I still can’t get over the inflammatory article I read yesterday. I e-mailed the editor-in-chief of the paper and complained. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. As somebody who has worked in different newsrooms over the last seven years, trust me when I tell you that feedback has an impact. Also, upon hubby’s suggestion, I translated the article into English for those who couldn’t read it in Arabic. Part of the article is below, the rest is in the extended section of this post.
Al-Banna family in al-Salt received greetings for son Raed’s martyrdom in an Iraqi resistance operation
Al-Banna family in al-Salt organized a martyr’s wedding yesterday for their son Raed Mansur al-Banna who blew himself up in an explosive-laden car that he was driving in Baghdad in al-Hilla on March 1.
The father of the martyr proudly received the well-wishers in the tribe’s reception hall in central Jada in the center of the city of Salt. The story of Raed is similar to that of many youth from the city that left for Jihad across the globe. Raed’s appointment with martyrdom came on March 1, when he blew himself up inside an explosive-laden car that he was driving in al-Hilla in Baghdad that resulted in the killing of over 133 people, the majority of whom were Americans.
Raed left his house three months prior to the incident and told his parents he was going to Saudi to perform al Umra (lesser Haj). Raed had just returned from Umra a few weeks before, as he went to take part in the anti-terrorism course organized by the Saudi government, according to his bother Ahmad Mansur al-Banna.
Raed, who was born in 1973, got his BA degree in Law from Muta University in 1995. During the events of September 11, 2001 he was working in California, said his brother. He noted that this incident [Sept. 11] changed him from a normal guy to a religiously devoted one, who committed himself to praying in the mosque while standing side by side with the Egyptian preacher Wajdi Ghanim in the mosques of California.
The news of his martyrdom came two days after he committed the martyrdom operation when someone claiming to be part of the guys of Aljazeera called Raed’s brother and told him the news of the Raed’s martyrdom along with another person from Jordan named Safwan al-Abbadi. He said Raed had been martyred two days previous in an operation executed by the Iraqi resistance.
The caller said that in order to prove that Raed did the operation he would tell his brother the names of Raed’s relatives and that Raed had traveled to the US and UK and had earned a BA in Law and had worked as a lawyer for three years in Jordan. He also said that Raed had requested a payment of $100 be made to someone that had business dealings with him in the US. But the caller said that they should wait before they announced his martyrdom just to make sure.
Well Nas, your points are certainly understood. But how do you analyze it when the person that blew themselves up was not an Iraqi and when they didn’t blow up any members of the occupation but instead blew up Iraqis — 133 of them — whom I would suppose would be part of the population they are liberating from occupation.
I understand the problems with the occupation and the need for resistance. But it seems — increasingly so in recent months — that the resistance is Sunni Muslims blowing up Shia Muslims. And I’m not sure how many of the Sunni are even from Iraq but rather jihadis inspired on a mission.
Am I wrong in that assessment? Do you regard the actions taken in this case to fall on the acceptable side of the “resistance” line?
My take on suicide bombings…
http://the-dystopian.blogspot.com/2005/03/to-hell-with-suicide-bombers.html
suicide and martyrdom…the lines between them are thin and the labeling depends on which side of the line you stand.
today wars are not like 200 or even 2000 years ago. wars have been disguised and dressed up. back then it was an invasion a battle a conquest, man to man, the loser, the victor and the spoils. today we have “liberation” and “freedom”.
to arabs, to muslims, and to iraqis this is an occupation by a foreign military force. perhaps the strongest that has ever existed in human history. simply, when it comes to blowing yourself up to fight for your country it may be your only option considering you have no army and weapons are rare. your body and your spirit become your only weapon of defence.
Now, if this was 1995 and an iraqi blew himself up in the mall of america we can safely say this is not religiously perscribed in the quran. But when he does it on his own soil to liberate his own land, that’s another story.
I am glad you laughed, Linda.
That was a funny one jareer, only for a sec. though.
Dear Ananyah,
First of all welcome to Mental Mayhem. The paper that published this article is Al-Ghad, ⇒http://www.alghad.jo⇐ which is a fairly new Jordanian daily.
anannyah:
If he committed suicide because he is married..that would be understood !
btw what paper was it?
Wow….how could anyone get married and then blow themselves up? even IF they think its for a good cause and they think they will go directly into paradise (heaven). I mean come onnnnn he is killing innocent people!
I reall yhate sucide bombers and ppl who think it’s something to be proud of. There is no where in the Quran that says ppl must blow themselves up and kill. They think this is jihad?!
No wonder millions of ppl all over the world hate muslims!
Thanks Natasha for translating. NOw i can make an informed comment instead of just encouraging you to boycott them, because we all know how boycotting things is a real hoot for me, other than voting of course. I digress.
From a journalistic perspective, this story has no credibility what so ever. There are no direct quotes. The flow and style of the story looks like it was written for a gossip section, not hard news, even though the topic itself is hard news. I hope this paper’s stories are not all written in this style, but then again im not sure what the style of journalism is when its written in arabic.
but like the conversation that was going on in the previous post, this is sad. I wonder how this guys mother actually feels, to lose her son in such a fashion.