After several days of inflamed public debate following official confirmation that the United States government tortured suspected terrorists under specific authorization from the Bush administration, the inevitable pushback has begun.  Several reports now suggest that these extreme interrogation techniques had the desired effect, yielding valuable intelligence that saved lives.

The most interesting of these, alas, comes from CNS and is headlined “CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles.”

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) — including the use of waterboarding — caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

[...]

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack — which KSM called the “Second Wave”– planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”

Marc Thiessen, who “served in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House from 2001 to 2009, most recently as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush,” takes to WaPo’s editorial pages to proclaim “The CIA’s Questioning Worked.”

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists “did not make us safer.” This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public — in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media.

[...]

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ” In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

The memo notes that “[i]nterrogations of [Abu] Zubaydah — again, once enhanced techniques were employed — furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda’s ‘organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi’ and identified KSM as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.” This information helped the intelligence community plan the operation that captured KSM. It went on: “Zubaydah and KSM also supplied important information about al-Zarqawi and his network” in Iraq, which helped our operations against al-Qaeda in that country.

Peter Baker’s NYT report, “Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says,” is a bit less exciting.

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.  “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush adminis

[...]

“I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past,” he wrote, “but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.”

[...]

“The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,” Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

The foiled LA attack has long been murmured about (Patrick Frey wrote about it in November 2007, for example).  It’s unclear from these reports how serious the plan was.  Certainly, we have seen reports of numerous “foiled” attacks that, upon closer scrutiny, appeared to be mere fantasies of incompetents.  Then again, we’re talking about the planner of the 9/11 attacks here.

But let’s take at face value that CIA interrogators managed to extract information that foiled a developed, 9/11 style attack, thereby saving, say, 3000 innocent American civilians.   Does that outweigh the moral and legal issues of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times?   I’d say it does.  It’s as close to the “ticking time bomb” scenario as we’re ever likely to get.

[UPDATE: Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Timothy Noah examines the timeline and demonstrates we likely foiled the LA Towers plot months before KSM was captured! This doesn't necessarily obviate any of the other "high value information" but it would undermine the most impressive of the examples offered.]

Blair correctly notes that we may well have gotten this information using legal techniques.  Then again, we might not have.  These guys didn’t break before they were tortured.   Of course, we didn’t try very long if we managed to get in 183 waterboarding sessions during KSM’s first month in U.S. custody.  The most reliable forms of interrogation require establishing trust and can take weeks, if not months.

What we also don’t know is how much damage the fact that the world, including our enemies, know that we were torturing terrorist suspects did.   Blair wrote, “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”   The first clause in that sentence is undeniable; the second is not.

In my recent interview with retired Ambassador Robert Oakley, he observed that, in Pakistan, “We’ve forgotten Rumsfeld’s question: ‘Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing?’ And we probably are. The drones may be killing a lot of Taliban and al Qaeda but they’re alienating the tribesmen we need to win the war.”  Remember all the hostage beheadings, wherein the victims were dressed in Gitmo-style orange jumpsuits?  Would they have occurred had we not done this?  We don’t know.  How many people joined al Qaeda and the Taliban after these incidents became public, convinced that the United States really is as degenerate as the jihadists claimed we were?  We don’t know.

When I was being trained on this issue as a young cadet a quarter century ago, in addition to the legal and moral factors explaining why we must treat captured enemy combatants humanely — even risking our own lives and the accomplishment of our immediate mission to safeguard them — was a practical lesson:  The other guy was a hell of a lot more likely to surrender to you if he expected to be treated well.   Americans were more likely to keep fighting in Vietnam even against overwhelming odds because they knew they enemy would treat them as subhumans, whereas NVA and VC soldiers would surrender to us knowing they’d get three hots and a cot.   Certainly, that proved to be the case in both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq; Saddam’s soldiers couldn’t throw their weapons down fast enough.

That’s not likely to be the case for some time now.

The body of Staff Sergeant Keith Maupin, the American soldier who was captured and murdered nearly four years ago, has finally been officially identified.

Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin’s parents vowed to never let the U.S. Army forget about finding their son. Their efforts included trips to the Pentagon and even meeting with President Bush, but they ended in disappointment Sunday: An Army general told them the remains of Maupin, a soldier who had been listed as missing-captured in Iraq since 2004, had been found.

