~ Brave and Brilliant Strategy ~

(Via Telegraph) AS HIS eyes started to close around 2am today, the hostages inside Lindt Cafe in Martin Place realised this may be their best chance to escape their armed captor.

After 17 hours, fake sheik Man Haron Monis began to nod off when the 12 remaining hostages staged what in police parlance is a “bomb burst”. They all ran together for the exit.
In those vital last seconds, Monis “came too and realised what was going on,” sources close to the siege have revealed to The Daily Telegraph.
With his shotgun already in his hands, he began shooting. (more…)

Sunlight does strange things to people’s dispositions.  The local NBC News affiliate WMC5 in Courtland Mississippi appears to have found a new job title for the owner of the M&M First Stop Gas Station, Ali Alsanai.  
Only a few days ago they were reporting that Ali Alsanai, aka Basem Alsanai, aka Ali Fadhel, was the 19-year-old owner/operator of the business.  After 48 hours of scrutiny into the background of Mr. Alsanai all of a sudden, poof, he becomes a “clerk” at the store. 
The title of their on-line article passes him off as merely a “worker”, now.

Couldn’t have anything to do with the sunlight now upon the business, beer and wine licenses, ATF agents, and ears perked by USDA (*hint* EBT fraud), and IRS interests combining with FBI agents dispatched, while eyes seem curious about his successful entrepreneurship.   You can’t make this stuff up folks.
PANOLA CO, MS (WMC) – The man who may have been one of the last people to talk with Jessica Chambers says he is being threatened, and he is being called the leader of a gang that may have been involved in Chambers’ death.
Jessica Chambers, a 19-year-old Panola County resident, was murdered on December 6th. She was found burning next to her car, which was also on fire. (more…)

Mr. Haron Monis is the Muslim terrorist who took control of the Cafe’ in Sydney Australia earlier today. In addition to Monis, two people were killed when police stormed the cafe’ after a 17 hours hostage standoff.  Mr. Monis has a rather odd history in/around the area, and reports are surfacing that his intention was to prove Islam is the religion of peace.
(14 December 2014) – MONIS: Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the oppression and terrorism of USA and its allies including UK and Australia. If we stay silent towards the criminals we cannot have a peaceful society.

The more you fight with crime, the more peaceful you are. Islam wants peace on the Earth, that’s why Muslims want to stop terrorism of America and its allies. When you speak out against crime you have taken one step towards peace. (link)
(more…)

On Saturday December 6th at 8:13pm the Courtland Fire Department responded to a car fire at 2352 Herron Road, Courtland, Mississippi. In addition to a burning car they found 19-year-old Jessica Lane Chambers burned and barely alive…

[…] Chambers, 19, died early Sunday after firefighters found her with burns over 98 percent of her body near a car burning on Herron Road near Courtland.

She had been set afire and then left by an assailant or assailants who obviously thought they were leaving her to an immediate death.

But she did not die immediately, remaining conscious at the scene long enough to talk to a firefighter from the Courtland Fire Department who arrived on the scene with two other volunteer firemen four minutes after receiving the report of the burning car.

“We know what she said, but we’re not commenting on that,” [District Attorney John] Champion said. (link)

Courtland Mississippi, population 500, is in Panola County, an area which has witnessed an explosion in gang related crime and criminal activity. This Day #7 update follows the backstory, the untold story, of how events continue to unfold.
In order to fully understand what follows it is strongly recommended you read Day#6 update. Without the understanding, well, what follows will seem challenging at best.
Jessica’s funeral was this past Saturday, 12/13.  During the funeral a person who gave a presentation at the regional Battered Woman’s Center (an abuse, counseling and treatment center) got up to speak.  She shared how Jessica had told her -a few months prior to her death- how someday Jessica wanted to write a book about her life.
It seems odd that a 19-year-old could have already experienced so much of life’s challenges that a book would seem possible. Alas, in Jessica Chambers’ short life there is more than one story.
In order to know what happened to Jessica, you’ve got to go back and understand what it is about her story can help catch the killer(s). (more…)

UPDATE: Video of police storming cafe’ to end the siege. Two dead, three wounded.

