The Centanni kidnapping

"We will give you one chance that will not be repeated - the liberation of Muslims detained in American prisons in exchange for the detainees in our hands," the statement read.

"We give you a deadline of 72 hours starting from today at noon to decide."

This from the Holy Jihad Brigades, most definitely a nom de guerre picked out of the air to hide their affiliation.

The phony sounding name could also suggest it's the work of amatuers, but it's hard to believe the Palestinian groups, Hamas, Abu Mazen, etc wouldn't be aware of them operating within the confines of Gaza.

The Palestinian terror groups have traditionally been Sunni-affiliated but have usually operated in the fashion of 'traditional' terrorists as opposed to the modern fundamentalist versions. If these kidpappers are more in the mold of Abu Nidal than Abu Musab, then the jihadi reference was used to implicate bin Laden. The good news is the traditional terrorists don't usually behead people, but that only represents the barest optimism, doesn't it?

If the Palestinians are telling the truth it might point to more sophisticated operators, such as former or current intelligence agents of a particular state. Especially based on the length of confinement and high profile.

It's always hard to tell, since most of these guys represent an enigma. For example, the recently foiled Bojinka two terror plot featured mainly Sunnis, yet evidently they had staged it for August 22, the Shia holy day, and a day Ahmadinejad had previously warmed everyone about. Were they trying to implicate him with a spectacular attack that would have launched us into a full-scale war on Iran?

Whatever the case, it doesn't look real good for these guys. The demand is obviously not meet-able--there's no way we're giving up guys like Yousef, Padilla, Moussaoui and Reid from American jails along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh from the secret sites. Or the entire contents of Gitmo.

Not much else to say except God be with these men and their families. As Jonathan at Crushliberalism reminds us:

For some recent leftist commenters here: these are the savages you think we should be negotiating with, gentlemen!

Indeed. Negotiation only works when both parties are civilized. Right now we need a rescue.