“My heart sinks, but I know they can’t hurt him anymore,” Keith Maupin said after receiving word about the remains of his son, who went by Matt.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed sympathy to Maupin’s family. “This has been especially difficult for the Maupin family because of not knowing for almost exactly four years. So I want to extend my condolences,” Gates said, speaking to reporters aboard a flight to Denmark.

The Army didn’t say how or where in Iraq his son’s remains were discovered, only that the identification was made with DNA testing, Maupin said. A shirt similar to the one his son was wearing at the time of his disappearance was also found.

[...]

Matt Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, part of the Bartonville, Ill.-based 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed west of Baghdad. A week later, the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing a stunned-looking Maupin wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat, sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles. That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim’s head and not the execution.

The Maupins refused to believe their son was dead. They lobbied hard for the Army to continue listing him as missing-captured, fearing that another designation would undermine efforts to find him. The Pentagon agreed to give the Maupins regular briefings, and Bush met with them when he traveled to Cincinnati.

Keith Maupin said the Army told him soon after his son’s capture that there was only a 50 percent chance he would be found alive. He said he doesn’t hold the Army responsible for his son’s death, but that he did hold the Army responsible for bringing his son home. “I told them when we’d go up to the Pentagon, whether he walks off a plane or is carried off, you’re not going to leave him in Iraq like you did those guys in Vietnam,” Maupin said.

[...]

Four U.S. service members remain missing in Iraq: Capt. Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, has been missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf War; Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old Iraqi-born reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich., was abducted while visiting his Iraqi wife in October 2006 in Baghdad, and Pfc. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez have been missing since May 12.

Honestly, I’ve presumed Maupin has been dead since my 24 June 2008 post SPC Keith M. Maupin Murdered and haven’t given him much thought since. I’m glad that his family finally has closure and hope the same will be true of the other four families.

When I heard this story this morning, I was puzzled by the continual references to him as “Sergeant Maupin,” remembering him as a specialist. This discrepancy is due to an interesting Army policy: Maupin was a mere private first class when he was taken hostage but, “A month after his capture, Maupin was promoted to the rank of specialist. In April 2005, he was promoted to sergeant.” On 3 August 2006, he was promoted to staff sergeant. How so?

“This will keep Staff Sgt. Maupin in line with his peers so that when he returns he’ll have some catching up to do as far as proper schooling goes, but at least he’ll have the rank of his peers, who are now part of the NCO corps,” said Maj. Annmarie Daneker, 88th Regional Readiness Command Public Affairs Office.

Missing after the attack, Maupin was immediately placed in an accountability status referred to as “Duty Status: Whereabouts Unknown.” His status was later changed to “Missing-Captured.”

It’s a nice gesture. One presumes his next of kin was paid his salary, too, until this determination.

UPDATE: From the article that announced his promotion to SSG: “Maupin remains entitled to rights and privileges for pay and promotions as long as he remains on active-duty status. His basic monthly pay continues to go into an account Maupin set up before deploying. “

A few years back, the horrific videos of Islamic terrorists sawing off the heads of kidnapped hostages on video had the Internet abuzz. Eventually, though, the tactic lost its shock value and it seemed to backfire, causing disgust among the Muslim populations who had otherwise been sympathetic to the Islamist cause.

Indeed, there were so many that I’d forgotten the names of most of the victims, even those about whom I’d posted at the time. Nick Berg. Kim Sun-il. Keith Maupin. Raja Azad and Sajad Naeem. Murat Yuce. Paul Johnson. Georgi Lazov and Ivaylo Kepov. Three unnamed Turkish hostages. Eugene Armstrong. Jack Hensley. Barea Nafea Dawoud Ibrahim. Three unnamed members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Twelve Nepalese hostages. Jamal Tewefic Salman. Mohammed Fawzi Abdaal Mutwalli. Kenneth Bigley. Imad Jabouri. Salvatore Santoro. Margaret Hassan. Shosei Koda. Luqman Hussein and Maher Kemal. Jassim Mohammed Hussein Mahdi. Ronald Schulz. Tom Fox. Four Russian diplomats. Three Iraqi “Wolf Brigade” commandos. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker. Not to mention several hoaxes and dozens of hostages threatened with beheading who were eventually released or rescued. The incidents were so frequent that they became a blur.

Rusty Shackleford now reports on a variation on the theme that will outrage even the most jaded.

