ON THIS DAY Febuary 16

February 16 1801 First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate held frigate USS Philadelphia.

The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitan War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States of America and the North African states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the independent Sultanate of Morocco, and the three Regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, which were quasi independent entities nominally belonging to the Ottoman Empire.

Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, although nominally governed by the Islamic Ottoman Empire, had been largely independent Muslim states since the 17th century. The monarchy of Morocco, which had been under its current government since 1666, was well known by the time of the Barbary Wars for supporting piracy. Britain and France had come to uneasy ententes with the pirates; a combination of military might, diplomacy, and extorted payments had kept ships flying the Union Flag or French flag more or less safe from attack.

As British colonists before 1776, American merchant vessels had enjoyed the protection of
the Royal Navy. During the American Revolution, American ships came under the aegis of France due to a 1778 Treaty of Alliance between the two countries.

However, by 1783 America became solely responsible for the safety of its own commerce and citizens with the end of the Revolution. Without the means or the authority to field a naval force necessary to protect their ships in the Mediterranean, the nascent U.S. government took a pragmatic, but ultimately self-destructive route. In 1784, the United States Congress allocated money for payment of tribute to the Barbary pirates.Use for the money came in 1785, when the Dey of Algiers took two American ships hostage and demanded US$60,000 in ransom for their crews. Then-ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson argued that conceding the ransom would only encourage more attacks (“Millions For Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute”). His objections fell on the deaf ears of an inexperienced American government too riven with domestic discord to make a strong show of force overseas.

The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and tribute to the pirateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Jefferson continued to argue for cessation of the tribute, with rising support from George Washington and others. With the recommissioning of the American navy in 1794 and the resulting increased firepower on the seas, it became more and more possible for America to say “no”, although by now the long-standing habit of tribute was hard to overturn.

In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that the right was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that allnations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman (or Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven

February 16 1980 2 killed, 11 injured by two bombs in Gaza

February 16, 1978: A bomb rocked the USIS building in Turkey.

February 16, 1981: The embassy of South Yemen in Paris was hit by two small rockets which were fired from the courtyard of a neighboring apartment house. The perpetrators claimed to represent the victims of a bomb attack on a Paris synagogue in October 1980. Pamphlets found near the embassy and the words “Remember Copernic” painted on a nearby wall showed that the raid was intended as a reprisal for the death of four Parisians. South Yemen was implicated because the man most directly linked to the affair was traced to a Palestinian training camp in that country.

February 16, 1985, Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin issued Hezbollah’s manifesto

According to this manifesto (titled “An Open Letter: The Hizballah Program”), the three objectives of the
organization are:

To expel Americans, the French and their allies (sic) definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land.

To submit the phalanges to a just power and bring them all to justice for the crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims and Christians.

To permit all the sons of our people to determine their future and to choose in all the liberty the form of government they desire. We call upon all of them to pick the option of Islamic government which alone is capable of guaranteeing justice and liberty for all. Only an Islamic regime can stop any future tentative attempts of imperialistic infiltration onto our country.

The 1985 manifesto makes it clear that Hezbollah intends to use armed force to achieve these goals and phrases its argument for this measure through the language of [jihad].

Hezbollah’s Shi’a Islamic doctrine

Hezbollah was formed in the early eighties, largely with the aid of the Ayatollah Khomeini‘s followers, in order to spread Islamic revolution. It follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi’a ideology (“Willayat Al-Faqih”) developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

Translated excerpts from Hezbollah’s original 1985 manifesto read:

We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community) …

… We are an ummah linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principleslaid down by the light of an overall political conception defined bythe leading jurist….As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation..

From the inception of Hezbollah to the present, the elimination of the State of Israel has been one of Hezbollah’s primary goals. Its 1985 manifesto reportedly states “our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated.”

In an interview with the Washington Post, Nasrallah said “I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called ‘Israel.’ Throughout its history, Hezbollah has made statements and actions against the United States, in part because of the United States’ support for Israel.^[56]

February 16, 1988: A dynamite bomb went off in front of the Israeli Embassy in Manila. The Moro Islamic Liberation Organization was responsible.

February 16, 1991: A Jordanian Muslim entered the Turkish Airlines office in Amman and
held an airline employee hostage. He was protesting Turkey’s decision
to support the American invasion of the Persian Gulf. The Islamic
assailant asked to meet with Jordanian government officials who saw
things the same way, and set the man free.

February 16, 1992: HizballahGeneral Secretary Abbas Musawi was killed in an Israeli helicopter ambush. In addition to being a terrorist thug, Sheikh Abbas Mousawi was also an Islamic imam and religious leader. The message is clear: all the best Muslims are terrorists.

February 16, 1993: The Islamic Group, like their religion, was in a rut. Today, a bus
carrying German tourists was ambushed near Asyut on its way to Cairo. Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyah claimed responsibility for being irresponsible.

February 16, 1994: The Islamic Group fired assault rifles at a cruise ship carrying foreign tourists down the Nile. In their press release, the Islamic Group claimed that this was their seventh and final attack to avenge the seven members of their group who were killed by Egyptian security forces during a jihadist raid the previous month.

In a world awash in folks bereft of the ability to be judgmental, this may seem somewhat restrained and moral, but it is neither. For the tactic of terror to be justifiable, the perpetrator must first have been an innocent victim. The target of the attack must have been responsible for the assault being avenged. And the application of terror must not only be proportionate to the threat, it should not exceed that which is necessary to minimize the likelihood of future attacks.

The Islamic Group was founded for the express purpose of imposing their political and religious will on others. They were the aggressors, drawing first blood. In fact, their seven jihadists were only killed because they were out trying to murder Copt Christians. And the boatload of foreign tourists were unrelated to the event being avenged.

