A bomb blast in the Turkish capital of Ankara outside of a shopping mall has killed four people and injured 56 according to Rueters.

A security source, who declined to be named, told Reuters the explosives believed used in the Ankara blast were similar to ones used by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging an armed struggle against the Turkish state for greater Kurdish rights.

Ah, but don’t be so quick to dismiss radical Islamists from the attack either.  As the article notes, the bomb comes at a time of increased tension between Turkish secularists and Islamists within the nation, though Rueters doesn’t connect the dots that the bomb and the increased tensions might have anything to do with each other.  They might not, but it’s far too early to exclude this scenario.

Modest or not, Carter’s comments over the weekend were rather dimwitted and ironic. To argue the war in Iraq is the first pre-emptive war in U.S. history shows a clear lack of knowledge on the history of this nation. But that’s Jimmy.

Carter’s presidential legacy is sealed, however you’ve got to wonder if his senility over the past decade has somehow influenced the way history will judge this man. He has tried in earnest to change his past with something, anything to put his accomplishments in greater light, but all I see is Ahmadinejad.

One of the more interesting reactions I read over the weekend related to comments given in response by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Reporting on Snow’s rebuke indicated current administrations don’t speak ill of former presidents, thus presenting the Bush Administration to look bad for breaking tradition. There’s also a tradtion of former presidents not bashing current ones, a tradition Jimmy Carter broke many moons ago and continues to do so because he’s above all of that that.

The jihad on music continues, but there’s also a jihad on movies in Waziristan.

Unidentified persons here delivered menacing pamphlets to owners of video and CD shops in Nowshera, in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), asking them to wind up their business within 10 days. Some shop-owners claimed that when they opened their shops in the morning they found pamphlets in Urdu on the floor. The owner of Shahadat Video, Sagheer Khan, confirmed that when his son opened the shop on Thursday morning he found out the pamphlet carrying the threat was already there. The pamphlet does not carry name of any person and only the words “your well-wisher” are written.

“My dear Muslim brothers with the resolve to stop the growing obscenity and vulgarity we warn you to wind up your business within 10 days so that no innocent person gets killed” the leaflet read.

Considering jihadi snuff films are also sold in these shops, with forceful approval from those likely making these threats, jihadis have no problem with violence in film.  They just don’t like vulgar music, which is strange if you’ve ever heard Pashtun music.

According to The Blotter, the Taliban has grown increasingly concerned there are spies among their ranks.  After the killings of Mullah Dadullah and Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, there’s reason for concern.

But the Taliban has always believed there are American spies within their larger group.  The intimidation practices within Afghanistan and neighboring Waziristan are fairly well known.  The Taliban has made a killing, literally, of beheading suspected spies in both locales even if any evidence of alleged spying was dubious at best.

There is an alleged spy in Taliban custody following Dadullah’s death, which is only good in the sense that at least the Taliban finally recognizes Dadullah was in fact killed.  I guess that voice-recording to prove Dadullah is still alive has been shelved.

According to Taliban sources, the man who betrayed Dadullah has been arrested along with another suspect and will soon be put on trial. “His name is Din Mohammad. He confessed his crime during investigation,” a Taliban member said.

Whomever the Taliban accuses of being a spy is met with death.

Soon after Osmani’s killing, the Taliban arrested Ghulam Nabi. During his interrogation, Nabi reportedly confessed he was a spy for the U.S. military. He also reportedly admitted his role in pinpointing Osmani’s whereabouts to the Americans, who he said quickly flew a drone to fire missiles at a vehicle which the Taliban commander was driving.

A videotape made by the Taliban showed Nabi, a young bearded man with handsome features, making the confessional statement. Facing the camera and answering questions by a Taliban official, he gave his father’s name and home address and admitted having betrayed Osmani.