How bad are the Taliban? I thought I had seen horrible videos produced by al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamist organizations. I’d seen the depth of their depravity when they beheaded Daniel Pearl. Experienced what I thought was the highest form of righteous indignation possible when they murdered dozens of other hostages. Felt like I knew what wrath was.

None of it even comes close. The images we posted earlier were bad. Add video and sound of a child—a child–slowly hacking away at a man’s head while he lives on…..no words can describe it.

I don’t need to watch snuff films to comprehend the “true face of our enemies” or to understand “why we fight” and “why we must win.” But the video and plenty of photos are available at the link for those otherwise inclined.

A video of American hostage Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie has been released.

A Shiite militant group has issued a video of an Iraqi-American soldier who was kidnapped nearly four months ago while visiting his wife in downtown Baghdad, a U.S. television network reported Wednesday.

The U.S. government has offered a $50,000 reward leading to the recovery of Iraqi-born American Army translator Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich., who was abducted by gunmen on Oct. 23.

The video was broadcast by CNN and it was unclear when it was made. Al-Taayie’s uncle identified him from the video, the network said. The video did not immediately turn up in an Associated Press search of militant Web sites.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said officials were aware of the video and were analyzing a copy of it to ascertain its authenticity.

Rusty Shackleford has obtained the video and placed it at Google:

Rusty reports,

Right after Altaie was captured by forces allegedly tied to the Mahdi Army, a relative contacted The Jawa Report. I won’t identify her out of respect for what she is going through, but she was depressed that the media had written her relative off and wrote to ask if we really believed he was still alive. I’m very glad that he is.

Altaie was born in Iraq but immigrated to the United States. Even though he was much older than the average U.S. serviceman, he volunteered right after the Iraq war broke out. He felt it was his duty to help the effort and his native language skills were much needed. Not only that, but here was a chance to serve both his adopted country and the country of his birth.

Since the date of the video is unknown, it’s not conclusive proof that he’s still alive. We join Rusty in hoping for the best.

Al Qaeda has ordered “a series of kidnappings and beheadings” in the UK, David Leppard reports for the Sunday Times.

The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say. As a result police are on standby for multiple attempts by terrorists to kidnap and then behead people across Britain. MI5 is conducting a counter-terrorism surveillance operation to prevent such an attack. The alleged attempt to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier or soldiers in Birmingham was just the first of a series of planned attacks, security sources say.

[...]

One well placed source said: “Cells in the UK have been alerted to carry out this type of attack as opposed to the more sophisticated type of bombing in which you place a large number of volunteers at risk. All you need for a beheading is a bit of courage and a sharp knife.” The order to encourage “low-tech” assassinations is said to follow a review by senior Al-Qaeda planners after an alleged plot to smuggle bombs onto airlines was foiled by police last August.

His colleague, Sean Rayment, reports on the possible source of the intelligence.

Deep inside the heart of the “Green Zone”, the heavily fortified administrative compound in Baghdad, lies one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the war in Iraq. It is a cell from a small and anonymous British Army unit that goes by the deliberately meaningless name of the Joint Support Group (JSG), and it has proved to be one of the Coalition’s most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror. Its members – servicemen and women of all ranks recruited from all three of the Armed Forces – are trained to turn hardened terrorists into coalition spies using methods developed on the mean streets of Ulster during the Troubles, when the Army managed to infiltrate the IRA at almost every level. Since war broke out in Iraq in 2003, they have been responsible for running dozens of Iraqi double agents.

Working alongside the Special Air Service and the American Delta Force as part of the Baghdad-based counter-terrorist unit known as Task Force Black, they have supplied intelligence that has saved hundreds of lives and resulted in some of the most notable successes against the myriad terror groups fighting in Iraq. Only last week, intelligence from the JSG is understood to have led to a series of successful operations against Sunni militia groups in southern Baghdad.

Information obtained by the unit is also understood to have inspired one of the most successful operations carried out by Task Force Black, in November 2005, when SAS snipers shot dead three suicide bombers. The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq up until his death in June last year, followed intelligence obtained by the JSG, as did the rescue of the kidnapped peace campaigner, Norman Kember.

Meanwhile, Nick Britten and Nigel Bunyan of the Telegraph report that, as one might predict, British Muslim leaders are complaining about being “persecuted by the Government” and comparing the current political climate to Nazi Germany.

It seems the Brits are taking the terrorism threat quite seriously and taking reasonable and logical steps. At the same time, they’ve probably been too quick to hype big arrests only to have further investigation prove that the accused were innocent or that the plots were much less sophisticated and grand than at first suspected. One hopes we’re learning from those mistakes.

