BBC's Alan Johnston reported executed by Palestinian terror groups

The BBC news website isn't reporting it yet, but the Israeli Ynetnews site is reporting that Alan Johnston, the BBC's Gaza correspondent,has been executed by a group associated with Al Qaeda, and who are promising to release a video of his execution.

The enormous irony of this is that so many of Alan Johnston's broadcasts from Gaza tended to apologize for Palestinian terrorism. His father's first public appeal to his captors on his behalf spoke of him as *a friend of the Palestinian people.* Most ironic of all, the NUJ, of which presumably Alan was a member, has just voted in a grandstanding display of gesture politics to boycott Iaraeli goods in support of a one-sided condemnation of Israel

It's possible that this report will turn out to be untrue. I hope for his and his family's sake that it does. But the ominous silence and lack of statements over the month since he was kidnapped don't look hopeful. And the statement from the Al Qaeda linked group matches their gruesome track record in Iraq. Additionally, of course, it chimes in with Al Qaeda's equally fanatical hatred of other radical Islamist groups, such as Hamas, which draw on Shiite sponsorship from Iran, and Fatah, a Marxist group with a more recent Islamist veneer.

Here are some of the disgusting and fatuously self-righteous attempts at self-justification by the terrorists claiming responsibility. Interestingly, they blame the British government and the Palestinian Authority rather than Israel for not securing the release of prisoners. Quite how Alan Johnston and the BBC were meant to contribute to doing that is not made clear. Every word they say stinks.

In the message, the group said the British and Palestinian governments were responsible for Johnston's killing, and vowed to release a video of the execution.

"The whole world knows of our just cause in demanding the release of our prisoners, who are waiting under the fire of the occupation," the statement began. "Our demand was that all of those who are responsible for the journalist... release our prisoners who are being held in the prisons of the occupation," it continued.

"The whole world made so much noise about this foreign journalist, while it took no action over our thousands of prisoners," the declaration said.

"Our objective was to broadcast a clear message, and we were surprised by the position of the Palestinian Authority, which attempted to hide the case as much as it could and to present the case in an untruthful manner, leading us unfortunately to kill the journalist so that our message is understood," the declaration continued.

"We will disseminate a video in which we show his killing soon to the media outlets," the statement said.

"And we lay the responsibility on the the PA presidency, Palestinian government, and the British government for the blood of the its journalist son. And we confirm that our demands for the release of our prisoners in the occupation jails still stands. We will not relent until we release them all, free and dignified," the message added.

"Allah is great, for it is either victory or martyrdom," it concluded.

Since I started writing this post, the Ynetnews report has been updated to include a BBC response, but there's still no hint of it on the BBC News web site:

Will the BBC change its view of Palestinian terrorist groups? Sadly, I doubt it....

Responding to the statement, the BBC said it is "aware of these reports -- but we have no independent verification of them. We are deeply concerned about what we are hearing -- but we stress, at this stage, it is rumour with no independent verification."

I feel desperately sorry for his family, friends and colleagues.

UPDATE: The BBC finally reports the story on the BBC Radie 4 6:00pm news and puts up a post on the BBC news website. It names the group cited in the Ynetnews report, but does not explain that the group is linked to Al Qaeda, the key information which makes "sense" of the "rationale" behind this reported atrocity, nor does it quote the words of the press release quoted above. All this leaves BBC listeners and web site readers more or less mystified about what this appears to be about:

The group claiming to have killed Mr Johnston is apparently little known in the Palestinian context, the BBC's Mike Wooldridge says.

Its name means Brigades of Holy War and Unity

Comments

[hyam]

Nice to have you back Judy. We've missed you!

[Inna]

I am deeply sorry for Alan's family. I hope this is not true, but from what we all know of AQ--I hope I'm wrong.

Regards,

Inna

[Rob]

I too hope that Johnston is alive and will eventually return to his family.

But let's not whitewash the guy. He was an advocate and an apologist for terrorist war crimes.

[pommygranate]

Rob

He was. But now is not the time to judge him.

I hope that those who actually try to reason with people such as these and who try to understand their 'greivances' will now understand what they are dealing with - cold blooded killers. No more, no less.

[Rob]

Fair enough. I stand corrected, Pommyg.

[Cynic]

The Belmont Club reports on ITT correspondent Alan Hart's attempt to blame Israel:
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2007/04/no-dial-tone.html

"There is a case for saying (repeat a case) that the party with most to gain from Alan Johnston's permanent disappearance was Israel. It would not be the first time that Israeli agents had dressed as Arabs to make a hit.

If Alan Johnston is dead, it's my hope that the BBC ..."

[Paul]

Hopefully Alan Johnston will be released unharmed.

But why do so many people refer to terrorist or other murders (such as those at Virginia Tech) as "executions"? There has been no due process, no chance of a defence, no legal authority.

Murder is not execution.

[Taylane]

They aren't. Five Live is doing their coverage from 5.30. It's only the live text ctraenommy that starts at 12pm. It's a fairly ambiguous sentence, and a bit daft for the text ctraenommy to start quite so early, though I'll grant you.

[Budweiser]

I don't agree that all feminists are minsrdaists, but I do agree with you that misandry is a VERY big problem in this day and age, is indeed perpetrated by many key feminists who buy into the whole S.C.U.M. manifesto attitude. I feel that they give feminism a bad name. Misandristic women she-bullies who hide behind the mantle of feminism are among the many reasons I thank my lucky stars daily that I am gay.