Somali Pirates Attack U.S. Ship, But Fail to Board

New York based vessel was damaged, but crew was unhurt

Heavily armed Somali pirates attacked a U.S. cargo ship Tuesday, lobbing grenades and firing automatic weapons towards the vessel, but failed to seize the ship before a Navy destroyer showed up to provide assistance.

No one in the 20 man crew was injured during the brazen attack, but the New York based ship was damaged, officials from Liberty Maritime Corporation of Lake Success said in a statement.

"We are grateful and pleased that no one was injured and the crew and the ship are safe," the statement from the Long Island based company said. "We have communicated with the families of the crew to inform them of these developments. We commend the entire crew for its professionalism and poise under fire."

The attack on the Liberty Sun occurred about 300 miles off the coast of Somalia at about 11:30 a.m., U.S. officials told NBC News.

It came just days after U.S. Navy Seals were able to rescue Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates who had taken him hostage after the bandits failed to capture his cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama.

In today's attack, the pirates were not able to board the Liberty Sun despite being heavily armed.

"The pirates pretty much shot up the bridge, but no one was hurt," according to one source. The crew immediately requested assistance from the Navy, which dispatched forces that were able to thwart the pirates. Navy spokesman Captain Jack Hanzlik said the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer, had arrived to the scene at 5:30 p.m. and that the pirates had left.

The crew of the ship barricaded themselves in the engine room as they came under fire and waited for help to arrive, CNN.com reported.

"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets," sailor Thomas Urbik of Illinois, wrote in e-mails to his mother, Katy, according to CNN. "We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. [A] rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out."

"Navy is on the way and helos and ships are coming," the e-mail said. I'll try to send you another message soon. [G]ot to go now. I love you mom and dad and all my brothers and family."

A little more than an hour later, the sailor sent another e-mail to his mother telling her that the Navy had arrived and that the ship and its crew were safe.

"The navy has showed up in full force and we are now under military escort ... all is well. I love you all and thank you for the prayers," Urbik wrote.

Hours before the attack, Urbik had e-mailed his mother saying the U.S. Navy was forcing the vessel to update its position every six hours and that the crew had conducted several drills, where they "secure" themselves in the engine room. "We can do it pretty quick by now," he wrote.

The Liberty Sun was bound for Mombasa, Kenya carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid to African nations, shipping officials said. The vessel will continue to its destination with an escort.

"We want to especially thank the United States Navy for its prompt response to our request for assistance," Liberty said in its statement. "We also wish to thank the U.S. Government for its cooperation in responding to this attack."

Sunday's rescue of Phillips, where three pirates holding the skipper in a lifeboat were shot dead by Navy snipers, has not slowed down the pace of the hijackings.

On Tuesday, pirates seized four ships with a total of 60 hostages. "No one can deter us," one bandit boasted.

"Our latest hijackings are meant to show that no one can deter us from protecting our waters from the enemy because we believe in dying for our land," Omar Dahir Idle told The Associated Press by telephone. "Our guns do not fire water. I am sure we will avenge."

The freed skipper will return home to the United States on Wednesday, after reuniting with his 19-man crew in Mombasa, according to the shipping company Maersk Line Ltd. Phillips had offered himself as a hostage to spare his ship and his men a battle with the armed bandits -- earning the admiration of his men who hailed him as a hero.

It is time to just kill every muslim in the world.

Jailbust rant by fanatic

HATE preacher Anjem Choudary has called on fellow fanatics to free Muslim prisoners held in British and foreign jails.

On a secret recording obtained by The Sun, he rants that it is “only a matter of time” before the flag of Islam flies over Downing Street, the White House and the Kremlin in Moscow.

But he warns that in the struggle: “Some of our brothers will become martyred, some will become injured, others will be captured and tortured.”

Former lawyer Choudary, 47, who lives on state benefits, tells his followers they have “a fahad” — an obligation — to free Muslims from jail. He cites the “sisters” held in London’s Belmarsh and Holloway prisons.

Then, during a speech to a conference entitled Innocent Until Proven Muslim, he names the blind sheik Abdullah Rahman, jailed for life in the United States for plotting a terrorist bombing campaign in New York.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer urged the Home Office to investigate “another outrage from this hideous man”.

This guy is living on UK jizyah. You people of the EU are allowing muslims to move into your countries and out bread you . This is a deliberate act. Wake up idiots. You will soon be a muslim country.

Gaza: Fourth honor killing in a week

Islamic apologists in the West tell us that this practice has nothing to do with Islam, and yet wherever Islamic fervor grows, as in the domains of the "Islamic Resistance Movement," a.k.a Hamas, honor killings seem to increase as well -- and Islamic clerics have led the effort in Jordan to kill attempts in Parliament to stiffen penalties for honor killings.

It's unclear why Maan referes to this as a "so-called 'honor killing.'" Certainly in an objective sense the murder of a child by a parent has nothing to do with honor, but since the perpetrators think that it does, and since the assumption that family honor can be cleansed in this way is widespread in the Islamic world, which is why the practice is broadly tolerated, it is an apt term.

Bethlehem – Ma’an – A woman was killed on Monday morning in the Gaza Strip in the fourth killing related to so-called “family” honor in the last week.

According to information collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), 28-year-old Rihab Al-Hazin, from An-Nusseirat Refugee Camp was killed by her 21-year-old brother, who told police he killed his sister to ‘maintain family honor.’...

Last Thursday, three members of the Olaiwa family were killed in Gaza City. Police found three bodies belonging to Sufian Arafat Olaiwa, 45, his wife, Miriam Al-Majdoub Olaiwa, 30, and their son, Jawhar Sufian Olaiwa, 5, in their houses in the Ash-Shuja’iyya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Each had been shot several times. Later, police arrested three members of the same family.

Yousef Abdul Wahab, Chief of the Police Criminal Investigation Bureau in Gaza, told PCHR that the crimes were related to so-called ‘family honor’.

These killings, PCHR said, are a sign of a resurgence in so-called honor killings. The Center called for these killings to be prosecuted as murders, and for the Palestinian judicial system not to hand out reduced sentences to perpetrators who claim reasons of “family honor.”

You just have to love muslim family values.

Swede sets up terrorist cell in Oregon -- no, wait...

He also just so happens to be of Lebanese origin, is Muslim, and probably doesn't even consider himself "Swedish" in the first place -- but you wouldn't know that if you just read the headline. Along with offering instructions on "how to slit a person's throat with a knife," he "operated at least three websites that contained manuals such as 'The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook' and 'The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook.'" Considering that the word "Mujahid(een)" is prefixed to all his work, perhaps it's best then to think of him as a Mujahid -- Islamic "holy warrior" -- as opposed to a just another Swede doing mischief in Oregon.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jury selection began on Monday in the trial of a Lebanese-born Swedish man accused of helping set up a militant training camp in rural Oregon and operating websites showing how to assemble bombs.

Oussama Abdullah Kassir, 43, who was extradited from the Czech Republic to New York in 2007, faces multiple charges, including supporting terrorism and al Qaeda, by attempting to set up the camp in Bly, Oregon from 1999 to early 2000.

Prosecutors say Kassir and two others involved in the case were followers of Egyptian-born Abu Hamza al-Masri, a one-armed Muslim cleric who is serving a seven-year sentence in Britain for inciting his followers to murder nonbelievers.

James Ujaama, a former community activist in Seattle, has pleaded guilty to trying to help al Qaeda militants and may testify at the trial in Manhattan federal court as part of a plea agreement.

The other suspect in the case, Haroon Rashid Aswat, one of Masri's chief aides, is appealing against extradition to the United States.

Prosecutors say in late 1999 Kassir and Aswat flew from London to New York and then traveled to Oregon to assess the suitability of a property for the camp.

Once there Kassir set up security patrols, helped distribute CD-ROMs with instructions on how to make bombs and poison, and offered instructions in hand-to-hand combat, including how to slit a person's throat with a knife, the indictment said. The camp was never established.

From December 2001 until 2005, Kassir operated at least three websites that contained manuals such as "The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook" and "The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook," according to the indictment.

Kassir has pleaded not guilty to the charges. In a 2007 hearing he described the case as "unjust" and "unfair" and said he has "nothing to do with al Qaeda."

Jury selection could take a week with opening arguments in the case likely next week.

Kassir, who was born in Lebanon but became a Swedish citizen in 1989, was arrested in Prague in 2005 during a layover while traveling from Stockholm to Beirut. Aswat, a British citizen, was arrested in Zambia.

Al-Masri, who also faces charges for helping plot the capture of 16 western hostages in Yemen in 1998, won an interim order in 2008 from the European Court of Human Rights blocking his extradition to the United States.

Al-Masri and Aswat's extradition appeals are pending before the court.

We need to just kill these people.

Sudan's jihadi, genocidal president hails Obama's overtures to the Islamic world

"Our hands remain held out to those who call for peace and justice"

You know something is amiss when a criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court thinks your president is just a swell guy who can be cajoled...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's leader welcomed on Monday "positive signs" sent by U.S. President Barack Obama to the Islamic world, striking a more conciliatory tone toward Washington, seen as an enemy of Khartoum in the past.

"We, our brothers and sisters, are seekers of peace and stability and we do not want our country to live under the shadows of swords and tension," President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said at the opening of the eighth session of parliament.

Don't forget -- or play taqiyya too much -- Bashir: your prophet already declared that "the gates of paradise are under the shadows of swords." In other words, violence and strife are the name of the game if you want to enter Islamic paradise.

"Our hands remain held out to those who call for peace and justice in accordance with the standards of fairness and dignity," he added, echoing a phrase used by Obama in his inauguration address.

"We even welcome the positive signs sent by U.S. President Barack Obama to the Islamic world on more than one occasion."