Kidnapped FOX News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig have been released unharmed.

Two Fox News journalists were released Sunday, nearly two weeks after being seized by militants, ending the longest-running drama involving foreign hostages in the Gaza Strip. American correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig of New Zealand were dropped off at Gaza City’s Beach Hotel, hours after appearing in a video released by their captors. The footage of them in captivity showed both men dressed in beige Arab-style robes, and the kidnappers claimed the journalists had converted to Islam.

They were both in Western-style clothing as they arrived at the hotel, quickly walking through the lobby. A tearful Centanni briefly embraced a Palestinian journalist, and Wiig turned and appeared to yell at Palestinian security guards before they headed upstairs.

Great news indeed.

I was unfamiliar with Wiig before the kidnapping but am willing to wager quite a large sum that Centanni has not converted to Islam.

UPDATE: More from FOX News:

Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said “I’m fine. I’m just so happy to be free.” He said he was so emotional because he was out and alive. “There were times when I thought ‘I’m dead,’ and I’m not,” Centanni said. “I’m fine. I’m so very happy.”

He recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage. “We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to life face down with our handcuffs on,” Centanni said. “Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful.”

Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.

Centanni’s brother, Ken, spoke to FOX News directly after the news was released. “It’s just a tremendous amount of relief, overwhelming relief,” he said.

Some emotional expression is permitted on such occasions, methinks.

Incredibly, to watch the FOX video feed of this story requires sitting through an 18 second ad for a stock trading company beforehand. That seems a wee bit inappropriate under the circumstances.

Rusty Shackleford has strong reason to believe that the group behind the kidnapping of Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wigg are an “al Qaeda 3.0″ group that sees Abu Musab al Zarqawi as a source for inspiration. Given that Zarqawi got on the map by personally beheading hostages on videotape, that’s bad news indeed.

An al Qaeda faction has released a video showing the murder of two soldiers captured June 19. SITE reports:

The Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq issued today, July 10, 2006, a 4:39 minute video that shows the mutilated corpses of the two American soldiers the group stated to have captured on June 19, 2006. The extremely graphic footage is preceded by an audio clip of a past Usama bin Laden speech, and an audio track from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is heard over the scenes in which the Mujahideen display and prod the corpses.

A message introducing the video states that this video is presented as “revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade,” referencing the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family by a group of American soldiers in al-Mahmoudiya

The Jawa Report has the video and numerous still photos. Rusty Shackleford provides the following description:

The two victims, Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, were members of the 101st Airborne division abducted by al Qaeda in Iraq. A third soldier died in the attack.

Their bodies were later recovered not far from where they had been kidnapped. The US military now says that their corpses were found tied together with a bomb between them. Three roadside bombs were planted around the bodies. The bodies had been decapitated.

The video bears the logo of al Qaeda in Iraq. Contrary to reports by al Qaeda, the video appears to show that the two soldiers were already dead before at least one of them was beheaded.

After a brief introdcuction with an image and the voice of Osama bin Laden, the video shows the two dead soldiers lying on a bridge. Both are already dead. One of the men has already been beheaded, the other man is dead. An al Qaeda member holds the severed head of one of the dead soldiers. One of the two soldiers appear to have been shot, the other has multiply wounds but appears to have also been hit by an explosive. The video also blurs out one of the dead men’s genitels, apparently al Qaeda believes showing that would be over-the-top. Later, an image of the now dead leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is superimposed over the film. Zarqawi had personally murdered several people by beheading and then released those films on the internet.

The entire video has a voice over of what sounds like Abu Musab al Zaraqawi–but it could be the new al Qaeda leader in Iraq calling Muslims to jihad. A nasheed, or Islamic jihad song, can also be heard in the background.

The photos, as one might imagine, are quite disturbing.

UPDATE: Video is available at dozens of sites including here, here, and here. (Update: Rusty has it, too.)

UPDATE: Hot Air had the video up briefly but Michelle Malkin decided to have it taken down out of respect for the families.

Four Russian diplomats were murdered yesterday by Muslim terrorists.

CNN:

A group linked to al Qaeda said it has killed four Russian diplomats it had held hostage, according to a statement and video on a Web site Sunday. The group — the Mujahedeen Shura Council — said it had beheaded three of the men and shot one to death. A video also posted on the Web site appeared to show one of the men being beheaded, another man already beheaded and a third man being shot in the head. The fourth man did not appear in the video.

