+ Åh, så här skrev någon om denna blogg på Flashbacks forum: Intressanta länkar med kärnfulla kommentarer. Fokus på utrikespolitik, svårplacerad politiskt men alltid uppfriskande. Värmer gott i hjärtegropen! Tack å bock vem det nu var som skrev det om du nu läser detta. :) [Ni kanske börjar förstå nu att det är på sin plats att hajpa denna blogg så jag blir glad och hänger ut er här?]

+ Osama Connected to 9/11? Not According to the F.B.I.

+ Morocco's first batch of female Muslim preachers (Morchidat) has just graduated with the aim of helping their male peers promote the tolerant and peaceful message of Islam and fight extremist drifts.

+ Israel and Sweden were locked in a diplomatic row after reports on Stockholm's intention to grant entry visa to a senior Hamas lawmaker and a decision to withdraw from a NATO's military exercise over Israel's participation.

+ Powerful New Film Expertly Exposes Phony Drug War & Police State Woho! Nu börjar det äntligen dra ihop sig för premiär av Philip K Dicks A Scanner Darkly! En förbannat kryptisk site har de kokat ihop också: A Scanner Darkly.

+ Via Fantastic Planet: monkey toying tiger. :D

+ Kolla in Café Exposé för en intressant genomgång av "modernismen och den mörka tidsåldern enligt Guénon."

+ Hittade för övrigt en annan blogg som nämner min sida i korthet: Svenska bloggar som protesterar mot David Irvings treårsdom. Vettefan vad det är för slags blogg dock.

Här är någon annan, som förlänar mitt lilla krypin med beskrivningen "den första seriösa svenska konspirationsblog jag hittat". En får tacke, en får tacke.

+ GAAAAH! Försöker förstå hur man ändrar på utseendet på den här bloggen, men mina ringa html-kunskaper tycks inte räcka långt. Är det någon som läser det här som vet hur jag kan lägga in en bild i stället för OMEGAPROJEKTET-texten så får ni gärna höra av er: ventus001 at home.se var adressen.

+ Via Daily Grail: Buy now! New research puts life back into subliminal advertising.

+ Texas Training Pamphlet: 'Nice Guys' Who Wear Levis & Travel With Children Likely Terrorists.

If, indeed, we could invent things and set plants upon the throne of the earth and we become plants, we should be inclined to ask what these restless human bipeds are running about for and whether they have any use save to serve vegetable life. We, the plant people, would continue, remain in dignified rest in our own place, and need to do nothing save to spread out our roots and leaves in order to receive all divine gifts as our due tribute. Men live to prepare carbonic acid for our breath and die only that their decaying bodies may furnish us nitrogen. Men have to cultivate us in flowerpots and gardens, field and forest, and yet we consume them in the end. If we wish to send our bacterial army into their blood, we exterminate them, and, although they take a small part of our fruit and leaves, it is only to spread and fertilize our seeds. Insects as far outnumber men as our leaves do insects, and yet even insects serve us as love messengers to bring the pollen of our blossoms to fertile corollas.

Plants participate in the cosmic soul life, and, indeed, have their own souls. They live, breathe, emit perfumes, bloom, propagate, and are beautiful, partly, surely, for their own sake. They must have a dim kind of feeling. Animals do not speak and yet we know that their feelings are much like ours. But plants respond with exquisite sensitiveness to their environement by changes in their organization and functions. Their psyche is not concentratde in a nervous system or brain, but diffused through all their parts. They do move their parts toward food, light, air, moisture, and who can say that consciousness cannot exist without a nervous system. Tones can be produced by eithre strings or reeds or vibrating columns of air, and psychic life may be as varied. Plants do not attend as we do and the consciousness attending the vegetative process may be blunt, but perhaps consciousness is more vital the wider its diffusion. They must feel discomfort when deprived of food, light and air. They must have a sense of need and an inner compulsion toward satisfaction. Plants' souls are not miniature copes of human. It is an advantage that the soul is otherwise diffused among plants than in man, and perhaps their responses are very slow...

-- Gustav Theodor Fehner, Nanna or The Soul Life of Plants (1848)

+ För de som missade Uppdrag granskning kan ni se det här. Ämnet för kvällen var wahhabi-rörelsen i Sverige. Väl värt att se, och ett fint exempel på hur man kan göra en vacker religion till en mardröm om man bara ger sig fan på det. För de som såg det och funderar på om allt som de där galningarna säger verkligen är Islams lära så kan jag väl lite kort säga att i princip inget av vad de hävdar går att härleda till Koranen. Deras påståenden kommer antingen från senare perversioner av den islamska läran (hadith-kulten) och saudiska scholars-for-dollars.

