GAZA CITY - "Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal.

The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl.

She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing.

When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance.

For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out.

"The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal.

"We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this."

For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the Israeli occupation forces every time.

Seeing the body of the little angel torn to piece by the assaulting dogs, the two made one final attempt, and it was their last.

They were showered by Israeli bullets before they could reach Shahd's body, joining a long list of more than 920 Palestinians killed by Israel since December 27.

Deliberate

Omran Zayda, a young neighbor, said the Israelis knew very well what they were doing.

"They chased her family and prevented them from reaching to her body, knowing that the dogs would eat it," he said.

"They are not just killing our children, they are intentionally doing so in the most heinous and inhuman ways."

Zayda said words, and even cameras, can not describe the horrific scene.

"You can never imagine what the dogs have done to her innocent body," he said, fighting back his tears.

Many Palestinians insist Shahd was not the first or only such case.

In Jabalya, when Abd Rabu's family was trying to bury three of its dead, the Israeli forces started firing at them, witnesses said.

They then released their dogs at the bodies, deserted by mourners who sought shelter from the Israeli gunfire, they added.

"What happened was awful and unthinkable," Saad Abd Rabu, the deceased uncle, told IOL.

"Our sons died before our eyes and we were even prevented from burying them," he cried.

"The Israelis just released their dogs at their bodies, as even they have not done enough."
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ANSAmed) - MADRID, FEBRUARY 12 - An imam from a small mosque in El Algar (Muria) is wanted by police throughout all of Spain. The man has been accused of sexually abusing minors, according to sources in the judicial system. A report was filed yesterday against the 47-year-old man of Moroccan origin by the parents of five children of a group of 12 who were in a Koran and religion class in the town's mosque, which is 7 kilometres from Cartagena. According to testimony given by the children, the teacher reportedly abused them in a room adjacent to the classroom. The imam has disappeared and an arrest warrant has been issued for the man. The man arrived at the small mosque in El Algar in September as a substitute for the regular imam, who was absent during the period of Ramadan; he then remained there, continuing to teach religion classes. The court of Cartagena, which has imposed judicial secrecy on the case, has called for the Murcia juvenile court to intervene. Regarding the alleged abuse case, the secretary of the Islamic Communities Union of Spain in Murcia, Mohamed Reda el Qady, in statements to the media, said that he is indignant, like any Muslim, Christian or human being, for what has occurred in El Algar. (ANSAmed).
2010-02-12 13:07

Pattani - A Buddhist teacher was shot dead and his body was torched by Muslim insurgents in this southern border province Monday afternoon.

Police said Samrit Phandej, 52, was shot dead on the Karubi-Plong Hoi Road in Buanaera village in Tambon Plong Hoi of Kapho district at 4:30 pm.

Samrit taught at the Ban Bango Yimeng School. He came from Yala's Muang district to teach at the school.

Police said Samrit was riding his motorcycle from the school to return home all alone and was shot by a pillion rider, using an AK-47 assault rifle.

The two insurgents then poured petrol over the teacher's body and set fire before fleeing the scene.

The Nation

BAGHDAD — A woman who veiled her explosives in a black robe struck a column of Shiite pilgrims on the outskirts of Baghdad on Monday in a suicide attack that Iraqi officials had predicted but could not stop.

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Shiites entered Karbala, Iraq, on Monday in an annual pilgrimage banned under Saddam Hussein but resumed after the United States invasion in 2003.
The attack — coming a week after four enormous bombings in Baghdad using vehicles driven by suicide bombers — killed at least 38 people and wounded scores more along a major roadway in an industrial district on the northern edge of Baghdad, according to officials.

The bombing occurred despite what officials had pledged would be intensified security for the annual pilgrimage to Shiite Islam’s holiest shrine in Iraq, underscoring the ability of insurgents to outmaneuver the country’s security forces, seemingly at will.

Two more attacks — one with a grenade, another with a roadside bomb — later struck still more pilgrims in southern Baghdad, wounding 16.

The attacks compounded a sense of insecurity in Baghdad ahead of a parliamentary election in March, which already is inflaming political tensions.

The bomber was able to mingle among pilgrims, evidently unsearched, before detonating what officials described as a vest or belt of explosives.

The force of the blast and shrapnel cut through a crowd near a tent that had been erected, like thousands of others across the country, to provide shelter, food and water for pilgrims making their way to Karbala to commemorate Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

One man who was wounded, Aqil Jassim, spoke of blood “falling like rain.” Another blamed the “blind hatred” of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a domestic insurgent group, for the bombing, but Mr. Jassim also faulted Iraq’s police and army, which once again raised doubts about their tactics, training and professionalism.

One of Iraq’s main weapons against bombs has been a detector of dubious efficacy, whose manufacturer now faces fraud charges in Britain.

“The security forces are responsible because they were not searching anyone,” Mr. Jassim said in a hospital in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, where some of the wounded were treated.

The Baghdad Operations Command, which oversees security in the capital region, later said that the bomber had detonated her explosives near a place where women were in fact being searched. Among those killed, the command said in a statement, were three women who had volunteered to conduct searches of other women.

Even as word spread of yet another attack, the command’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta al-Moussawi, announced that “a large number” of 134 officers and soldiers who were under investigation in the wake of last week’s attacks would face court-martial for negligence and dereliction of duty.

He also told Iraqis and officials to be vigilant. In a statement, he said that insurgents had developed “new highly explosive formulas” to avoid detection.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiites from Iraq, Iran and beyond make their way to Karbala for the pilgrimage each year. Many do so on foot, a journey that can take days or even weeks.

The pilgrimage was banned by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government, resumed with fervor by the country’s Shiite majority after the American invasion in 2003, and was attacked regularly since.

The pilgrims, along with the tents, which are festooned with the green and black flags of the faith, clog roads headed to Karbala for days before the pilgrimage’s culmination, known as Arbaeen, which is Friday. Despite road closings and other measures to heighten security, the attacks have continued as relentlessly as the marchers.

Samir Mahmoud, a pilgrim making his way to Karbala from a village north of Baquba, was knocked unconscious by the bombing. When he came to, he said, he witnessed a scene of carnage, with stunned survivors staggering among body parts.

Before the blast he spoke with a man wearing a white shroud inscribed with words saying it would wrap his body if he died on the road to Karbala. He was among those killed, Mr. Mahmoud said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest violence. The main insurgency group here, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the previous attacks, which were coordinated and were clearly intended to attack the credibility of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government.

The use of suicide bombers, including women, is not new, but it had diminished recently. Diyala, the province from which many of the pilgrims killed on Monday came, has long been a center of recruiting and training of female bombers.

A senior military commander in Babel Province, south of Baghdad, was quoted in the newspaper Sabah on Monday announcing the arrest of a man responsible for recruiting suicide bombers to attack the Karbala pilgrims. It was not clear if there was any connection to Monday’s bombing.

Sa’ad al-Izzi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad and Baquba, Iraq.