Here’s the English language statement from the website:

This is a video showing ” the execution of the Russian diplomats according to Allah’s rule ” , we present it in order to heal breasts of the believing people , and to take revenge of our brothers and sisters suffering from torture , killing and making them homeless by the infidel Russian government , the brothers when they slaughter the enemies of Allah they don’t make any heresy, it is the eternal law of Allah in his book until the Judgment Day, and to be a light that illuminate the glory’s way to the belivers – anywhere and anytime-: [Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him. ] .

And what the mendicancy ’s savants will talk about the prohibition of slaughtering of the infidels etc…, we tell them : This is Allah’s book between us and you, so give us your proof if you are truthful, in spite of the fact that we know in advance you have left it behind , and There is no might and no power but with Allâh.

There are many links given for downloading the video but most, free services, have already taken them down. The exception is http://www.quickdump.com/files/891159547.html which is currently reporting “Too many users are downloading right now….” The file in question is 6.63MB.

[UPDATE: Here's the video.]

via email from Rusty Shackleford, whose site appears to still be down from the DDOS attack it suffered last week.

Here’s a photo via AP:

Meanwhile, Olivier Guitta wonders how the Russians will respond.

Russia has been known for dealing with sometimes excessive force to terrorists. And not only with Chechen rebels.For example, in September 1985 when four Russian diplomats were kidnapped in Beirut by Hezbollah, the then USSR responded in kind by first abducting a family member of an Hezbollah leader and then killing him very very gruesomely. The hostages were given back right away and Russia was never targeted in Lebanon again. Will Russia do the same today?

It wouldn’t surprise me. A violent response to terrorists can be quite effective, although countering terrorism with terrorism (the murder of innocents) is repugnant.

Three cops and an American resident too. But not much press attention. Why? Maybe because it didn’t happen 6000 miles away in Baghdad, but 25 miles away in Rosarito Beach, Baja California Norte (BCN), Mexico (near Tijuana, and in the same municipality/municipo). The LA Times reports

Mexican authorities discovered the decapitated bodies of three police officers and a fourth man Wednesday near an empty lot in the seaside town of Rosarito Beach, about 15 miles south of the border.

The officers had gone missing Tuesday after responding to a report of a kidnapping. Witnesses said that the officers were intercepted by about 100 heavily armed, masked men dressed as Mexican federal agents, said a spokesman for the Baja California state attorney general’s office.

The men’s bodies showed signs of torture. Their heads were found in Tijuana, several miles away. Authorities said the men were the victims of an organized crime hit, the latest in a string of killings or attempted killings of law enforcement officials in Baja California.

Rosarito Beach, a popular weekend destination for Southern Californians, is also a heavily contested transshipment point for drug traffickers.

A mob of about a hundred did this? Torture too? The San Diego Union has a few more details

According to city officials, the abduction took place as two of the officers were investigating a complaint while accompanied by a police officer on leave and a civilian.
It’s not unusual for Mexican police near the border to be targeted by drug groups or for authorities to run across mutilated bodies.

But the level of violence and the rank of some of the officers killed is raising questions about the motive. The assailants took pains to dump the heads in Tijuana while leaving the torsos in Rosarito Beach. All of the men’s bodies showed signs of having been beaten, according to a news release from the state Attorney General’s Office.

According to Rosarito Beach city officials, the three officers are: Ismael Arellano Torres, 36, who had been on work leave because of an injury; Jesús Hernández Ballesteros, 42, who oversaw the commercial police division, which provides protection for businesses; and Benjamín Fabián Ventura, 35, who was a bodyguard for city Public Security Director Valente Montijo Pompa, whose post is similar to that of police chief.

The fourth man was identified by Rosarito Beach city officials as Fernando Avila, 28, of Phoenix. It wasn’t clear if he was a U.S. citizen. He had apparently been visiting Montijo and one of the other officers killed yesterday, said Felipe Hernández Villela, a spokesman for the Rosarito Beach city government.

State investigators said the officers were seized while investigating a report of an abduction.
Rosarito Beach authorities, however, said the incident began when the men attempted to investigate a report of armed men in a rural section of the city called Huahuatay.
….
When the call about the armed men came through, the two active-duty officers set off to investigate in their patrol car, and Arellano and Avila tagged along in a separate car, he said. The men were apparently caught by surprise by about 70 people in 40 cars, according to Rosarito Beach city officials.

