The Cruel Killing of Atwar Bahjat

"The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30."

Atwar Bahjat, one of Iraq’s top TV journalists, was murdered on February 22, 2006. Bahjat condemned violence in Iraq and advocated a unified Iraq.  This made her a target of the insurgency.   A film of the murder was supplied to the Sunday Times in London by a source linked to the Sunni insurgency.  To call it exceptional cruelty doesn’t begin to describe it.

Read this account by HALA JABER of the Sunday Times, who viewed the film presented to the paper and then wrote this piece.   WARNING:  it is a graphic account of the violent death of Bahjat.  Read it.  Be sickened.  Get mad.  Reread it.  THOSE ARE OUR ENEMIES.  They are not "freedom fighters".  They are cold-blooded murderers.

Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.

If “Allahu akbar”, (God is great), then Allah should prove it and take vengeance on these @#%%#%# who did this.  Who murdered Bahjat?  Hala Jaber writes:

Sunni insurgency supporting al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda.  The drill is said to be a popular tool of torture with the Badr Brigade. But beheading is a hallmark of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Sunni Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In remembrance of Atwar Bahjat:

Bahjat’s reporting of terrorist attacks and denunciations of violence to a wide audience across the Middle East made her plenty of enemies among both Shi’ite and Sunni gunmen. Death threats from Sunnis drove her away to Qatar for a spell but she believed her place was in Iraq and she returned to frontline reporting despite the risks.

Bahjat advocated the unity of Iraq and saw her golden locket as a symbol of her belief. She put it with her customary on-air eloquence on the last day of her life: “Whether you are a Sunni, a Shi’ite or a Kurd, there is no difference between Iraqis united in fear for this nation.”

For all the bleeding heart liberals who care so much about Iraqi civilians or dead US troops, if soldiers want to serve to fight this TYPE OF EVIL, this LEVEL OF DEPRAVITY, why on God’s green earth would you try to stop them?

Terrorist thugs count on fear and weak people indisposed to help victims.  "Good men standing by and doing nothing" is how this evil is perpetuated.  By this measurement, all those who oppose or mock the freedom in Iraq, no matter how embryonic freedom there may compare with western freedom, aid and facilitate evil.  This type of torture and mutilation is not new (unfortunately) in Arab and Muslim countries.  If the United States and any other gutsy country has the gonads to try to end this inhumanity, why should it not be supported wholeheartedly by any human being? 

Atwar Bahjat is more of a man than Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, Howard Dean, or Harry Reid will ever be.

Michelle Malkin  California Conservative  Mudville Gazette   Jihad Watch  Little Green Footballs 

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Update on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 at 11:51AM by Amy Proctor

Atwar Bahjat Beheading Video Not Bahjat

The Jawa Report says that the video portraying the murder of Iraqi newswoman Atwar Bahjat is actually a Nepalese man being murdered in 2004 in Iraq by Sunni terrorists:

A gruesome beheading video delivered to the Sunday Times purporting to be of slain journalist Atwar Bahjat is a hoax. On Sunday, May 7th, the Times reported that they had received a low-quality video of Atwar Bahjat being slowly beheaded. That video is now being circulated on the internet as the "Atwar Bahjat" beheading video.

The Jawa Report can reveal that the Times and Halal Jabar, the author of the article, are victims of a hoax. The video actually shows the gruesome murder of a Nepalese man by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna in Iraq from August of 2004. The man was one of 12 victims executed by the terrorist organization—the other 11 were shot (original story, video, and images of 12 Nepalese murdered in Iraq here).

The murder of Atwar Bahjat took place February 22, 2006 after the bombing of the Dome and was shot by terrorists, not beheaded.  This is a photo of her corpse.  It is unclear if the source of the hoax thought the video was that of Atwar Bahjat or if it was purposeful.  Regardless, the family of the Nepalese man must be sickened by the brutality of his execution.

Comments

[Leticia]

My gosh!! This is horrible!! I cannot believe what they did to her! Poor poor woman and I can't even begin to imagine her fear and pain.

And the ignorant liberals want to protect them?!!!!

[chrys]

Thank you Amy.

[Ruth]

God bless her. It shows the depravity of the enemy. I have yet to hear comments about this from the anti-war/anti Bush media machine. Think Cindy Sheeham will congratulate the "freedom fighters?"

[Mwalimu Daudi]

Atwar Bahjat was a heroine - except to the ghouls who run the MSM.

I thank you for bringing this to people's attention. We should shame the MSM into reform - or drive them out of business. Atwar Bahjat should not be forgotten.

[Johnny]

May God rest Atwar's soul.
As horrible as this is, it was 10x as bad under Saddam. Uday and Qusay were more murderous, more cruel, much more prolific, and their tortures were LEGAL. Atwar would not want us to back down now. We must prevail against these cowards by vigilant prosecution of the GWOT. We WILL prevail; there will be a peaceful Iraq someday. And it will be the Iraqi people leading the eforts for peace.

[Al of Alnot]

I was in a war over thirty-five years ago with a primitive enemy who commited such atrocities. They were called communists and the MSN ingnored their victims plight also. Evil must be faced by each generation and I am glad this one has a chance to learn from our past and do better.

[jez]

I'm very taken with this story, i've heard so many cases of journalists being threatened or attacked in Arab countries. Of all freedoms, Freedom of Speech is probably the most important.

But does the Sunday Times not count as the MSM. Is MSM restricted to television?

[Amy Proctor]

Jez, the Sunday Times counts as MSM. I'm going to post a follow up because it seems the story is being called a "hoax". That is, it was the murder of a man (although I've seen the photos, it looks like a topless woman to me) from 2004 by a Sunni terrorist group in Iraq. Atwar Bahjat was murdered the day of the Dome bombings and her abduction and murder is factual, but this particular person appears to not be her.

And Jez, I think I agree with you again. I like it when that happens. Freedom of speech may be the most important freedom any society can have. From it spring other freedoms, like freedom of religion and so on.

More later...

[Chief RZ]

Maybe Cindy could go to Iraq and take her place as the mother of peace amongst the Sunnis !

[Leticia]

Jez,

You are absolutely right! Freedom of speech is very important and a powerful tool if used with decorum and intellect.

I hope her murder will not go unnoticed and may the radicals realize what they are singing about and feel shame for supporting these people who thrive on hate and murder, not to mention torture of innocent people.

[Mwalimu Daudi]

A definition of the MSM? Any "journalist" or "news" organization that claims that there can be no such thing as left-wing bias in journalism. These folks remind me of those who honestly thought apartheid and Jim Crow laws were not discriminatory.

[Johnny]

Mwalimu:
GREAT allegory! That says it all! LOL! Way to go.
;)

[Mwalimu Daudi]

Amy, you may have already seen this, but it fits in well with the theme of courage on this thread:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20474_Ayaan_at_Harvard&only

[Amy Proctor]

Very long, but very interesting! I'll have to finish reading in the morning!

[radar]

One cannot reason with people who have made a pact with evil. They are taught to hate and they act out what they are taught. I suppose it is a small consolation to know that their 72 virgins are actually 72 separate blowtorches burning their flesh for eternity. But no, it really isn't. I am horrified at all these deaths and truly Islam is to blame. Islam is a religion of hatred and revenge and cruel domination.

[Amy Proctor]

Radar, in my studies of Islam I have found a big part of the problem (beside the fact that when Mohammed received his 'revelations' he was either high or having epileptic seizures) is that a large part of Islam is not about the worship of God, but social justice. Moral and personal justice is taken out in the community and there is no separation of payback/justice and social/community life. If an offense is committed by a Sunni against a Shiite, the Shiite publicly retaliate. It's a public system of vengence that is easy to spin out of control, just as it has.

What makes this war on terror so different is that it truly is a Jihad: it is a religious war. The implications of this are being deeply felt throughout the military. This is no longer a war of fighting communists where there's an ideological and political enemy with a red star as his bullseye... its a sneaky low-blow war in which the enemy has a kamikaze mentality and will stop at nothing to kill. And no one is off limits; everyone is a target, even children, civilians, animals.

I wrote an article that outlined some of the differences between Christianity and Islam:

http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/2006/3/20/afghan-christian-rejects-islam.html

"Islam (according to the Koran) teaches:

-Christians and Jews are enemies of Islam.
-The Holy Trinity is a Myth.
-Jesus’ apostles were self-professed Muslims.
-Christians will receive punishment in this life as well as the next.
-Abraham was a Muslim.
-Jesus was never crucified; Jews lied about it and used a proxy in Christ’s stead.
-The virgin birth is true; Mary is esteemed.
-Jesus is only an apostle and prophet, not the Son of God.

Roy Schoeman, a Jew who studied under the most prominent Rabbis in American Judaism and received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School then taught at Harvard, converted from Judaism to Catholicism. In his book Salvation is from the Jews, Schoeman examines a difference between Judaism and Christianity from Islam:

Consider the differences between the depiction of heaven in Islam versus that in Judaism and Christianity. Heaven, by definition, entails the greatest state of perfection that God can give man; it represents the ultimate meaning and goal of man’s existence. In both Judaism and Christianity, the bliss of heaven comes from the pure joy of being in God’s presence; in Islam, it comes from base sensual pleasures—food, drink and sex. Men in heaven are rewarded with 72 beautiful, ever-young virgin "wives", which the Koran describes as "bashful and dark-eyed" (Koran 37:48), "as fair as corals and rubies" (55:58), "loving companions" (56:37), and "high-bosomed virgins" (78:33). They also receive 28 "beardless young boys described as "boys of perpetual freshness; if thou seest them, thou wouldst think them as scattered pearls, dressed in silk and brocade, and embellished with bracelets of silver." (76:10-25)

(Descriptions of the 72 virgins’ physiques get quite graphic and won’t be included in this discourse)

This is an interesting examination for several reasons, not the least of which is the contrast between temporal and eternal life between the religions. In Christianity, martyrs are willing to die and have violence done to them for their belief without rescinding it as a testament to their strength of conviction as well as a comfort in the presence of their Creator which awaits after death; death being subdued by the triumph of Christ over it. In Islam, martyrs are wiling to die to do violence to enemies (i.e., all non-Muslims); their reward is an eternal orgy of carnality. Historically, Christian martyrs have actually perpetuated the faith and caused it to grow; the opposite is true for Islam."

[Amy P]

test...test.....