Reading Between the Lines

Looks like there's going to be a very temporary rope shortage in Syria.

Two men accused of involvement in a bomb attack and gun fight in the Syrian capital in April have been sentenced to death by a state security court.

The official Sana agency said the court ordered that Ahmad Shlash Hassan and Ezzo Hussein al-Hussein be hanged, a ruling that cannot be appealed.

In April 2004, a bomb explosion and the subsequent gun battle at a disused UN building in Damascus left four dead.

Two attackers, a policeman and a passer-by died in the incident.

Two other defendants, Azzam al-Nahar and Abdel Basset Hassida, were sentenced to forced labour for life.

As usual, the money shot is near the bottom.

One of the men sentenced to death, Ahmad Shlash Hassan, appeared on state television in May confessing to his involvement in the 27 April attack.

The 26-year-old veterinary student, said the bombing had been "a personal act" in which he was "trying to respond to the aggression against Muslims of oppressive states like Israel, the United States and all the other infidel countries".

By blowing up a disused United Nations office building in Damascus? Like the "moral authority" of the United Nations, this has to be some sort of elaborate joke. It makes absolutely no sense to detonate a bomb in Syria to protest the so-called oppression of Muslims in "infidel countries." My guess is that these guys were aggravated, probably over a legitimate grievance, with the Syrian government and upon their capture were beaten into submission and forced to blame it on their anger toward the infidels.

Either way, they're terrorists, and they should be summarily executed, along with the rest of the terrorist fat cats in the Syrian government.