“They didn’t know there were such a large number of cars involved,” Hernández said. “Lots of times, you get calls of armed people and you go out there and it turns out to be a drug addict acting disorderly.”

According to a news release from the city of Rosarito Beach, members of the armed group initially identified themselves as federal agents who had come from Mexico City to conduct a special operation. Criminals here often identify themselves as police, but the Mexican Federal Attorney General’s office released a statement saying it wasn’t any of its officers.

This wasn’t in Iraq, and was not conducted by Moslems. I’m not going to argue that this (alone) means we need better border security on the Mexican border because all this happened in Mexico. I did a Google News Search (and Technorati too) and came across the articles quoted above, and only a couple of blogs have mentioned it.

What I do wonder about is the lack of coverage and concern over something next door. Perhaps I’m catching this early in the news cycle, but if this happened in Iraq it would be page one. I guess Mexico is a quagmire. Perhaps these “insurgents” are trying to impact the upcoming Mexican elections on July 2, 2006

My subject line above is not misleading, because there was a similar beheading of 2 policemen by thugs (drugs) in Acapulco last month. However, all this is related to drug importation into the USA and shows the failures of the so-called “war on drugs.” This WAR has created gang violence, which is not something new; Prohibition created similar.

Disclaimer: I’ve stayed in the Rosarito Beach Hotel.

Update: More from the LA Times (and Google only shows 21 related articles so far)

An al Qaeda-linked Iraqi terrorist group released a new hostage beheading video yesterday, presumably in an attempt to regain momentum after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s assassination.

Insurgents signaled the fight is still on after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death, posting an Internet video Saturday showing the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members in revenge for killing Sunnis. The video — as grisly as any the al-Qaida in Iraq leader issued — was clearly designed to quash hopes that the Sunni-dominated insurgency might change tactics by ending attacks on Shiite civilians and institutions, especially the police.

[...]

The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was the defining face of Iraq’s insurgency. His tirades against the nation’s majority Shiites and calls on the once-dominant minority Sunni Arabs to rise up and kill them were matched by the killing of thousands of Shiites in attacks. In contrast, Ansar al-Sunnah has largely refrained from killing civilians. Made up mostly of homegrown Iraqi guerrillas, the group instead has mostly gone after American and Iraqi forces as well as Iraqis and foreigners employed by the U.S. military.

It was the first known footage of beheadings to be posted by any insurgent group in months, and possibly timed to make clear to the U.S. and Iraqi governments that there will be no change in tactics even though al-Zarqawi is gone. With its gruesome killings and militants chanting “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is Great,” the 15-minute video illustrates the depth of Shiite-Sunni rivalries. It shows three men in military uniform, sitting on the ground with their hands bound behind their backs in a small concrete room with gunmen standing around them.

Under questioning, the men say they are members of the “Wolf Brigade,” a special Iraqi police commando unit that Sunnis accuse of being a front for Shiite militiamen who kill Sunni Arabs. Text in the video says the three were part of a “Shiite death squad” that kidnapped and killed Sunnis at checkpoints south of Baghdad in March and April. It says they were among 10 police commandos captured by Ansar al-Sunnah last month.

A militant off-camera asks them about the incident and other alleged slayings of Sunnis. The men reply in low voices, looking terrified. One mostly stares with his mouth hanging open. “They (the Sunnis) were beheaded by those who took and detained them,” one of the three says. Next the video shows the three captives lying on the ground outdoors. A militant sharpens a knife before he, with the help of others, beheads the men one by one.

At the end of the tape, the group warns Iraqis against joining the security forces: “Otherwise, you will live in terror until we eliminate you and your fate will be in hell.”

That the murders continue is hardly surprising. Still, the terrorists have to be more wary now that Zarqawi has been taken out, especially with news that it was an internal mole that provided the crucial tip-off.

As usual, Ogrish has video and screen capture photos. They are dated June 7, oddly, not “yesterday” (June 9, since the story was posted last night). The announcement Zarqawi was killed came June 8. [Update: Rusty Shackleford thinks the AP story is deliberate spin noting that, “[T]he AP claims the video was posted today and uses the video as evidence that the insurgency will not be stopped because of Zarqawi’s death. However, I have personally known about the video for several days now, but due to time constraints, have not been able to post it.”

