Al-Qaeda Message Takes A Stab At Berlusconi (Bush To Visit)

Rome - Stinging comments directed at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and attributed to al-Qaeda were widely reported in the Italian press on Monday, just days ahead of a visit to Rome by United States President George Bush.

The message, posted on an Internet site and attributed to Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, the head of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, claims responsibility for the bloody weekend siege at a housing complex in the eastern Saudi oil city of Al-Khobar, in which 19 foreigners and three Saudis were killed.

It says: "Among the crusaders killed there was also an Italian, whose throat was slit as a gift for the Italian government and its leader, a little stupid and arrogant, who is proud of his hostility towards Islam and of having sent troops to fight Muslims at wars like in Iraq and other countries."

The Italian, 25-year-old Antonio Amato, had recently been hired as the head cook at the upmarket Oasis housing compound in Al-Khobar. He had his throat slit along with eight other foreigners.

His death came a day after the funeral of Fabrizio Quattrocchi, a contractor who was abducted and killed two weeks ago in Iraq, where Italy has 3 000 troops in the US-led coalition.

Sergio Romano, a former ambassador, wrote in an editorial in the Corriere della Sera daily on Monday: "Whoever used this attack to address threats to the government has very likely followed the news in Italy. He knows that a large section of the political class disapproves of the presence of our troops in Iraq.

"He knows that Bush's visit could provoke hostile demonstrations. He knows that the country was very taxed by the death of Fabrizio Quattroccchi and the soldier Matteo Vanzan, and that mourning for them caused a lot of emotion. And he thinks Italy, more than other countries, is especially vulnerable."

Several radical opposition groups in Italy, which saw up to three million people in the streets of Rome in early 2003 before the war, have announced plans to demonstrate against Bush, and Interior Minsiter Giuseppe Pisanu has said he fears trouble.

The US president, expected on Friday in Rome, has asked for an audience with Pope John Paul II, who opposes the Iraq war.

Bush had to schedule his arrival earlier than planned because the pope is travelling Saturday to Switzerland. The US president will travel on to France for observances of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

"How literal do Muslims in this country interpret cleric Abu Hamza al Masri's teachings?"

I'm sure that you remember the Wahabbi thing... If not, I'll e-mail it to you. Wahabbi is the most violent and thanks to the Saudis, that is the brand most dominant and growing in the U.S. Especially in our prison system.

Radical Muslim Al Masri Fighting U.S. Extradition
By Melissa Charbonneau
White House Correspondent
May 28, 2004

In 2002, CBN News aired an exclusive interview in which Hamza defended violent Jihad.

CBN.com – WASHINGTON - U.S. officials want to extradite a radical Muslim cleric arrested in Great Britain Thursday on terror-related charges.

One-eyed cleric Abu Hamza al Masri, who has a steel hook for a hand that he says was lost during a raid in Afghanistan, is due back in court next week. He is fighting deportation to the United States, after his arrest at his London home on Thursday.

In New York, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft unsealed an 11-count indictment brought by a grand jury against Abu Hamza in April. The maximum sentence for hostage-taking, the charges directed toward Hamza, is the death penalty or life imprisonment. Hamza also faces a maximum sentence of up to 100 years in prison on the additional charges contained in the indictment.

The Egyptian-born cleric faces charges in a 1998 Yemen hostage taking that led to the death of four tourists. He is also charged with conspiracy to provide material support for al Qaeda, for alleged attempts to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon [that sounds like America to me]and for facilitating violence in Afghanistan and providing services to the Taliban.

Hamza was the controversial imam at London's Finsbury Park Mosque, shut down last year by British authorities for Hamza's inflammatory sermons that they said were inciting violence. The mosque is also linked to 9-11 terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, and shoe-bomber suspect Richard Reid.[also U.S. related]

Hamza has denied any involvement with terrorism. In 2002, CBN News aired an exclusive interview in which Hamza defended violent Jihad.

Hamza said, "Jihad, in general, is striving for [the] sake of God to establish his law…on earth, and the backbone of his law is fighting. So every fighting cause of God is Jihad. What are [the] consequences for infidels? If you live in my property, and you don't pay me my rent, then you get out and Jihad is to get you out. This is the property of God. You don't worship him, you get out and how [do] you get out? You get killed."

British officials are making it clear that Hamza won't be extradited unless the U.S. rules out the death penalty. Still, Ashcroft says Hamza's arrest is a warning to those who support America's terrorist enemies, and that America will not rest until the threat they pose is eradicated.

As for other Islamics or Muslims in America, all we have to look to is to The Council on American-Islamic Relations "C.A.I.R." That outfit is running a tight reign on the media to make all their illegal and dangerous plans and "closed-door goings on" in the U.S. look either benign or as if they are "victims of racial profiling" so as to try with everything they have to weaken the Patriot Act and Homeland Security to make them both have to tow some "PC" line and let the terrorists have free reign.

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"It says: "Among the crusaders killed there was also an Italian, whose throat was slit as a gift for the Italian government and its leader, a little stupid and arrogant, who is proud of his hostility towards Islam and of having sent troops to fight Muslims at wars like in Iraq and other countries."