From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: Of Butchery, Beheading, and Backing Down

� Europe: All Dressed Up For Its Own Funeral | Main | Any Lemon Won't Do �

Of Butchery, Beheading, and Backing Down

May 11, 2004

Quite a day. A few reminders of who and what we're dealing with.

Palestinians paraded through Gaza with what they claimed were body parts from some of the six Israeli soldiers killed in a bomb blast.

Al-Qaeda claims it's behind a videotaped beheading of an American civilian in Iraq.

Meanwhile, pesky Iraqi Shi'ite fundamentalist flame-thrower Muqtada al-Sadr, holed up in Najaf, begins to wonder if the jig is up. Writing from Chicago, at his blog "Iraqi-American," a plugged-in guy who calls himself "Baghdadi" has more:

It is the beginning of the end for Muqtada: I talked with people in Najef today and I heard that the locals in Najef gave Muqtada till Friday to leave the city or they will kill him themselves. I also heard that the coalitions got a petition from 150 Shia leaders to finish Muqtada before the dead lines. The more Muqtada and his people speak the more it is evident that they are thugs who worked for the old regime and they want their jobs back. Their jobs were terrorizing the people of Iraq, stealing from the local population, and making sure Iraq and the Iraqis do not move forward.