Washington has had tense relations with the Islamist government of Bashir, who came to power in Africa's largest country in a 1989 coup.

Our president is a muslim plain and simple.

Afghan women just fine with the rape law: "We do not want total freedom. We wanted it to be limited and to be within Islam."

KABUL - As Afghanistan's Parliament debated ways Monday to protect female politicians from assassination, young women attending Kabul University expressed surprise and bewilderment at the debate raging in Canada and Europe over a proposed law that seems to allow men from the Shiite Hazara minority to sexually enslave their wives and imprison them in their homes.

The nearly unanimous view on the campus - arguably the most progressive institution in Afghanistan - was that the West should not involve itself in the country's cultural and religious affairs.

"This is not a good law. Women should be allowed to do what they want," said Hamida Hasani, 18, a Hazara architecture student at Kabul University. She said she was familiar with the controversial legislation, which President Hamid Karzai has pledged to urgently review in the face of strong complaints from western governments.

"But we do not want total freedom. We wanted it to be limited and to be within Islam."

Told of the furor the proposed law has caused in Canada and elsewhere, and about the murder of women's activist and Kandahar provincial council member Sitara Achakzai on Sunday, Hasani said the problem of women's rights in Afghanistan belongs to Afghan woman - no one else.

"They don't know anything about us and our problems," she said. "If they faced what we have faced with hunger and war, they'd realize what is most important to fight for here. Before they come here they should . . . experience our difficulties."...

"NATO is here to fight terror but if you do not protect democracy and human rights we may not end up with terrorism but with extremism, which is just as bad," she said, minutes after condemning Achakzai's murder in Parliament. "If you speak of human rights or women rights in Afghanistan you get accused of having converted to Christianity."...

"This law is not something that Karzai should sign because there must be mutual agreement within a marriage, but what westerners have to realize is that it is much better for us than it was before when the Taliban behaved so badly towards us," said Shapera Azzizulah, 41, a married Tajik Sunni pharmacist who had dropped by for a cup of coffee after picking up a copy of her university degree....

"But westerners want to change Afghanistan for their benefit, not for ours. They have a bad view of our culture. Some of our women imitate their clothes and their ways. Our freedom must come within Islam."...

"If we cannot [reach the] Somali coast, we will kill the infidel"

The single most commonly ignored aspect of the Somali pirates' episode is the fact that the pirates are Islamic jihadists. I discuss this in my upcoming Human Events column, and meanwhile, here is a Jihadi Pirates roundup: "‘3 rounds, 3 dead bodies’: Navy SEALs’ precision volley ended American’s ordeal, but piracy continues," by Scott Wilson, Ann Scott Tyson and Stephanie McCrummen for the Washington Post (via MSNBC), April 14

WASHINGTON - As dusk began to fall Sunday, the Somali pirates holding captain Richard Phillips had grown edgy.

As they bobbed in the ocean near the USS Bainbridge, a Navy destroyer sent to rescue Phillips, the teenage pirates were experiencing withdrawal after days without khat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed in for its stimulant effects. "They were realizing they were in a no-win situation," said a senior U.S. military official. "They were floating around in rough waters, they were tired. . . .

These guys didn't have their chew with them."

After the on-scene commander judged that Phillips's life was suddenly in immediate jeopardy, three shots rang out from the Bainbridge in indistinguishable succession, felling the three pirates in the lifeboat. Bound tightly, Phillips could not move to celebrate the end of his ordeal until Navy SEALs climbed aboard the small craft and set him free. [...]

One sailor, A.T.M. Reza, forced one of the pirates into the engine room, where he stabbed the pirate in the hand. The crew then used the wounded pirate as leverage to force his comrades from the ship.

As part of the negotiations, Phillips agreed to board the lifeboat with the pirates, crew members said. The deal called for him to swim back to the Maersk Alabama once the lifeboat was safely away. The pirates never let him go.

Negotiations

The USS Bainbridge had by then steamed more than 300 miles to arrive on the scene. Aided by FBI agents, the ship's officers communicated with the pirates by radio, eventually persuading them to allow a boat with provisions to approach.

Sometime Thursday, a desperate Phillips jumped from the lifeboat in an attempt to swim to the USS Bainbridge, only to be hauled back on board after the pirates opened fire. From then on, Phillips was tied up.

One pirate radioed the Navy destroyer and demanded to know how far they were from the sanctuary of Somalia's coast.

"Very far," came the reply from the Bainbridge.

"Thank you," the pirate negotiator responded, according to a U.S. military timeline, his politeness masking menace. "If we cannot [reach the] Somali coast, we will kill the infidel."...

So the idiots in the media and even on talk radio do not think pirates are jihadis. According to them they are criminals. They are all muslim terrorists. They are doing exactly what the koran tells them to do. They are supporting the global jihad by taking ships and holding them hostage. They are not selling the people into slavery or taking them as slaves, but their book says that holding them for ransom is just fine.