Salim Hamdam was a driver for Osama bin-Laden, and honestly, it was always a bit unclear on just how guilty Hamdam was of anything other than having a monster for an employer. Hamdam served most of his 5 and 1/2 year sentence at Guantanamo, and served the remaining months at a prison in Yemen.
Much stranger than Hamdam was the following case, where three Islamic militants have been accused of trying to collaborate with Israel. The three men that have been charged are Abu al-Ghaith( also known as Bassam al-Haidari), Imad al-Rimi, and Ali al-Mahfal. Is it just me, or are these guys not quite getting the part where they are supposed to hate Israel? I guess the world is in a worse recession than most of us realized, with people trying to cash in like this. The group allegedly contacted Olmert in Israel, and Olmert is said to have welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with the three men.
The three defendants denied all charges, and requested an attorney. And while this all sounds completely nuts, just to top it off was the statement from the Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said that a terrorist cell with links to Israel had been dismantled. This case is reminding me of the idiots that planned to blow up gas lines here in the U.S., but had no actual working idea on just how to do it.
But this is not to say that there are not actual terrorists in Yemen, if anything, Yemen seems to attract them. Another trial is in regard to al-Qaeda itself, as a security court in Yemen charged a group of four with planning to attack tourists and government facilities. Mohammed al-Saadi, Issam Gheilan, Munir al-Bouni, and Osama al-Saadi, a 15 year old, are all charged with planning to attack these targets. What struck me as odd is that part of the reason they were planning the attacks was for revenge, as one of their own, a Hamza al-Kaithi, had been killed by security forces in Yemen.
The court in both the cases above agreed to adjourn the proceedings until January 17, though the second group already admitted to having weapons including a rocket launcher, which seems a bit much to say that it is for “home defense.”
I do so love to hear the outgoing administration talking about how they have defeated the terrorists, well sure they have, if by “defeating” you mean, have no clue where they are actually operating. Which of course reminds me, our embassy in Yemen was attacked by al-Qaeda some months back. But they haven’t attacked us here in the REAL U.S., and if you can ignore the recent data from the RAND corporation regarding how many people the terrorists have killed worldwide in the years since 2001, then of course we defeated them. Just close your eyes really tight, and pretend everything is just fine. And remember, if the terrorists kill someone that isn’t an American, they normally only count as 1/3rd to 1/5th of a person, or 1/10th to 1/100th of a person if it is a country we don’t really know much about.
