Mick Hartley

On the one hand, Omar at Iraq the Model returns from a short holiday in Northern Iraq:

The people there were celebrating “Nawrouz” or the Kurdish New Year as well as the arrival of the beautiful spring season.

As a matter of fact, I thought that I would be posting from there but the beautiful sceneries and the ton of fun we had didn’t give me the chance to blog anything.

On the other hand, one of the commanders of the Al-Qaeda organization in Iraq outlines its aims:

“Why do we carry out operations in Iraq against the Americans and their collaborators in the military and the police? The goal is:

“1) In order to please Allah, who commanded [to fight the] Jihad and to repel those who attack lives and [women’s] honor and property and to expel them from Iraq – the land of the Caliphs.

“2) In order to redeem the honor of our brothers and the chastity of our sisters and the innocence of our Muslim children, [all of whom] have been ravaged by the Americans and their Shi’ite collaborators in the brigades of treachery [a reference to the Shi’ite Badr Brigades, which is the military wing of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq] and the party of Satan’s mission [a reference to Al-Ja’fari’s Hizb Al-Da’wa party].

“3) In order to make the light of the Caliphate shine once again from Baghdad, the capital of the Caliphate, so that it will spread the light of justice and prosperity around the world, as things used to be in the time of Harun Al-Rashid.

“4) In order to kill those whose character has become impure and who has joined the ranks of the infidels in their fight against the Muslims in Iraq, that is, members of the Iraqi army and the police and spies, who strengthen the Americans and help them to commit crimes and to rape our sisters in the Abu Ghraib prison and other places…”