Sydney (CNN) — Australian special forces troops and police stormed the cafe where a self-styled Muslim cleric had been holding hostages early Tuesday, killing the gunman and ending a crisis that had paralyzed central Sydney for hours.
A national security source in the United States said the combined military-police team entered the Lindt Chocolate Cafe from two directions early Tuesday morning and killed the man, identified by an official with direct knowledge of the situation as Man Haron Monis. (read more)
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Considering he just built the worlds largest presidential palace, it makes sense he take control of the youth education.   Erdogan Vows to Impose ‘Arabic’ Ottoman Lessons in Schools… 
TURKEY – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Monday to make lessons in the Arabic-alphabet Ottoman language compulsory in high schools — a highly symbolic move which enraged secularists who claim he is pursuing an increasingly Islamist agenda.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, abolished the Ottoman language in 1928, replacing its Arabic alphabet with a Latin one.  He also purged the language of many of its Arabic, Persian and Greek words to create a new “pure” Turkish closer to the language people spoke. (more…)

A really insightful paper written about the current status of Kobane Syria.  Quite a remarkable glimpse into the status, thoughts, hopes and prayers of those who are there. I hope you find it both reflective and enlightening…

Planting Trees In Kobane

After two months of restless nights, we are all finally starting to sleep a little better.  The siege of Kobane is drawing to a close in the form of an historic and complete victory for the towns undaunted defenders.

The Daesh gangsters are exhausted, demoralised, and cut off from their supply routes.  The road from Kobane to Raqqa is severed now, and the 200 or so daeshbags remaining in southern and eastern Kobane are short of food and ammunition, and their morale is failing.

Those remaining have descended into the sewers “literally, on this occasion”. (more…)

President Obama made the right call.  President Obama approved the best chance to rescue Luke Somers.  Period.

There are voices angry at the outcome because unknown to the rescue unit there was a second hostage, held by al-Qaeda terrorists, in the same building.  A South African hostage was also being held with Somers – both died as a result of the terrorists shooting them as the rescue was underway. 
Reports are now saying, according to the employer of the South African hostage, Pierre Korkie, he was scheduled to be released as ransom had been paid.
Obviously the outcome is tragic.  However, regardless of outcome, President Obama made the right decision.  The details are outlined below. 
(CNN) — Al Qaeda militants killed two Western hostages in Yemen — an American photojournalist and a South African who was employed by an aid group — during a raid conducted by U.S. forces, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday.
President Barack Obama ordered Friday’s mission to save the American, Luke Somers, because “there were compelling reasons to believe Mr. Somers’ life was in imminent danger,” Hagel said.
A U.S. official said that during the raid, one of the terrorists ran inside the compound and shot the hostages.
A video of Somers pleading for his life was released earlier this week by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The U.S. was given three days to comply with unspecified demands made by the terror group; that time was due to run out.
During the raid, the militants with AQAP also killed South African hostage Pierre Korkie, according to his employer, the relief group Gift of the Givers. (more…)

Thoughts and prayers for his family.

The media reported recently on an al-Qaeda video threatening to kill U.S. hostage Luke Somers in Yemen.  Early this morning his family announced he was killed in a failed rescue attempt:

CAIRO (AP)– The sister of American photojournalist Luke Somers says he has been killed in a failed rescue attempt in Yemen.

Lucy Somers told The Associated Press on Saturday that she learned of her 33-year-old brother’s death from FBI agents. There was no immediate comment from Washington.

Lucy Somers said:  “We ask that all of Luke’s family members be allowed to mourn in peace.”

Luke Somers was abducted in September 2013 in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. This week, the Pentagon confirmed it launched an earlier failed raid to rescue him. (link)