise sheep, raise a family, and spread peace throughout the world. May righteous Jews and Americans continue to capture and kill our enemies in al-Qaeda, the civilization-hating Muslim terror network. Via FoxNews:

Al Qaeda confirmed in a Web statement Sunday the death of a senior commander known as a top explosives and poisons expert, who is believed to have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan last week.

The statement said Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other commanders were killed. It did not give details on when or how they were killed, but Pakistani authorities have said they believe al-Masri died in an American airstrike last Monday on a compound near the Afghan border.

Pakistani officials have said six people were killed in that strike, in the country's lawless South Waziristan tribal region.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi, had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States. He is accused of training terrorists to use poisons and explosives, and is believed to have trained homicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

He is also believed to have helped run Al Qaeda's Darunta training camp in eastern Afghanistan, until the camp was abandoned amid the 2001 U.S. invasion of the country. There he is thought to have conducted experiments in chemical and biological weapons, testing materials on dogs.

For more on Al-Masri' s relationship to Osama bin Laden, see this. In addition, although the Weekly Standard incorrectly reported Abu Khaba al-Masri's death in 2006, their article, here, on the criminal legacy of his life is a must read for anyone who wants to know more about the militaristic core of Islam and how it institutionalizes homicide.

One lonely Jew keeps the faith in Afghanistan

Jewish life in Afghanistan. I would enjoy meeting this singular figure, this Jew, this mainstay. I am uncomfortable to read that his wife and two daughters left him alone to live in Israel; perhaps he is too difficult to live with. But his tenacity, his commitment; it is certainly noble and his remarkable permanency and fame in Afghanistan as "the Jew" is much greater than what I have yet been able to live up to. From The Washington Times:

The first question Zebulon Simentov asked his uninvited guest, eyes wide open at the prospect: "Are you Jewish?"

There was a tinge of disappointment when the reply came back negative, but the last Jew standing in Afghanistan didn't miss a beat.

"Humanity is one; religion doesn't matter," he said.

Moments later, a Muslim friend entered the room, unfurled a prayer rug in the corner and bowed toward Mecca. An open box of Manischewitz matzos sat next to an empty bottle of whiskey on a table nearby.

Locals refer to Mr. Simentov, 47, simply as "the Jew." Originally from the western city of Herat, he dons a yarmulke with his shalwar kameez and swears that "half of Kabul" knows him, though probably not for the reasons he would like to think.

His only other co-religionist in the country, Yitzhak Levin, died in January 2005. The pair lived together in the Flower Street synagogue through the Soviet invasion, the civil war and the Taliban regime.

And they grew to hate each other.

Among other antics, they held separate services, had vicious shouting matches that neighbors say could be heard down the street and denounced each other to the Taliban as spies for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

Both received beatings for their trouble.

Mr. Simentov said the fight broke out nearly a decade ago when Jewish elders told him to bring Mr. Levin — more than 20 years his senior — to Israel.

Mr. Levin would not budge, and each man accused the other of wanting to sell the synagogue for profit.

When valuable Torah scrolls disappeared, the blame game resumed until a Taliban court acquitted Mr. Simentov. The Torah was never recovered.

So intense were their subsequent spats that Afghan police suspected Mr. Simentov when Mr. Levin died, until a postmortem examination showed the death was from natural causes.

Now Mr. Simentov lives alone in the crumbling two-story building, where wrought-iron railings in a Star of David motif could use a fresh coat of blue paint and the courtyard garden has gone to waste.

A couple of years back, he paid a visit to the rabbi of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, who gave Mr. Simentov the authority to kill his own animals because no other qualified Jews could be found for hundreds of miles.

This was not always the case, Mr. Simentov said, explaining that there were more than 40,000 at the turn of the 19th century as Persian Jews fled from forced conversions in neighboring Iran.

The establishment of Israel in 1948 and the 1979 Soviet invasion combined to empty the community.

Mr. Simentov said he preferred the communist period and even the Taliban to the current government, which he calls a "mafia regime."

He said he was a successful carpet and antique dealer until state customs "stole" a container full of $40,000 worth of his goods on bogus grounds, leaving him with nothing but the synagogue.

Although Mr. Simentov's wife and two daughters left for Israel years ago, he has no plans of joining them any time soon.

He is concerned that there may be a property dispute with Mr. Levin's son over the synagogue, which is worth a hefty sum for its central location in one of the capital's main commercial districts.

"Go to Israel? What business do I have there?" he said, adding that he doesn't speak Hebrew. "Why should I leave?"

In the courtyard below, Shirgul Amiri, 20, watered a bed of pathetic-looking roses.

He said he comes to the synagogue a couple of days a week at his parents' request to keep Mr. Simentov company, acknowledging that the older man is in a grumpy mood more often than not.

"He drinks a lot and is very impatient," Mr. Amiri said with a laugh. "But if you had brought a bottle of whiskey, he would have been in heaven."

Some proof that Jews and Muslims can get along when detestable blood-thirsty jihadists are not involved.

U.S. Spy Chief: Bin Laden Alive in Pakistan

From U.S. Spy Chief: Bin Laden Alive in Pakistan:

Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden is alive in lawless parts of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said Sunday. McConnell blamed Pakistani President Musharraf's government for allowing al-Qaeda to regroup, but said Musharraf remained a key ally of the U.S. A new report by the U.S. intelligence community last week said al-Qaeda had regrouped in its Pakistani "safe haven'' and was determined to inflict mass casualties through new attacks on the U.S.

Iran Defends Plan to Expel One Million Afghans

From Iran Defends Plan to Expel One Million Afghans:

Iran on Tuesday defended its plan to repatriate one million Afghans living illegally in the Islamic Republic and said 50,000 had been sent home since the campaign was launched. The Afghan government on Sunday called on Iran to suspend the repatriations because the country lacked the resources to resettle them.

Iran Supplying Weapons to Sunni Taliban

From Iran Supplying Weapons to Sunni Taliban:

A shipment of Iranian-made weapons bound for the Taliban was recently captured by allied forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday. The Bush administration has charged that Iran has also been supplying lethal support to Shiite militants in Iraq. According to American intelligence officials, the support to militant groups in Iraq is so systematic that it could not be carried out without the knowledge of senior Iranian officials. "Based on our understanding of the Iranian system and the history of I.R.G.C. [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] operations, the intelligence community assesses that activity this extensive on the part of the Quds Force would not be conducted without approval from top leaders in Iran," a senior intelligence official said this year. The Quds Force is an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards. "We know that there are munitions that were made in Iran that are in Iraq and in Afghanistan," General Pace said Tuesday. "And we know that the Quds Force works for the I.R.G.C."

See also The Quds Force: Lessons Learned

See also Using the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards to Export the Revolution