The universal inability for Muslims to apply the tactic of terror in a justifiable manner, makes all Islamic terrorism unjustifiable.

Further, no Islamic Group can be considered freedom fighters because the cause for which they toil is submission.

February 16, 1999: Kurdish rioters stormed and occupied the Greek Embassy in Vienna,
taking the Greek Ambassador and six other persons hostage. The attack followed the Turkish government’s announcement of the successful capture of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah (Slave-to-Allah) Ocalan. Kurds also occupied Kenyan, Israeli, and other Greek diplomatic facilities in France, Holland, Switzerland, Britain, and Germany over the following days

February 16,1999 In Uzbekistan a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov.

February 16, 2000: With Islam’s propensity to kill their own it’s often hard to tell who is to blame when a Muslim activist is targeted. Such is the case with Bosnia and Herzegovina Islamist, Husein Dizdarevic. Four grenades were tossed into his Buzim shop. He was head of the Democratic National Union which may have been his problem. Such an affiliation would target
Husein as being pro-choice and thus an apostate Muslim worthy of death.

February 16, 2001:Palestinian Muslims fired at a bus in Neve Deqalim. They tried to bomb the Morag settlement but bomb disposal experts foiled their plans. In the afternoon, shots were fired at the Jewish town of Ariel and the adjacent military base. Shots were also fired at the settlement of Pesagot.
That evening, Palestinians fired at the Qatif Bloc of settlements and at Rafiah Yam.On February

February 16,2001: a bus with Serb pilgrims was heading from the Kosovo boundary with central Serbia towards Gracanica together with several other vehicles, escorted by KFOR peacekeepers.
The pilgrims were about to take part in commemoration services on central Kosovo graveyards. The bus was blown up powerful explosives which were placed in a sewage pipe under the road and activated from a safe distance.

The part of Kosovo where the attack occured is exclusively inhabited by Kosovo Albanian population.

Ethnic Albanian extremists, who are trying to drive Serbs out of Kosovo, have been blamed for the attack.

It took place near the town of Podujevo in northern Kosovo, 40km (25 miles) north-east of the capital Pristina.
The remote-controlled bomb was detonated 400m from the road at around noon, hitting the first of five buses which had just crossed the border into Kosovo from the city of Nis in Serbia.

‘Ethnic cleansing’
Gorica Stjepanovic, 24, who survived the attack with eyeinjuries, said: “All of a sudden, everything burst, the bus seemed to have fallen apart. “Blood was dripping from the roof. When I managed to get out, parts of bodies were everywhere.”
The group of Serbs, who moved to Serbia fearing ethnic Albanian attacks, were travelling to the village of Gracanica in Kosovo to visit family graves.

The Orthodox Day of the Dead – 17 February – is when Serbs remember their dead.
The attack has sparked violent protests from the victims’ relatives in Gracanica, who have blocked the main road into Pristina and set vehicles on fire.

The convoy was accompanied by five Swedish armoured vehicles which were unaffected.

Leaders of Kosovo’s Albanian majority condemned the latest attack and said it was a serious blow to attempts to build peace

a serious blow to attempts to build peace

The part of Kosovo where the attack occured is exclusively inhabited by Kosovo Albanian population.

NICE ATTEMPT TO BUILD PEACE

February 16,2002: A Palestinian suicide bomber has blown himself up in crowded restaurant at a Jewish settlement on the West Bank. Two people were killed, as well as the bomber, and more than 20 are injured, six of them seriously.

A pizzeria, crowded with young people out on a Saturday evening, was destroyed, with debris hanging from what remained of the ceiling.

“I heard a huge bang and everything fell apart,” a worker at the pizzeria told Israeli Army radio.
“There is lots of blood on the floor,” said another eye-witness.

Officials from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, saying that the bomber was 18-year-old Sadek Abdel Hafeth, from the nearby town of Qalqilya.

On This Day Since 9/11

2/16/2007	Somalia	Mogadishu	1	12	Islamic militias lob a mortar into a displaced persons camp, killing a refugee.
2/16/2007	Iraq	Baghdad	15	0	Fifteen victims of sectarian hatred are found in the capital and in Mosul.
2/16/2007	Pakistan	Bajaur	1	3	Pro-Taliban militants kill a doctor with a roadside bomb
2/16/2006	Afghanistan	Farah	2	0	Two Afghani intelligence agents are kidnapped and beheaded by religious extremists.
2/16/2006	Thailand	Narathiwat	1	0	Muslim militants murder a policeman assigned to guard teachers from terror attacks.
2/16/2006	Iraq	Baghdad	9	19	Two car bombs, one near a crowded market, kill seven civilians and injure over a dozen more. Elsewhere, four bodies are found bound and blindfolded.
2/16/2005	Dagestan	Kizlyar	3	4	Three people are killed in an IED attack by Islamic separatists.
2/16/2005	India	Kishtwar	2	7	Mujahideen toss a grenade into a bus stop, killing one and injuring seven. Elsewhere (Rajouri) they kidnap and kill a 60-year-old man.
2/16/2004	India	Budgam	2	0	Muslim rebels kill two villagers.
2/16/2004	India	Hyderpora Chowk	3	0	A political activist and two policemen are gunned down by Islamists.
2/16/2004	Iraq	Baghdad	2	5	Two terrorist bombings in the Sunni Triangle leave two U.S. soldiers dead and five wounded.
2/16/2003	India	Varmul	2	0	A man killed by radicals a few days after he lost his brother to the same group is one of two people killed in separate attacks.
2/16/2002	India	Narala	8	7	In a horrible attack, Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists massacre eight members of two families, including two women and four children.