+ Och apropå på politisk Islam kan jag verkligen rekommendera den här nya dokumentären om Hamas: Hamas - Behind The Mask.

+ A New Understanding of "Kufr".

+ An untold story of 9/11.

Former federal terrorism investigators say a piece of luggage hastily checked in at the Portland, Maine, airport by a World Trade Center hijacker on the morning of Sept. 11 provided the Rosetta stone enabling FBI agents to swiftly unravel the mystery of who carried out the suicide attacks and what motivated them.

A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport, investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19 hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds and motives.

OMG ROTFL LFMAO HAHA ETC OSV OSV! Förväntas vi tro på den här skiten, eller försöker den amerikanska regimen bara göra sig lustiga? Det här är nästan snäppet värre än det magiska passet som hittades oskatt ett par kvarter från WTC. Säga vad man vill om de här kaparna, men de var då experter på att lämna spår efter sig. Koraner och flygmanualer i hyrbilar, magiska pass, väskor fulla av dokument som "råkar" hamna på fel flyg. Men att hamna på passagerarlistorna, det dög de däremot inte till. Haha, jag vet inte om jag ska skratta eller gråta. Tror jag ska sova på saken.

+ Sudan’s Turabi - Muslim women can marry Christian or Jew.

In a lecture entitled "The Role of Women in Just Governance" which was delivered by the leader of the opposition Popular Congress Party, Hassen Al Turabi, at the headquarters of Umma — Party Mubarak al Fadil faction — in Khartoum, Turabi said a Muslim women can marry a Christian or Jew. Hassan al-Turabi described the teachings that a Muslim woman should not marry a Christian or Jew as misguided teachings intended to confuse and keep women behind.

He also said that Al Hujab (the Islamic veil) —women face and head cover— was meant for women to cover their breasts as one of good practices and was not intended to be generalised to wrap up all the woman body according to the Quranic verses given by Allah for this particular purpose.

Regarding the right of women to lead in prayers at the front, Turabi said that women can lead at the front if they are more knowledgeable in Quaran and Hadeeth (Prophet sayings) than anyone in the congregation. He gave two examples: First, that Prophet Muhammed once gave permission to a women Muslim scholar to lead members of her family in regular prayers including men. Second, that one of the Prophet’s wives, Aaehisha was more versed in Quaraan than many men at the time and hence was often allowed to lead in prayers at the front.

He called for women to play greater role in the creation of a just society. Women should be allowed to enter all fields of activities including politics, art, sport, culture and creative thought, and sport. He described the current government as corrupt, unjust, undemocratic, and lacks transparency. He called for the rights of women to participate in the coming elections to be upheld by the constitution so that women can take part in the running of the country on equal footing with men.

Ma sha Allah!

+ Via the Daily Grail: Army Report on ESP in Animals.

+ Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, said it had cut the share of dollars in its $21 billion of foreign exchange reserves in favour of the euro.

+ Growing popularity of Sufism in Iran. The lights are dimmed in a home in northern Tehran. The men, women and teenagers gathered in the large living room close their eyes and rock back and forth to the beat of live music...

+ DNA Shaped Nebula Observed At Center Of Milky Way. !!!! Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have observed an astonishing double helix shaped nebula near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The astronomers, writing in Nature, estimate the nebula to be around 80 light years in length and situated only 300 light years away from the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Mer här. Jag var tvungen att leta runt för det lät för mystiskt att vara sant, men det var det inte. Alhamdulillah! "We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule," said Mark Morris, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, and lead author. "Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm. Most nebulae are either spiral galaxies full of stars or formless amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas — space weather. What we see indicates a high degree of order."

+ iPODS AND MIND CONTROL.

+ The New Fashion Brought to Iraq. :( :( :(

+ The Busheviks. :D

+ Air Force Plan: Hack Your Nervous System. "Controlled Effects" is one of the Air Force’s ambitious long-term challenges. It starts with better and more accurate bombs, but moves on to discuss devices that "make selected adversaries think or act according to our needs... By studying and modeling the human brain and nervous system, the ability to mentally influence or confuse personnel is also possible." Dags att rulla igång MKULTRA igen hör jag..

+ The Top 15 Skylines in the World v3.0.

+ Outrage in Milwaukee Over Acquittal by All-White Jury of Police Officers Charged in Vicious Beating. Jude was repeatedly punched and kicked in the head and body. His fingers were pulled back, a knife was put to his neck and anus, his pants were cut off and objects were jammed into both ears. An emergency room doctor who treated Jude testified he had the worst ear injuries she had seen in 15 years of practice...

+ A device that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed.

