Emulating recent jihadi tactics in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Iraqi resistance has targetted a gathering of Sufis for a suicide attack, as well as escalating attacks against Shi'ites.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of Sufi Muslims north of Baghdad June 2, killing 10 and injuring at least 12. The attack took place at a house in the village of Saud, near the northern town of Balad as Sufis gathered for a religious ceremony, Interior Ministry officials said. Ahmed Hamid, a Sufi witness, told the AP: "I was among 50 people inside the tekiya [Sufi gathering place] practicing our rites when the building was hit by a big explosion. Then, there was chaos everywhere and human flesh scattered all over the place."

A suicide bomb tore through a mosque in Kandahar June 1 at the funeral of Mullah Abdul Fayaz, a Muslim cleric who spoke out against the Taliban, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens. Hundreds of mourners were crowded inside the Mullah Abdul Fayaz Mosque in the center of the city when the bomb went off. Kabul's police commander, Gen. Akram Khakrezwal was among the dead. Mullah Fayaz, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead in Kandahar on May 29 by suspected Taliban gunmen--a week after he led a call for people not to support the rebels.

In a second attack west of Kandahar June 1, a bomb exploded on a bridge as a group of Afghan de-miners were driving over it, killing two and wounding five others, said Patrick Fruchet, spokesman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan.

More chilling revelations in the ongoing scandal over abuse at Guantanamo Bay and other US military detention centers...

Gitmo Detainees Say Muslims Were Sold
By Michelle Faul
The Associated Press

Tuesday 31 May 2005

San Juan, Puerto Rico -- They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

A front-page story in the NY Times reveals some details of the secret air fleet the CIA uses to carry out "renditions"--but unfortunately fails to emphasize the global outcry over the practice from human rights groups and even the judiciary in allied countries.

CIA Expanding Terror Battle under Guise of Charter Flights
By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
The New York Times

Tuesday 31 May 2005

Smithfield, NC - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

From Spanish TV ABC.es, Sevilla, May 26:

When I see Bush, he reminds me of Benito

Like the great humorists, who are certainly the most sad, Harold Bloom will never laugh at his own jokes nor betray the effect they produce in their interlocutor. Bloom believes the "United States has gone crazy. I cannot refer to the sitting president in any manner other than Benito Bush. When I see him on television with this rigid grimace on his face he reminds me of Benito. We find ourselves in a demented situation. Some time ago we ceased being a democracy and have been converted into a theocratic plutocracy. Its a very dangerous situation. It gives me the sensation that my compatriots are sleeping. Here we are fulfilling the prophecies of Orwell, but [20] years after they were predicted by Orwell."

Hundreds of Egyptians, many of them women dressed in black, rallied in Cairo May 31 to demand the resignation of Habib al-Adly, the interior minister. Activists said they held the minister responsible for the fact that police stood by last week as supporters of the ruling National Democratic Party assaulted women demonstrators, sexually harassed them and stripped them naked in the street. The attacks took place on the day Egyptians voted on a constitutional amendment to allow the country to hold contested presidential elections for the first time.

Activists from Kefaya, a movement which has been campaigning against a fifth term for President Hosni Mubarak, had congregated in front of the Journalists' Union to protest against the referendum, which they dismiss as a meaningless ploy to deflect pressure for reform. They were set upon when police lines surrounding them parted to allow in several dozen thugs, some carrying sticks. Men and women were assaulted, but the women were singled out for sexual humiliation. Egyptian human rights groups have called on Mubarak, who is also head of the NDP, to investigate the involvement of party officials in the incident.

Much to our dismay, our story by Frank Morales in the current issue of WW4 REPORT, "The Provacateur State: Is the CIA Behind the Iraqi 'Insurgents'?", has been picked up by the neo-Nazi Stormfront, which bills itself as "the first White Nationalist website." Gee, what an honor. Just in case there is the slightest room for doubt, let us make explicitly clear that we despise Stormfront and everything they represent, and wish them total disaster in all their endeavors.

Just four days after the last one, another mosque was hit by a suicide bomber in Pakistan last night. This time the blast, at a Shi'ite mosque in Karachi, killed five and wounded 18. It also sparked a night of violence in which Shi'ites set fire to a KFC outlet, killing six workers trapped inside. A hospital was also ransacked, and a gas station and several vehicles torched, leaving another five dead. Police said intelligence agents suspect the blast was the work of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni militant group with ties to al-Qaeda. More than 100 Pakistanis have been killed in a cycle of attacks between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the past year alone. (Reuters, May 31)