He also provides some interesting background:

The Army of Ansar al Sunna is linked to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, but declined to join the umbrella group known as the Shura Council of Iraq that al Qaeda was part of. Zarqawi and al Sunna collaborated on a number of ‘operations’ and even in the production of several videos in which civilians were murdered.

The Army of Ansar al Sunnah is a Salaafist organization with the goal of establlishing a Taliban-like government in Iraq. It branched off of the more well known, but now mostly defunct, Army of Ansar al Islam at the beginning of the U.S. invasion. Ansar al Islam was a Kurdish Salaafist group which fought against the secular Kurds running Northern Iraq. The Kurds have succeeded in nearly eradicating the group.

Obviously, the group’s political objectives are pure fantasy. That doesn’t mean they won’t be able to kill people, however, and get in the news.

UPDATE: In compiling my “Related Posts” list below, which represents only a fraction of OTB’s Hostage Beheadings category archives, I was struck again by how we went from each announcement and video release creating a massive surge of attention to the killings getting so routine that few much cared and, eventually, they ceased because it simply quit providing much propaganda value.

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Related Posts:

Atwar Bahjat Beheading Video a Hoax (Images / Video)
U.S. Hostage Tom Fox Killed in Iraq
Hostage Ronald Schulz Murdered by Terrorists
American Hostage Roy Hallums Rescued in Iraq
Taliban Claims it Has Beheaded Captured American SEAL
Iraqi Security Guard Beheaded
Iraq Group Claims U.S. Soldier Hostage (G.I. Joe Hoax)
Iraqi Candidate Killed on Videotape
Terrorists Behead Iraqi Soldier in Ramadi
Italian Hostage Salvatore Santoro Murdered
Iraqi Police Colonel Imad Jabouri Beheaded
U.S. Finds ‘Atrocity Sites’ in Fallujah
Video: Army of Ansar al-Sunnah Beheads Two More in Mosul
Video: Margaret Hassan Murdered
Hostage Slaughterhouses Found in Fallujah
Beheaded Body of Japanese Hostage Found
Video: Kidnapped Turkish Driver Beheaded
Video: Turk and Iraqi Hostages Beheaded
Video: British Hostage Kenneth Bigley Beheaded
Video: Iraqi Barea Nafea Dawoud Ibrahim Beheaded
American Hostage Jack Hensley Beheaded
Video: American Hostage Eugene Armstrong Beheaded
Video: Three Turkish Hostages Killed
Twelve Nepalese Beheaded or Shot
Alleged CIA Agent Beheaded
Video: Egyptian Man Beheaded
Report: CIA Agent Beheaded on Video
Video: Turkish Hostage Murdered
Video: Pakistani Hostages Executed
Bulgarian Beheading Photo
Saudis Raid Al Qaeda, Find Paul Johnson’s Head
Paul Johnson Beheading Video Released
Bulgarian Hostage Murdered on Video
Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun Beheaded, Terrorists Claim
SPC Keith M. Maupin Murdered
Kim Sun-il Beheading Video
Nick Berg

Michael Berg, whose son Nicholas was the first man beheaded on video by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said today that Zarqawi’s death is a tragedy and President Bush is a bigger terrorist.

The father of Nicholas Berg, a U.S. contractor believed to have been beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, said Thursday that al-Zarqawi’s killing will only perpetuate the cycle of violence in the Middle East. “I think al-Zarqawi’s death is a double tragedy,” Michael Berg told The Associated Press after learning a U.S. airstrike had killed the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. “His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge.”

Al-Zarqawi is believed to have beheaded two American civilians in 2004: Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old businessman from West Chester, Pa., and Eugene Armstrong, a 52-year-old contractor from Hillsdale, Mich. Jack Hensley, a 48-year-old engineer from Marietta, Ga., was abducted at the same time as Armstrong and also killed.

Armstrong’s family did not want to discuss al-Zarqawi. “An evil man is dead, and what more can you say?” said family spokeswoman Cyndi Armstrong, the wife of the slain contractor’s cousin.

Michael Berg, a pacifist who is running for Delaware’s lone House seat on the Green Party ticket, said al-Zarqawi’s death is likely to foster anti-American resentment among al-Qaida members who feel they have nothing left to lose.

Berg said the blame for most deaths in Iraq should be placed on President Bush, who he said is “more of a terrorist than Zarqawi.” “Zarqawi felt my son’s breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it,” Berg added, pausing to collect himself. “George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist.”