On Dadullah’s instructions, Nabi was then made to lie on the ground by Taliban fighters, and a 12-year-old boy began slaughtering him with a long knife. With great difficulty the boy managed to behead him while shouting, “Allah-o-Akbar,” [Allah is Greatest] along with other Taliban members gathered there.

We reported on the use of this child to kill the alleged spy previously, but at the time I didn’t realize it was connected to Osmani’s death.

But there’s good news in all of this.

Shocked by the thought of spies in their ranks, the Taliban leaders have reportedly become extra careful in selecting fighters to serve as their bodyguards. Suspicion is now falling even on trusted men, creating tension within the ranks of the Taliban.

A bit of red-on-red could go a long way.

A bomb went off just outside of the Mecca Masjid mosque in the Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least seven people and injuring 55.  Naturally a bomb going off at a mosque in India would initially be blamed upon an extremist Hindu group, but I’m not so sure.

Witnesses said that waves of people pelted the police with stones, chanting angrily that there was a lack of security for Muslims in this majority-Hindu country. Television images showed police in riot gear dispersing thick crowds of men and boys in white prayer caps, spraying tear gas and, in some cases, beating back the crowds with batons so the wounded could be treated. Crowds of men in bloodstained white shirts clamored onto ambulances.

“There were people running every which way and they were very angry since the mosque is one of the most sacred in India,” said Danesh Akula, bureau chief in Hyderabad for Star News, who was at the mosque shortly after the blasts. “It could be a very dangerous situation.”

This is the third mosque bombing in one year, increasing tensions that were already high.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state. Some officials called the attack an attempt by “antisocial elements” to spark violence in India, which has a long history of communal strife between Hindus and Muslims.

A Palestinian employee of Doctors without Borders and a suspected member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was arrested in an alleged plot to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other high-ranking Israeli officials.

The indictment said Bashir made several surveillance tours of the area surrounding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Jerusalem residence but decided that the building was too well protected. Working with the Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he allegedly received hand to hand combat training and used the Internet to find alternative Israeli personalities to target.

Israel is being pretty tight-lipped about this alleged plot.  Mazib Bashir was arrested on April 19 and there are no details into how Israel heard of this plot, though I suspect we’ll hear more about it in the coming weeks.

Although I know it is of bad taste though I don’t mean it to be, after the review of the Israel-Hezbollah War, why would anyone want to assassinate Olmert if their goal was to bring the downfall of Israel?  That just doesn’t make any sense.

Strangely, the John McCain for President campaign worker that feels it’s best to send six or seven emails on one single debate hasn’t bothered sending out praise to the Arizona senator today. I wonder why.

It’s not just McCain, of course, but his fingerprints are firmly on the document.

In the interest of compromise, what exactly were the positions where compromise needed to be met?

One extreme: Deport all illegals, fence the border and imprison any illegals who refuse to leave.

The other extreme: Open all borders and ask anyone and everyone to stream into this nation.

So the compromise was to, in essense, grant amnesty to anyone who already broke the law of the land and construct a fence of some kind. What exactly did the open-border advocates give up other than a fence? A fence for 12 million plus granted amnesty, plus the additional millions who hear this news and decide now is the time to cross the Rio Grande? It is, and they will and I don’t blame them at all.

However based on numerous polls, the American people fall much closer to the deport all extreme than the open border extreme, and that assumes, of course, those who are polled are actually legal residents anyways. So who exactly are the open-border advocates in Congress who simply fleeced the other side? It’s bound to be a very small minority who have now given right to run the government as they see fit.

McCain though, loves the bill that will most likely be pushed through before the American people can take a gander at it. He’s toast, but he was toast long before anyways.

On the national security front, the U.S. immigration service cannot even figure out how to ensure the current law is enforced.  Three of the Fort Dix Six were here illegally, yet INS couldn’t figure it out.  Now they’ve got at least 12 million more people on their rolls to hash through, so in the addition to every other illegal immigrant that will be flooding over in the next six months, this would be a prime time for any terrorist group to make the same journey.  Why not?  The INS’s hands are full.

