A report from the US government says that terror attacks worldwide have fallen to the lowest level in 30 years.
The report says that less than half the number of people lost their lives in such attacks last year compared with the year before.
It is not unusual for hard facts to contradict the media-created image of reality, but this surprised even me. This is hardly a fluke for last year only, as the second-best year was the previous one.
Nevertheless, the State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, Cofer Black, said there had been significant progress since the US declared a war on terror in the wake of the 11 September attacks.
So, does this indicate a progress in the war on terror? I would think so.
The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money, documents show.
In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between 1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism. Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.
That doesn't sound right at all.
The same reports allegedly show that Bin Laden is not as rich as previously believed:
As for bin Laden, OFAC wrote that its dealings with Saudi officials and bin Laden's family since 1999 have led it to conclude that the al-Qaida leader did not have a fortune of $300 million or more, as some media reports have suggested.
"He may have had some wealth, but not in this range," OFAC wrote. Instead, OFAC said bin Laden used his status as a "trusted person" from a wealthy Saudi family to collect and distribute charitable funds in the name of radical Islam, essentially underwriting a recruiting and training network that became al-Qaida.
Is that funding now being effectively cut off? I should believe Saudi authorites are finally waking up to smell the explosives and realise this money comes back as suicide bombers.
Saudi blogger Alhamedi (who says he needs to lie low right now) is not very impressed with the Saudi police and its hunt for terrorists, so I guess there are not many reasons to expect more from their treasurers.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--the man cited by the Bush Administration as its strongest evidence of prewar links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and the current ringleader of anti-coalition terrorism in Iraq--may be behind the plot, which would be al Qaeda's first ever attempt to use chemical weapons. The targets included the U.S. Embassy in Amman. Yet as of yesterday, most news organizations hadn't probed the story, if at all, beyond the initial wire-service copy.
It is an Established Fact™ that there was no link whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and terrorists (in the media world, those that only kill Jews don't count as terrorists). Few news sources want to change that perception.
Mullah Krekar, the leader (or, as he insists, former leader) of Kurdic fundamentalist group Ansar al-Islam, and for many years an asylum-holder in Norway, has extended his 15 minutes of fame into absolute parody, just recently by writing an autobiography. Fitting, then, that the latest chapter in the story involves a prank played on the grandfatherly terrorist leader by Norwegian-Pakistani humourist Shabana Rehman (picture), known for challenging taboos in the border zone between Norwegian and Muslim immigrant culture.
On Tuesday night as the debate was winding to a close, Rehman came on stage and said she wanted to carry out a "satiric test" to find out if Mullah Krekar was as strongly fundamentalist as some of his critics believe. When he approached her, she grabbed him and lifted him up in the air.
Krekar, who said that Rehman picked him up by reaching under his buttocks, became furious, grabbed the microphone and began speaking in Norwegian for the first time that evening.
In reaction, Krekar went absolutely ballistic. To a conservative Muslim, being touched, and even lifted, by a woman in public, in front of his wife and family, is an absolute humiliation. Not that this has earned him much sympathy. Despite his lawyer advising against it, Krekar has now reported Rehman to the police for "insult to the body", a rather esoteric crime in our civil code, and one the police routinely reacts to with ignoring it, or in extreme cases a fine..
Mullah Krekar has just attacked a TV2 journalist who tried to photograph him in public. The footage is to be shown on TV tonight. It is Mullah Krekar in all newspapers, all TV channels, all bloody week.
This rounds up the news coverage for Norway for April, the month of jokes.
PS: Speaking of which, the newest joke making the rounds is that the Norwegian Olympic Committee has requested to the IOC that Mullah-lifting becomes an Olympic competition by 2008. We should have a strong team.
PS 2: Oh, even the New York Times (and others) have picked up this story. They have pcitures, too.
PS 3:Bjørn Stærk has his own angle on this story. How the hell do you translate "jentelus" into English anyway? A commenter says it is called "cooties", what little boys are afraid of getting by being touched by girls. It's amazing how fast non-fundamentalist men get over that fear.
Mullah Krekar, 