The man’s certifiable, I’m afraid. To say that President Bush is more responsible for the murders committed by terrorists in Iraq than the terrorists themselves requires a moral perspective I never encountered in my college philosophy and political theory courses.

Sadly, he was joined by the usual suspects on the Loony Left.

Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.

“This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer” for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. “Iraq is still a mess — get out.”

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of “a growing anti-American insurgency” and that it’s time to get out. “We’re there for all the wrong reasons,” Mr. Kucinich said.

Christopher Hitchens is also having none of it.

Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq’s experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general, in a document of which Weaver (on no evidence) doubts the authenticity, has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads.

He dismisses Berg’s conclusion even though granting his implied premise:

The man’s power was created only by the coalition’s intervention, and his connection to al Qaida was principally opportunistic. On this logic, the original mistake of the United States would have been to invade Afghanistan, thereby forcing Zarqawi to flee his camp outside Herat and repositioning him for a new combat elsewhere. Thus, fighting against al-Qaida is a mistake to begin with: It only encourages them.

Quite.

If we had withdrawn from Iraq already, as the “peace” movement has been demanding, then one of the most revolting criminals of all time would have been able to claim that he forced us to do it. That would have catapulted Iraq into Stone Age collapse and instated a psychopathic killer as the greatest Muslim soldier since Saladin. As it is, the man is ignominiously dead and his dirty connections a lot closer to being fully exposed. This seems like a good day’s work to me.

Exactly right. It just goes to show, as the old recruiting commercials told us, they do more before 9 a.m. than most folks do all day.

Thankfully, Berg, Stark, Kucinich, et. al. are a fringe element.

Officially, Democratic leaders reacted positively to the news and praised the troops that successfully targeted al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq with 500-pound bombs at his safe house 30 miles from Baghdad. “This is a good day for the Iraqi people, the U.S. military and our intelligence community,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Still, it is an election year:

Meanwhile, Democrats sprinkled caveats throughout their praise. “That is good news; he was a dreadful, vicious person,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat. Mr. Conrad added that he hopes the military can get Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, another top al Qaeda leader. “They’re even more important,” he said.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Michigan Democrat, said it was good news but added, “I think we have a long way to go.”

Maybe tomorrow.

Rusty Shackleford reports,

A gruesome beheading video delivered to the Sunday Times proporting 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.

Much more at the link, including gruesome images and video.

One wonders how such hoaxes get into the press. While there have been far too many of these hostage beheadings, there have not been so many as to render them indistinguishable.

John Stevenson collects statements made by the Christian Peacemaker Teams after this morning’s daring rescue by Coalition military personnel from Islamist terrorists who had already murdered one of their fellows.

Their press release does not even mention, let alone thank, the men who risked their lives for their rescue, noting merely their “joy” that their comrades “have been safely released.” Moreover, they state that, the men who were captured, “knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq.”

It turns out, those very occupiers, not Iraqi or international co-workers, saved their asses. And the terrorists who those men are there fighting did the kidnapping and murdered Tom Fox. I suspect they wouldn’t like the interrogation techniques that led to the intel that made their rescue possible, and may be freeing other hostages as we speak, either.

I would quote Colonel Jessup. But why bother?

Update: Richard at Hyscience dubs the CPTs “idiots who purposefully put their own naive arses on the line to essentially give aid and comfort, and provide propaganda, for the Islamist fascists that are murdering innocent Iraqis and blowing up our men and women.” That about sums it up.

The remaining hostages held with the murdered Tom Fox have been rescued in a daring commando operation.

Three Christian peace activists kidnapped last year in Iraq were freed Thursday in an early morning military operation, the British Embassy in Iraq announced. The announcement came two weeks after their colleague and fellow hostage, Tom Fox of Virginia, was shot to death and left on a Baghdad street. The three men rescued Thursday — two Canadians and a Briton — were freed in a planned rescue operation by multi-national forces, a British Embassy spokesman said.

The spokesman said there were no immediate indications that any of the hostages had been injured during their liberation. All underwent a medical check-up afterwards “only as a precaution,” he said.

The three men — Norman Kember, 74, of London; and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada — were kidnapped along with Fox on Nov. 26. They were members of the Christian Peacemakers Teams, a group that is opposed to the war in Iraq and which has criticized the treatment of detainees in U.S. and Iraqi jails.

Great news, indeed.