I’m all for exploring ways to reduce or punish women for their poisonous ways in which they force men to turn into sex-starved zombies.  I mean it’s about time, right?  In this case, Iran has it right.

First Iran has decided to segregate Internet cafes, and who can blame them?  It’s damn hard to catch up on the latest sports gossip when women wearing those super sexy burqas are in there doing whatever it is they do.

Owners of trendy internet cafes, as well as bars and restaurants popular with young Iranians have received a letter signed by national police authorities in which new measures are announced to enforce “the country’s moral health.” “Public places will not be allowed to use dark windows anymore or curtains which make it impossible to view from the outside what is going on inside,” said the letter, which states in particular that men and women must not be allowed inside internet cafes together but in separate days or schedules “to avoid unpleasant promiscuity.”

Kudos to Iran for finally trying to solve the issue.

The second measure taken by Iran is pure genious.  It’s one thing to know that your favorite Internet cafe won’t be infested with women trying to tempt men, but what about on your way to the Internet cafe on ‘Man’s Day’?  Thankfully, there’s also a solution.

Iran is to start manufacturing “Islamic bicycles” for women that conceals their figure, the government newspaper Iran reported on Thursday.

“This bike has a cabin which conceals half of the cyclist’s body,” the newspaper said. Elaheh Sofali, an architect of the project, told Iran it would encourage women’s sports in the Islamic republic.

Isn’t that what a burqa does?  If it doesn’t, what exactly is the purpose of forcing Iranian women to wear ‘Islamic dress’ in public?

Obviously my tone above is in jest, but it is ironic that in Iraq there seems to be concern over the female seductress by curbing their attire, behavior, transport and even when they can visit a certain business while the Iranian regime has essentially said women are a sub-species of mankind.  Doesn’t doing everything to curb women scream out that men are the weaker sex of the two?

Israel struck a Hamas administration building with an air strike among other air raids aimed at vehicles. Israel claims all targeted were terrorists, but Hamas claims one of the vehicles hit was a garbage truck carrying three civilians.

If the Hamas statement is true, it is certainly unfortunate. Due to the Israeli strike, Hamas has vowed to send in suicide bombers to strike, well, Israeli civilians.

But what has never stopped has been the nightly barrage of Qassam rockets and mortars into Israel. One rocket hit an Israeli school. Hamas may complain about three civilian deaths, but in this case Israel is only ‘guilty’ because they have more sound weapons. It’s not as if Hamas hasn’t tried in earnest to kill Israelis.

As has happened many times before, the Hamas strikes on Israel were the result of Hamas and Fatah fighting against each other.

Israel only acted after Hamas fired scores of qassam rockets across the Gaza perimeter mostly hitting the Israeli town of Sderot, injuring six people and causing hundreds of civilians to flee.

The Hamas barrage, the largest in months, appeared to be a cynical ploy to provoke an Israeli response. After days of fierce factional fighting with Fatah in which 41 Palestinians died, Hamas believed a tough Israeli response might force the two rival groups to overcome their differences and unite against a common enemy.

Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader exiled to Syria, reflected this thinking when, hours after Israel launched its retaliatory attacks, he heralded the “historic opportunity” for the two factions to join together.

The attempt to end the fighting between Hamas and Fatah by striking Israel makes sense considering Hamas blames Israel for the infighting anyways.

Al Qaida has threated terrorist attacks in France? But France never did support the war in Iraq and isn’t this entire Islamist threat the result of the war in Iraq?

“As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader … we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign … in the capital of Sarkozy,” the group’s “Europe division” said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people.

The campaign will be “against all those who allow themselves to follow the policy” of the US administration, said the statement whose authenticity could not verified.

Quick! Someone get Al Qaida a map.

On a larger note, what exactly makes Sarkozy a crusader? Is he the reincarnation of a Templar Knight?