Knowing thy enemy.

The excerpts below are cut and pasted from here.


The following are excerpts from the interrogation of captured Iraqi terrorist 'Adnan Elias. Al-Iraqiya TV aired this interrogation on April 21, 2005.

Interviewer: Your name?

'Adnan Elias: 'Adnan Muhammad Elias.

Interviewer: Date of birth?

'Adnan Elias: 1984.

Interviewer: What education do you have?

'Adnan Elias: I got to 4th grade, but I don't know how to read or write.

Interviewer: What do you do for a living?

'Adnan Elias: I clean for the municipality.

Interviewer: To what group do you belong?

'Adnan Elias: The Ansar Al-Sunna, sir.
...
We tied (the policeman) up and blindfolded him, and then threw him into the trunk. Then we went to the house of the Emir. We untied his hands and eyes, and then punished him.

Interviewer: How did you punish him?

'Adnan Elias: We whipped him.

...

Interviewer: You slaughtered him?

'Adnan Elias: Yes, sir. Habib 'Izzat Hamu got the knife. He slaughtered him, and when he was dead, he opened his shirt buttons and cut open his stomach.

Interviewer: Who opened him up?

'Adnan Elias: Muhsin, sir.

Interviewer: When a doctor performs an operation he wears a surgeon's mask over his nose and mouth.

'Adnan Elias: No sir, he didn't wear one.

Interviewer: He didn't wear one?

'Adnan Elias: No sir, he didn't wear one. He cut open his stomach and took stuff out.

Interviewer: What did he take out?

'Adnan Elias: I don't know, his guts.

Interviewer: Weren't you nauseous? Didn't you vomit?

'Adnan Elias: You mean Muhsin?

Interviewer: No, you.

'Adnan Elias: I was standing a little bit aside.

Interviewer: And he didn't vomit or get nauseous?

'Adnan Elias: No, sir.

Interviewer: What is he, Dracula?

'Adnan Elias: Huh?

Interviewer: Go on.

'Adnan Elias: Yes, sir. He opened him up, took stuff out, and put TNT and explosives inside. Then he sewed up his stomach with thick thread.

Interviewer: With thread?

'Adnan Elias: Yes. And a needle. He put the buttons back in place...

Interviewer: He buttoned him up.

'Adnan Elias: Yes, he buttoned him up. We were told to take him in the car near the square in Tel A'far. We threw him there and placed his head back on his shoulders.

Interviewer: My God!

'Adnan Elias: 15 to 30 minutes later they told his family to come and get their son. His father came with two policemen. They picked up the body and made no more than two steps – we were standing far away – Ahmad Sinjar pressed the button.

Interviewer: By remote control.

'Adnan Elias: The body exploded on them, and they died.

Interviewer: So his father and the two policemen died.

'Adnan Elias: Yes sir, and we took off.

End of excerpts.

This is the kind of stuff I think about, when I think about the war in Iraq. I think that we are in a war against a horrible ideology, a horrible and barbarous evil, and that changing the region is the way to stop this evil.