PFLP strongly denounces criminal killings of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai

PFLP strongly denounces criminal killings of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai
Aug 052012

Commenting on the criminal assault on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai this evening, Sunday August 5, 2012, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, expressed their strongest condemnation of this heinous crime, which killed at least 13 and wounded a number of Egyptian soldiers. The Front emphasized that Egyptian Arab blood is precious and that the Palestinian people will never forget the thousands of Egyptian martyrs who gave their lives for the Arab cause and Palestinian liberation, whose blood mixed with the martyrs of the Palestinian people.

The Front emphasized that this action is unacceptable to all Palestinians and all Palestinian forces, urging all parties to be accurate in reporting the details of this criminal operation, as the Palestinian people and their struggle will never be involved in such an act. The Front also warned that the only beneficiary of such an action is the state of Israel and its plans for hegemony and control over Sinai, all of Palestine, and the Arab world, and that the Zionist state has as a strong goal undermining any and all relations – particularly improved relations – between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Palestinian people, and fraying the deep ties between the Egyptian and the Palestinian people.

The Front expressed its condolences to the families of the martyrs, the Egyptian people and leadership, and the entire Arab nation for the loss of these martyrs of the Egyptian people.

PFLP leaders: Sinai attacks fit into the Zionist plan

Aug 122012

 Comrade Rabah Muhanna, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, said that the criminal attacks against the Egyptian soldiers in Sinai fit into the Zionist plan, aimed at straining the relationship between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Palestinian people at a memoriaal service for the Egyptian martyrs organized by Palestinian factions in Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians attended the memorial, held at the Red Crescent hall in Gaza City, to express solidarity with the Egyptian people.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, said that the heinous crime committed against Egyptian soldiers in Sinai bears the hallmarks of Zionism and an attempt to disrupt the relationship between the Egyptian and Palestinian people, considering that Egyptians have always stood beside the Palestinian people and supported by all means. Mizher emphasized in an interview with Voice of the People radio that the information and warnings distributed by the Zionist occupation prior to the incident do not indicate that it is innocent, especially as it is always trying to tamper with Arab countries and their relations, and is always trying in every way to place a wedge in Egyptian-Palestinian relations, particularly following the Egyptian revolution and changes that have been to the benefit of the Palestinian people and their cause.

Mizher emphasized that Zionist forces always try to download upon the Palestinian people and the Gaza Strip the responsibility for everything that goes on in the region. He said that the fingers of Zionist intelligence and the Mossad are not far from this terrorist operation, which seeks to drive a wedge, damage relations, and tighten the grip of the siege on our people, and undermine all attempts from Egyptian leadership to lift the siege on the Palestinian people.

He noted that the occupation wants, at this moment, at which time the progress in Egypt promises to lift the siege, to scramble the cards and disrupt progess. He said that a message must be delivered to the Zionist occupation, that the Palestinian people will not be harmed in the Gaza Strip, and the Zionist occupation will not maintain the unjust siege imposed on Gaza by such actions. He expressed his condolences on behalf of the Popular Front to the Egyptian people, leadership and army, noting the great sacrifices made over history by Egyptians for the Palestinian cause.

Asked about the closure of tunnels in Rafah, Mizher pointed out that the reason for the tunnels is to lift the siege on Gaza, saying that our people don’t seek to continue the use of tunnels indefinitely, but that it is an important factor in supporting the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in light of the lack of basic materials in the Strip. The alternative, he pointed out, is to open the Rafah crossing for people and goods, emphasizing that the Egyptian and Palestinian people can work together to end the siege – and then we will not need the tunnels.

இன மதச் சிறுபான்மை மக்களுக்கு எதிராக மேலை நாடுகளில் ஏவப்படும் பாசிசத் தாக்குதல்கள் -1

அமெரிக்கா: சீக்கிய ஆலயப் படுகொலை ஓகஸ்ட் 5 2012



 

Sikh temple shooter was Army veteran: Pentagon AP | 6th August, 2012

WASHINGTON: The gunman who killed six people inside a Sikh temple in the US and was killed in a police shootout was a 40-year-old Army veteran, officials said Monday, and a civil rights group identified him as a “frustrated neo-Nazi” who led a white supremacist band.

Sikh temple holds 1st Sunday service since attack 

Associated Press 12:53 p.m. CDT, August 12, 2012

OAK CREEK, Wis. -- More than 100 people gathered in suburban Milwaukee for the first Sunday prayer service at a Sikh temple since a white supremacist shot and killed six people there before fatally shooting himself.