+ Och nu har Muslimska brödraskapet äntligen skaffat en engelsk site: The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) Official English Website.

+ History shows Jews and Christians killed more Muslims than Muslims killed Jews and Christians.

+ Feeling depressed? Lethargic? Shell-shocked by life's little bombardments? You could try meditation. Or yoga. Or color therapy. Or herbal remedies. Or, if you prefer drastic measures, you could drill a hole in your head.

+ An Islamic Commentary on The Gospel of Thomas.

+ One o'clock. In the noon news magazine on the radio, the commentator speaks in a rather bored way of the ongoing army raid into Nablus, words nearly identical to the reports of yesterday and of last week: "The Palestinians claim that the boy shot in central Nablus was unarmed... The soldiers assert that they had shot only at armed militants, as per orders... This is part of a continuing operation to root out terrorists in Nablus and Jenin, which is already going on for several weeks... When soldiers arrive, dozens of youngsters start throwing stones, which complicates the detention of wanted terrorists..."

Suddenly: "We interrupt this report. A large explosion just occurred at the Old Central Bus Station in Tel-Aviv. Dozens of casualties. Stand by for further details"

The Old Central Bus Station. The least fashionable part of Tel-Aviv. The lively dirty streets which are the haunt of migrant workers one jump ahead of the notorious Immigration Police and the most poor and disadvantaged among Israel's own citizens. The place where people have again and again to endure suicide bombings, too. Today, once again.

+ The Dead Sea is 'dying'. The Dead Sea is dying, with the world's saltiest water body threatened by a lack of fresh water and an increasingly tense political situation, environmentalists have warned.

+ Egypt's grand mufti issues fatwa: no sculpture. GAAAHH!!! @£@$¤%¤#!!! Åh så trevligt det vore om di skriftlärda orkade bemöda sig att läsa Koranen någon gång i stället! Vad säger egentligen Koranen om statyer? Jo, just ingenting. Statyer nämns en (1) gång i Koranen, och då berättas det att profeten Solomon hade statyer. Inte ett ord om att Gud fördömer det. Så här lyder Muhammad Pikthalls översättning av sura 34, vers 13:

They made for him what he willed: synagogues and statues, basins like wells and boilers built into the ground. Give thanks, O House of David! Few of My bondmen are thankful.

Och vidare, som det så riktigt konstateras i artikeln, så har inte detta påfund med förbud av statyer tillämpats i det tidiga Islam: "I laughed when I read the paper" and saw the news of the fatwa, says Mr. Semary. "When Islam came to Egypt, [the Muslim invaders] never damaged any Pharaonic statues. How can Ali Gomaa now say that statues are forbidden?"

Slutligen skulle jag nog kunna citera Koranen tills jag stupar, men nöjer mig med sura 16, vers 116:

But say not - for any false thing that your tongues may put forth,- "This is lawful, and this is forbidden," so as to ascribe false things to Allah. For those who ascribe false things to Allah, will never prosper.

Allahu alim.

+ Har precis återupptäckt bloggen Café Exposé. Finns en hel del oerhört bra grejer i arkivet där. Gå och läs.

+ Police have detained 43 students at Assiut University in southern Egypt for suspected membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

+ Interview: Ali al-Jerbawi.

+ Faces tell the stories in UC Riverside Professor Larry Rosenblum's ecological listening lab, as volunteer test subjects show that they can "read" unheard speech -- not just from lips, but from the simple movements of dots placed on lips, teeth and tongue. They can also recognize people's voices just from seeing their faces, and vice versa, and seem to be able to distinguish among a variety of rooms on campus just from their echoes.

+ Kan inte minnas om jag postat det här tidigare, eller inte. Nåväl, det är väl ingen skada skedd i så fall.

Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.

+ "Use more psychedelic drugs," is not advice you would expect from your GP, but that is the call from an influential US medical journal to researchers. An editorial in the Lancet says that the "demonisation of psychedelic drugs as a social evil" has stifled vital medical research that would lead to a better understanding of the brain and better treatments for conditions such as depression.

+ Controversial anti-terror measures planned in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings and brought into force yesterday have been given a hostile reception by MPs and civil liberty lawyers who branded them absurd and a curtailment of free speech.

+ New evidence suggests humans are evolving more rapidly -- and more recently -- than most people thought possible. But for some radical evolutionists, Homo sapiens isn't morphing quickly enough.

+ Octopus Eats Shark. (video)

+ Sveriges cyniska tystnad. EU och Sverige fattade den 10 april det unika beslutet att straffa en i god demokratisk ordning tillkommen regering för förbrytelser som denna regering inte begått. I det skändliga beslutet som medför mycket allvarliga konsekvenser för det palestinska folkets välfärd deltog Sverige utan protester.

+ Survey: Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? 86% ja.

+ America’s Secret Police? Intelligence experts warn that a proposal to merge two Pentagon intelligence units could create an ominous new agency.

+ Romano Prodi, the leader of the Union coalition, which won the latest elections in Italy, said on Wednesday that he will withdraw the Italian troops from Iraq when he takes office, claiming there was no justification for the US-led invasion of the Arab country.

+ A man from San Francisco has admitted staging a hoax video that appeared to show him being beheaded in Iraq.

+ The United States on Thursday blocked a U.N. Security Council statement drafted by Arab nations and aimed at putting pressure on Israel to stop military strikes on Palestinian targets.

+ Pharmaceutical firms are inventing diseases to sell more drugs, researchers have warned.

+ All the pleasures of alcohol, with no downsides.

+ The Attorney General was called upon to consider the prosecution of five senior Israeli officers after an inquest jury found that a British student had been murdered by one of their soldiers. The legal option available to Mr Hurndall's family include the Attorney General authorising an extradition request under the Geneva Convention to try the five men in a British court for alleged war crimes. He could also pursue a war crimes prosecution in the International Criminal Court.

+ The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel. Skum timing!

+ The Toxicity of Recreational Drugs

+ The new Malcolm X? Intressant artikel om John Walker Lindh.

+ Most human beings 'natural born slaves In a counterintuitive paper, Malcolm Heath, of Leeds University, defended Aristotle’s politically incorrect view that some people are natural born slaves.

+ Ramadi Insurgents Develop Clever Tactics.

+ Fick tips om en ny (för mig i alla fall) sajt: Videosift - the best of Google Video and YouTube. Här några grejer därifrån:

- Amazing Robot Dance - watch the second guy.
- The most amazing ukelele playing you will ever see.
- Incredible wall of water, how does he do it?
- The Daily Show: Bush vs Bush.

+ Nu har Kabir.tk uppdaterats med en massa grejer.

+ An Open Letter to David Icke.

+ Sveriges tråkigaste torg? :D :D :D

+ How AIDS in Africa Was Overstated.

+ Unveiling Islam: Author Challenges Orthodox Precepts.

+ Was Darwin wrong?

+ When Shamil Basayev, a Chechen warlord waging Islamic "holy war" against Russia, first took up arms more than a decade ago, he also took up an unlikely role model: an Argentine atheist lionised by the Soviet Union. Along with his gun, Basayev carried a picture of Marxist rebel Che Guevara. "He was his idol," recalls Musa Shanibov, a former KGB informant who helped turn Basayev into a warrior during the turmoil that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Like me, Basayev was a Communist Youth member and a romantic," says Shanibov. "I never saw him pray."

British TV journalist James Miller was murdered when he was shot by an Israeli soldier in Gaza, a jury ruled unanimously today at the inquest into his death.

+ A handful of the world's largest food companies and commodity traders, including McDonald's in the UK, are driving illegal and rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, according to a six-year investigation of the Brazilian soya bean industry.

+ What do women want from a man? In the past, surveys have overwhelmingly shown that women want a rich man, and men want a good-looking woman. While not much has changed for men, as women's financial independence has increased, it seems that their preferences have changed.

+ Archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown pyramid standing 22 metres high inside a hill on the outskirts of Mexico city, it emerged today."

+ Och ännu en: Anarcho Muslim.

+ Ny blog på listan: BARAKA BASHMENT.

+ Bellydancing out, cinema in, says Hamas.

+ Two grandmothers from Yorkshire face up to a year in prison after becoming the first people to be arrested under the [UK] Government's latest anti-terror legislation.

+ The Clash spark terror alert.

Och på samma tema: In 2003, the Canadian instrumental band Godspeed You! Black Emperor were held for questioning as possible terrorists at an Oklahoma gas station on Saturday, while driving on a US tour. According to Tom Windish, a representative for the band, the band pulled their two white vans with trailers that had French slogans grafittied on the sides into a gas station to refuel. Upon seeing the crew of nine musicians, the station's attendant passed a note to a female customer which said that the band were terrorists.

+ Movie star Susan Sarandon is terrified US society is mirroring George Orwell's chilling book 1984 - because individual rights are being trampled on. The Thelma & Louise star was stunned by the "fraudulent" 2000 election of George W Bush - and is keen for the country's next election to be closely monitored, according to website The Scoop. She says: "I believe our next election should be monitored by international entities, just like it happened in Haiti and Iraq. The last one was an embarrassment. Everybody knew there was fraud, but nothing was done about it. In some states there were more votes than people able to vote."

+ Astronomers say they have spotted a cloud of alcohol in deep space that measures 463-billion kilometres across - a findingthat could shed light on how giant stars are formed from primordial gas.

+ Gilles Trehin is an autistic savant artist. Drawing since the age of five, Gilles began developing a series of detailed blueprints for his imaginary city of Urville.

+ Latte Art.

+ The Hamas-led Palestinian government told the UN it wants to live “side by side” with all its neighbors, and that it is ready for serious and constructive talks with the so-called Middle East Quartet, AFP reported.

+ Israels svar på föregående uttalande: Israeli aircraft fired missiles into the compound of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza City, near the offices of President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian security sources said, according to BBC.

+ The long arm of republican vengeance reached inside a remote Irish mountain cottage yesterday and took the life of Denis Donaldson, the former IRA and Sinn Fein member who was recently unmasked as a police agent.

+ Former Head Of Star Wars Program Says Cheney Main 9/11 Suspect. The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program under Presidents Ford and Carter has gone public to say that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney.

+ Wahabis build Public Toilets over Muhammad's house in Saudi Arabia. Mer om det här. Och ännu mer här: The Destruction of Holy Sites in Mecca and Medina. Den sista artikeln tar också upp Wahabi-sektens historia.

+ The Myth of "The Myth of Moderate Islam".

+ Scientists cheer holocaust wish. What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus? Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an award.

+ They have no words for numbers or colours, virtually no perception of time and no stories of how the world was created.The Piraha people of the Brazilian rainforest are perhaps the most laid-back and unmaterialistic on the planet, taking pleasure in life, living for the moment and conspicuously failing to worry about the future.

Mer om detta folk här: Creation miss.


+ Dagens Mahmoud Mohammad Taha:

Muslims maintain that the Islamic Shari'a is perfect. This is true, but its perfection consists precisely in the ability to evolve, assimilate the capabilities of individuals and scoiety, and guide such life up the ladder of continuous development, however active, vital, and renewed such social and individual life may be. When Muslims hear us speak of the evolution of Shari'a, they say: "Islamic Shari'a is perfect and does not therefore need to evolve and develop, as only the imperfect evolves and develops." This position is the exact opposite of the truth. It is in fact those who are perfect who evolve and develop. Perfect men aspire to God's description of Himself when He said: "Every day He [reveals himself] in a fresh state." (55:29) They renew their intellectual and emotional life continously. The tiny grass that grows at the foot of the mountain, flourishes, blossoms, sheds its seeds on the soil, then withers and is blown away by the wind is more perfect than the mountain which towers over it and endures the wildest storms. The tiny grass is part of an advanced stage of evolution, namely, that of life and death. The mountain has not yet been honoured by being part of this process, although it aspires and longs for it.

In the same way, the perfection of the Islamic Shari'a lies in the fact that it is a living body, growing and developing with the living, growing, and developing life, guiding its steps, and charting its way toward God, stage by stage. Life continues on its way back to God, inevitably: "O man, you are toiling along towards your Lord, and you shall meet Him." (84:6)

+ At war with his demons ... and Metallica.

+ Cheap watches trouble for Gitmo prisoners. Are they bomb timers, or just time pieces? Common Casio watches, some worth less than $30, have become part of the often mbiguous web of evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. military cites the digital watches worn by prisoners when they were captured as possible evidence of terrorist ties. (...) Wearing a Casio is cited among the unclassified evidence against at least eight of the detainees whose transcripts were released by the Pentagon after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press. Inte konstigt att inte USA vill ställa dem inför domstol.. Kan det bli mycket mer bisarrt?

+ Why I reject the anarchists who claim to speak for Islam.

+ Western strategists and policymakers should stop talking about a clash of civilizations and focus on the real problem: extreme tribalism. Recent events - riots in many nations protesting cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Sunni-Shiite warring in Iraq, the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan - confirm that the West is not in a clash with Islam. Instead, Islam, which is a civilizing force, has fallen under the sway of Islamists who are a tribalizing force.

+ Stone tools found at one of the South's most important early prehistoric sites could date back 250,000 years, archaeologists claim.

+ Via What Really Happened: CHENEY ADMITS OSAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9-11."

Q I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there -- that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.

+ Iran's military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concerns in the United States and Israel.

+ Venezuelan Government To Launch International 9/11 Investigation.

+ The U.S. military was trying to send a "little reality jab" to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr when American and Iraqi troops raided a Shiite community center and shrine over the weekend, says a top U.S. military official. The joint assault killed at least 16 people, most of them believed to be tied to Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.