Shalit in Hamas Control?

This is rather curious.

Army of Islam says Shalit moved to Hamas control

Army of Islam, one of the militant groups implicated in the abduction last year of Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit, told Channel 10 that it has transferred Shalit to the full control of Hamas.

Until his release Wednesday morning, Army of Islam had also been holding British Broadcasting Corporation reporter Alan Johnston, who had been captive in the Gaza Strip for four months.

In an interview aired Wednesday night, Army of Islam deputy commander Abu Mutha'ana said, "We at Army of Islam made the preparations for operation 'Dissipating Illusion,' which was carried out in cooperation with the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Popular Resistance Committees Salah a-Din. We kidnapped Gilad Shalit and handed him over to Hamas."

Abu Mutha'ana, fully masked and surrounded by weapons in the Channel 10 interview, did not fully explain why the movement handed Shalit over to Hamas. He said simply that Shalit was transferred "because Army of Islam was busy with other things."

None of them good, I'm sure.

After Johnston was released earlier Wednesday, Israel called on Hamas to free Shalit, saying that the militant group is responsible for the delay in the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of a swap for the soldier.

Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, called on Hamas to free Shalit immediately. "The Hamas that brought about Alan Johnston's release is the same Hamas that abducted Gilad Shalit," she said.

Religion of Peace

Here's video of BBC reporter Alan Johnston outfitted with a suicide belt.



Also at LGF, Hot Air.

Where it's not: People's Revolutionary Republic of Koslamistan, PuffHo, MyDD . . . .

Gitmo Prisoner Urges Release of BBC Reporter

Reuters eagerly laps up the propaganda from a Gitmo slug. Notice how this poor terror suspect is innocuously referred to as a television cameraman.

A television cameraman held prisoner for years at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has issued an impassioned plea for the release of a fellow journalist kidnapped in Gaza.

In an open letter to the kidnappers of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, Guantanamo detainee Sami al-Hajj of the al-Jazeera satellite TV network said Muslims should never be responsible for illegal detentions like the one he has endured at the hands of the United States.

"What the Americans are doing to me is very, very wrong," al-Hajj, a native of Sudan, said in the letter, which was made public on Monday by his lawyer.

"Yet this can never mean that a Muslim should similarly hold a British journalist, and put him and his family through similar suffering," he said.

"Please, then, as brothers in one faith, consider this gift that I request of you: That you release Alan Johnston as soon as possible, without conditions. While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy."

Al-Hajj, 38, has been held at Guantanamo for nearly five years on suspicion of having links to Islamic militant groups. He has been accused of making videos of
Osama bin Laden.

He was picked up in Pakistan in 2001 and said in his letter that he would be on the 140th day of a hunger strike as of this past Sunday.

Poor thing. Must be starving. Still, I don't feel guilty having just consumed a nice steak off the grill.