Women sang hymns as a group lowered a flag pole outside the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. A group of about 50 men and boys unwrapped the orange cloth covering the pole, washed the pole with water and milk and then rewrapped it with a fresh cloth. The group then planned to go inside the temple for more prayers and hymns.

Army veteran Wade Michael Page used a 9 mm pistol Aug. 5 to kill five men, one woman and wound three other people, including a police officer, in an ambush on the temple that took place shortly before a service was to begin. He took his own life after exchanging gunfire with officers, including one he shot nine times.

Indian Sikh men hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against the deadly shooting attack at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, in Jammu, Monday, Aug. 6, 2012.—AP Photo

Page was a 40-year-old Army veteran with a record of minor alcohol-related crimes and spotty employment history. He had performed with several so-called hate rock bands associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups.

Although investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, combed through Page's email and recovered hundreds of pieces of evidence from his home and the temple, they say they may never know for certain what prompted the attack on the temple.

Members began returning Thursday, after the FBI completed its onsite investigation. They replaced carpets and repaired walls damaged by gunfire. A dime-sized, waist-high bullet hole in a door jamb near the main prayer room was left unrepaired as a memorial to those killed. They included three priests and the temple president, president Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, who was shot as he tried to fend off Page with a small knife.

Hundreds more visitors showed up Friday after a memorial service at a nearby high school. They brought flowers and offered their support.

Gunman Kills 6 at a Sikh Temple Near Milwaukee

Allen Fredrickson/Reuters

A vigil in downtown Milwaukee for the dead and the wounded. “Everyone here is thinking this is a hate crime for sure,” said Manjit Singh, who goes to a different temple in the region. “People think we are Muslims.” 

By STEVEN YACCINO, MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and MARC SANTORA

Published: August 5, 2012 NYTimes

OAK CREEK, Wis. — The priests had gathered in the lobby of the sprawling Sikh temple here in suburban Milwaukee, and lunch was being prepared as congregants were arriving for Sunday services.

Instead of worshipers, though, an armed man stepped through the door and started firing.

In an attack that the police said they were treating as “a domestic terrorist-type incident,” the gunman stalked through the temple around 10:30 a.m. Congregants ran for shelter and barricaded themselves in bathrooms and prayer halls, where they made desperate phone calls and sent anguished texts pleading for help as confusion and fear took hold. Witnesses described a scene of chaos and carnage.

Jatinder Mangat, 40, who was on his way to the temple when he heard reports about the shooting, said he had tried to call his uncle, the temple’s president, but reached the head priest, Gurmail Singh, instead. “He was crying. Everyone was screaming,” Mr. Mangat said. “He said that my uncle was shot and was lying on the floor and asked why you guys are not sending an ambulance and police.”

Mr. Singh, he said, had locked himself in a bathroom with four other people, including two children.

Six people were killed and three others were wounded on Sunday at the 17,000-square-foot Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, a city of about 35,000 just south of Milwaukee, officials said.

The gunman’s rampage ended when one of the first police officers to arrive shot and killed him. Another police officer, who tried to aid a victim, was ambushed by the gunman and shot multiple times. He was in critical condition but was expected to survive, the authorities said.

The police did not release any details about the gunman or a possible motive for the shooting, beyond raising the prospect of terrorism. Thomas Ahern, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the killer was a 40-year-old white man.

John Edwards, the police chief in Oak Creek, said at a news conference that weapons had been found at the scene. He said the F.B.I. would lead the investigation.

“This remains an active investigation in its early stages,” Teresa Carlson, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Milwaukee division, said in a statement. “While the F.B.I. is investigating whether this matter might be an act of domestic terrorism, no motive has been determined at this time.”

The shootings reverberated from this small community to Washington and beyond, including India, where the religion was founded and many of the congregants have family ties.

President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, released statements on Sunday expressing sorrow.

“Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the shooting that tragically took so many lives in Wisconsin,” the president said. “At this difficult time, the people of Oak Creek must know that the American people have them in our thoughts and prayers, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded.”

Mr. Romney called the shootings “a senseless act of violence and a tragedy” that he said should never befall any house of worship.

“Our hearts are with the victims, their families and the entire Oak Creek Sikh community,” Mr. Romney said. “We join Americans everywhere in mourning those who lost their lives and in prayer for healing in the difficult days ahead.”

Many members of the close-knit Sikh community here said the attack had shattered their sense of security.

“Everyone here is thinking this is a hate crime for sure,” said Manjit Singh, who goes to a different temple in the region. “People think we are Muslims.”

Though violence against Sikhs in Wisconsin was unheard of before the shooting, many in this community said they had sensed a rise in antipathy since the attacks on Sept. 11 and suspected it was because people mistake them for Muslims. Followers of Sikhism, or Gurmat, a monotheistic faith founded in the 15th century in South Asia, typically do not cut their hair, and men often wear colorful turbans and refrain from cutting their beards.

 

“Most people are so ignorant they don’t know the difference between religions,” said Ravi Chawla, 65, a businesswoman who moved to the region from Pakistan in the 1970s. “Just because they see the turban they think you’re Taliban.”

There are around 314,000 Sikhs in the United States, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives. The temple in Oak Creek, one of two large congregations in the Milwaukee area, was founded in 1997 and has about 400 worshipers.

Threats against Sikh-Americans have become acute enough that in April, Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York and co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Indians and Indian-Americans, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. urging the F.B.I. to collect data on hate crimes committed against them. In the previous year alone, he said in the letter, two Sikh men in a Sacramento suburb were slain, a Sikh temple in Michigan was vandalized, and a Sikh man was beaten in New York.

“The more information our law enforcement agencies have on violence against Sikh-Americans, the more they can do to help prevent these crimes and bring those who commit them to justice,” Mr. Crowley said in a statement at the time.

By Sunday evening, the F.B.I. had cordoned off a street in Cudahy, a town about five miles from the temple, where it was executing a search warrant related to the shooting, Ms. Carlson said at a news conference. “It’s going to be a long night,” she said, declining to give further details. A law enforcement official said some residents on the street had been ordered to leave their homes.

At a news conference, Chief Edwards described a dramatic scene when officers arrived at the temple soon after the first 911 call. After the gunman ambushed the first officer, Chief Edwards said, another police officer exchanged fire with the gunman, bringing him down.

Bradley Wentlandt, the chief of police in nearby Greenfield, said the wounded officer was a 20-year veteran whose actions probably saved many lives.

Four bodies were found inside the temple and three outside, including that of the gunman, Chief Wentlandt said.

Three men with gunshot wounds were admitted to Froedtert Hospital, the Milwaukee region’s main trauma center, said Nalissa Wienke, a spokeswoman for the hospital. One victim had been shot in the head and extremities and another in the abdomen. The third was described as having neck wounds.

There were initially conflicting reports about whether there was more than one gunman and whether hostages had been taken inside the temple. Local news agencies, citing text messages from people inside, reported that two or more gunmen could have been involved.

“The best information is that there was only one gunman,” Chief Edwards said at a news conference.

The shooting came about two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people and wounded nearly 60 in an attack at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

In response to the shooting on Sunday, the police in New York said security was being increased at Sikh temples in the city. “There is no known threat against Sikh temples in New York City; however, the coverage is being put in place out of an abundance of caution,” the New York police said in a statement.

Outside the temple here, friends and relatives were struggling to understand what had happened. Many in the community had contacted friends and family who were in the temple when the violence broke out.

Harpreet Singh, a nephew of the temple president, said his aunt, the president’s wife, was in the kitchen with other women preparing food for services when they heard gunshots.

“She said they heard a bang, bang, bang,” Mr. Singh, 36, said in a telephone interview from the basement of a bowling alley near from the temple, where the police and F.B.I. agents were interviewing survivors.

Mr. Singh, recounting the shooting as told to him by his aunt Satpal Kaleka, said the women had hidden in a nearby pantry. The women escaped, witnessing the gunman’s carnage along the way, he said.

Mr. Singh was on his way to services with his wife, his two children and his parents when the police stopped them outside the parking lot. “There were police cars running into the complex,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, some kid had set off a fire alarm, so we thought something like that had happened.”

People begin gathering at the temple as early as 6:30 a.m. on Sundays, but most arrive around 10:30 or 11 for services, Mr. Singh said. He believed about 30 to 35 people were inside when the shooting began, but had the gunman arrived just 15 minutes later, Mr. Singh said, 100 to 150 people would have been inside. Steven Yaccino reported from Oak Creek, and Michael Schwirtz and Marc Santora from New York. Ray Rivera and Jack Begg contributed reporting from New York.