Killing American soldiers is of course their highest goal of late:
A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said Saturday.
But when they can't kill American soldiers, hard targets who tend to shoot back and kill the jihadis, they'll aim for Iraqi security forces:
A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four people and wounding 27, police said.
Of course, the enemy missed the police and just killed civilians. But that's ok with the enemy, too.
And don't think that mere killing is enough for these sick bastards:
Insurgents signaled the fight is still on after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, posting an Internet video Saturday showing the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members in revenge for killing Sunnis.
It's always the beheading that draws them in. And they put it on video because that's what their backers back on the block want to see for their jihadi support dollars.
And if you aren't clear on their goals for killing and perhaps think that the enemy is just under a lot of stress in Iraq due to the war and just snapped, the enemy clarified their goals nicely:
"Iraq is the front defense line for Islam and Muslims, so don't fail to follow the path of the mujahedeen (holy warriors), the caravan of martyrs and the faithful," said Abdullah bin Rashid al-Baghdadi, the Shura Council's head.
He vowed: "As for you the slaves of the cross (coalition forces), the grandsons of Ibn al-Alqami (Shiites), and every infidel of the Sunnis, we can't wait to sever your necks with our swords."
Lovely folks. I mean, if we pulled out of Iraq in defeat they'd never think of following us here and killing us in our buidings or airplanes, right?
At the low end of the killing spectrum, when the jihadis can't kill American soldiers, or Iraqi troops, or Iraqi civilians, they'll just kill themselves if nobody else on their extensive list is available:
Three detainees at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide in what apparently was a joint pact to protest the U.S. military prison that holds suspected terrorists, a senior administration official said Saturday.
I think that whenever homicidal maniacs get suicidal that it is progress. When killers just kill themselves without taking anybody with them, I count that as progress.
Question: So just what do you call three dead detainees at Guantanamo?
Answer: A good start.
UPDATE: Mark Steyn has a good idea where all these jihadis may have gotten their urge to kill implanted:
If you choose to believe that, as Tip bin Neill might have put it, "all jihad is local," so be it. You can listen to NPR discussions on whether Canada's jihadist health- care programs are inadequately funded, and I'm sure you'll be very happy. But out in the real world it seems the true globalization success story of the 1990s was the export of ideology from a relatively obscure part of the planet to the heart of every Western city.
Take the subject of, say, decapitation. There's a lot of it about in the Muslim world. These Somali Islamists, in the course of their seizure of Mogadishu, captured troops from the warlords' side and beheaded them. Zarqawi made beheading his signature act, cutting the throats of the American hostage Nick Berg and the British hostage Ken Bigley and then releasing the footage as boffo snuff videos over the Internet.
The enemy whackjob jihadis don't have to be under the central command of some jihadi James Bond movie villain to draw their inspiration from the same source. The Saudis are better than they were three years ago in fighting the jihadis out there plotting. But they still send forth new jihadis by their financial support for extremist Islamic teachings. We will have to deal with this problem eventually.
