In an audio recording purportedly made by al-Qaeda-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and found online yesterday, assassination threats are made against Iraq's interim prime minister and it is promised that the fight against "infidels" will continue "until Islamic rule is back on earth."
"As for you [Iyad] Allawi ... the democratically elected prime minister ... you don't know that you have already survived traps we made for you. We promise you that we will continue the game with you until the end," the online recording said.
"We will not get bored until we make you drink from the same glass that Izzadine Saleem tasted," the recording said.
Saleem, a former Governing Council president also known as Abdel-Zahraa Othman, was killed May 18 in a car bombing in Baghdad.
"You [Allawi] are the symbol of evil and the infidel nation; you are the source of all traitors," the recording said.
Allawi heads an interim government that is to take over at the end of June.
"We will carry on our jihad against the Western infidel and the Arab apostate until Islamic rule is back on earth," the voice said.
There was no way to authenticate the recording, but the voice sounded like that of al-Zarqawi.
The Jordanian terror suspect is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda, and groups associated with him have claimed responsibility for a number of bombings and attacks in Iraq, most recently Tuesday's beheading of South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il.
After news of the beheading and the discovery of Kim's body, US forces launched an airstrike in Fallujah on what it said was a safehouse used by followers of al-Zarqawi. Three people were killed and nine wounded in the strike, said a doctor at Fallujah hospital
But on the recording, the voice purported to be al-Zarqawi said he was not in Fallujah.
"I am like a tourist in Iraq. I move around the country staying with my family and brothers," he said.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS