AP | Snapped Shot

From the land of Islamic Rage Boy, a new contender in the Jihadi Idol series:

A supporter of senior leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani shouts slogans during a welcome rally for Geelani in Srinagar, India, Thursday, March 11, 2010. After spending over two months in New Delhi for medical treatment and regular check-ups, Geelani arrived in Indian Kashmir's main city to a welcome rally Thursday. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

I don't know about how this little fellow would do at jihad, but he definitely seems well qualified to be a cheerleader in the NBA.*

(* Nonprofessional Basketball Associates, of course.)

Sometimes, our little terrorist friends just toss us the funniest little bits of joy.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants fall off of a truck after one of them was injured, center, during a training session on the outskirts of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, March 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Ye bloody infidels, behold Hamas' new terrifying weapon of terror:

Oooo, scary!

See-Also: The Jawa Report, doubleplusundead. (Thanks, guys!)

Update: I'm not sure what to make of this. Here is wire coverage of Mr. Farooq's injuries at Reuters and the AP. That doesn't exactly look "unscathed" to me.

The captions indicate that both photos were taken today, the 7th of January, yet the GK article below references the 6th. Does this mean that Amaan escaped unscathed yesterday, but wasn't so lucky in his coverage of the gunfights today? Or are these photos connected to the story above, with the dates mixed up by differing interpretations of time zones?

No clue, but either way it turns out, we here at Snapped Shot still hope Mr. Farooq makes a speedy recovery!

~

Okay, a brief interlude from our interlude for this news flash:

Greater Kashmir photographer Amaan Farooq, seems to have gotten a little bit too close to the action for his comfort.

Srinagar, Jan 6: The Greater Kashmir lens man, Amaan Farooq, had a narrow escape on Wednesday while covering the encounter between militants and forces in Lal Chowk. Amaan after hearing the gunshots rushed towards the spot to discharge his professional duties.

“I stood near the STD shop along with another photographer outside the Sadder court. Soon firing followed and there was no chance to move anywhere,” Amaan said adding that a CRPF trooper shouted at him advising him to duck. “I followed his advice and laid down near an electric pole. Firing resumed and scores of bullets hit the electric pole under which I had taken the refuge. I thought now the bullet would hit me and I will get killed. But God was kind enough,” he said, adding that he saw A CRPF man and the policeman getting injured.

The photojournalist has taken some shots of police retrieving the body of a policeman killed in the encounter. For over one hour Amaan along with another photojournalist of Kashmir Times was holed up at the encounter site. “A shopkeeper was also holed up at the spot some 10 meters from me. He fainted in the face of the volleys of bullets being exchanged. When police came to our rescue we dragged that shopkeeper along,” Amaan added.

Thankfully, Amaan came away from the experience unscathed.

God is certainly gracious.

Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, has been the target of a large number of death threats as of late. Always the inspirational leader, he has come out and openly declared that he's "not scared of anyone."

Which makes Oded Balilty's composition above rather funny in context.

An avowedly unafraid politician of the leftist persuasion, surrounded by a serious crew of pistol-packing security guards. (Who does he think he is, Rosie O'Donnell?)

Anyway, I'd be curious to hear what y'all think: Any bets on whether or not our AP stringer had Ehud's little quote in mind when he put together this series of photographs?

[ Daylife Link ]

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, center, walks surrounded by security guards as he arrives for a business conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010. Israel has beefed up security around its defense minister in response to death threats from Jewish extremists angry over new restrictions on construction in West Bank settlements, security officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

This former PRC terrorist was, no doubt, an innocent victim of the dastardly Zionist military regime:

Palestinians chant Islamic slogans while they carry the body of Jehad El-Smare, a militant from the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committee, at a mosque during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010. El-Smare was killed during an Israeli air strike in which two others were wounded in southern Gaza. The Israeli military confirmed that it carried out the airstrike late Tuesday. Such airstrikes have been relatively rare in the year since Israel's large-scale three-week invasion of Gaza ended. (AP Photo /Adel Hana)

The people carrying his body appear to be a bunch of noble Methodists of the most gentle persuasion too, don't they?

I would like to step back for a moment and thank Adel Hana for actually taking the time to point out that the "victim" here was a terrorist, even though him being named "Holy War" (or "Peaceful Inner Struggle," if you want to believe people like Doug "Ibrahim" Hooper) was enough of a clue by itself.

Because leaving that little factoid out, like Eyad Baba did in this photo here, makes the situation all the more comical. Notice the obvious militants looking over the obviously injured other obvious militant laying there on that stretcher.

"A wounded person." Heh!

Comedy like that can only happen in real life, my friends.

Civilian apartments, I might add, which would seem to be a pretty hefty violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The admission comes in today's installment of his New York Times interview, which we were discussing yesterday:

BEN CURTIS: Yes. I couldn’t say it’s the same street, but it’s the same area. We’d been in a building where we had come across some weapons and, what do you call them, those green khaki pouches that you’d wear around your waist that soldiers would wear? We’d come across some of those piled up next to a door with nobody around. And we took a couple of pictures of them, but it wasn’t particularly exciting visually.

Maybe not, Ben, but it is something that's very relevant in a discussion about a war in which both sides are accused of committing war crimes (of which hiding soldiers within civilian areas is one), is it not?

So did those "boring old" photos make it to the newswire? I've looked through the AP's online archive of the period, and I see nothing of the sort that matches that description. Instead, we have pictures of a picture album and a bed. (At least, in the 18 pictures you submitted to the Associated Press for that day.)

Why hide evidence this damning from the news consuming public, Ben? What purpose are you serving by keeping photos like this out of the wire archives?

Sure, you might think it's boring. But so is 99% of the material photojournalists put out there. News wire services aren't paying you stringers to go out there and make art -- your purpose is to gather news.

And what better news than concrete proof that Hezbollah was violating the Geneva conventions, contrary to what the peaceniks were telling us back then?

Boring or not, it was news, Ben.

This week's befuddling caption comes to us courtesy the Associated Press:

Pakistani Shiite Muslims lay a U.S. flag on the road and chant slogan during a rally to condemn Monday's suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan on Friday, Jan. 1, 2010. Karachi, the country's largest city, came to a virtual standstill after religious and political leaders called for a general strike to protest a bombing that killed 44 people and subsequent riots. The banner reads 'The attack of Shiite procession is the conspiracy of oppressive forces.' (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Laying a U.S. flag on the road? During a rally against "suicide bombing?"

Funny, I thought laying the U.S. flag on the road was typically a precursor to something else entirely... Like, for instance, an anti-American protest.

Maybe I'm just not "nuanced" enough to understand the subtle message that Fareed Khan's trying to send.

Maybe I'm just downright evil, but the only thing I can think about this picture is how much better the world would be if these chaps would just leave the bags on for a little bit longer:

Palestinian demonstrators wear plastic bag as protection from tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers, not seen, during a demonstration against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Friday, Jan. 1, 2010. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

(For a discourse on the peacefulness of these weekly "demonstrations," see here. Perhaps that will help explain my mock angst.)

Here's an interesting interview with Ben Curtis over at the New York Times Opinionator blog. The topic of discussion is a series of photographs which caused something of a controversy back when Snapped Shot was first getting online. (Article #2, even!)

Curtis understandably stands by his work -- I won't fault him for that -- but then makes a rather curious statement:

BEN CURTIS: If the Lebanon war had been covered by the much smaller number of photographers that the media has there on a normal basis, you probably wouldn’t have seen half of these things, simply because there would never have been a photographer there to record them. Now, when you have a massive media influx, you’re going to get more comprehensive coverage of every single aspect of that war, and there’s going to be photographers around all very close to the scene for a lot of those incidents.

To which I'm compelled to ask: If there are large numbers of photographers covering the war, but each and every one of them is being told by one side of the conflict what they can and cannot take pictures of, how does this make the coverage more accurate?

This is largely the same discussion I've had previously with Christopher Anderson, who maintained that such blatant manipulation of the press is neither unusual nor unethical. (While I can generally agree with that sentiment, for the press infer to their readers that their coverage is totally uninhibited by pressure from any given side in the conflict in shaping its coverage is not!)

Anyway, the whole interview is worth a read, so be sure to click on over and read the rest. And, in case you're curious, you can find past coverage of Ben Curtis here at Snapped Shot over yonder.

(h/t Dave Bender)

Update: CAMERA Snapshots (no relation) highlights another very interesting part of the conversation, which I highly recommend that you read! 

Update x2: Carl in Jerusalem has more--including a link to part 2 of the interview.

Wow, I never would've guessed that Mahmoud Abbas, who has often been confused for an American preacher, would star in a video game all his own, but alas, there he is!

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he speaks at a ceremony marking the Fatah movement's anniversary in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Better watch out for that blaster, Mahmoud!