Re: ATLAS SHRUGS - PAMELA GELLER

Admin Fri 10 Apr 2015, 9:48 pm

Kansas Muslim accused of plotting to detonate jihad bomb at Fort Riley military base for the Islamic State
It’s almost every day now. America is under siege. Obama say, “Fore!” Kerry say, “Inshallah!” And those of us who have sounded the alarm about this for so many years are demonized, smeared and marginalized.
“Kansas man accused of plotting to detonate bomb at Fort Riley military base,” Fox News, April 10, 2015 (thanks to Christian):
A 20-year-old Kansas man plotted to kill American soldiers with a vehicle bomb at the Fort Riley military base, an attack he planned to carry out on behalf of the ISIS terror group, prosecutors announced Friday.
John T. Booker, also known as Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, was arrested as part of a lengthy FBI investigation. Federal authorities said he was arrested near the army base in Manhattan, Kansas, as he completed final preparations to detonate the bomb, which had, in fact, been rendered inert while he was under FBI surveillance.
“As alleged in the complaint, John Booker attempted to attack U.S. military personnel on U.S. soil purportedly in the name of (ISIS),” said Assistant Attorney General Carlin. “Thanks to the efforts of the law enforcement community, we were able to safely disrupt this threat to the brave men and women who serve our country. Protecting American lives by identifying and bringing to justice those who wish to harm U.S. citizens remains the National Security Division’s number one priority.”
Prosecutors said Booker repeatedly stated he wanted to engage in violent jihad on behalf of ISIS. He became an Army recruit and said he intended to commit an insider attack against American soldiers, like Major Nidal Hassan at Fort Hood in Texas.
Booker is the latest among a number of ISIS sympathizers who have been arrested by the FBI in recent weeks.
A criminal complaint unsealed Friday charged Booker with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives), one count of attempting to damage property by means of an explosive and one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
He was due to appear Friday afternoon in federal court in Topeka.
The criminal complaint Friday alleged that Booker spent months developing and attempting to execute a plan that would result in his own death as an ISIS suicide bomber. It also alleged that he “planned to pull the trigger of the explosives himself so that he would die in the explosion,” Kansas U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said at a news conference.
“I want to assure the public there was never any breach of Fort Riley Military Base, nor was the safety or the security of the base or its personnel ever at risk,” said Kansas City FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Jackson. “Recently the Command Staff at Fort Riley has been working hand in hand with law enforcement to ensure the utmost security and protection for the men and women who serve our country, and the surrounding community that supports the base.”
Booker allegedly plotted to construct an explosive device for attack on American soil for months during meetings with two FBI informants. He told one killing Americans was permissible because the Koran “says to kill your enemies wherever they are.”
Prosecutors said the jihadi wannabe advanced the plot by acquiring components for a vehicle bomb, producing a propaganda video and renting a storage locker to store components for the explosive device.
Prosecutors said he identified Fort Riley as the target and talked about his commitment to trigger the device himself and become a jihadi martyr.
His arrest came behind the wheel of a van he belived was packed with 1,000 pounds of explosive.
Last year FoxNews.com reported exclusively that Booker was under investigation for threatening online to commit a “Fort Hood-inspired” act of terror just weeks away from reporting for basic training.
The military learned of his radicalism – which had apparently been on display for months in online posts where he praised Usama bin Laden and pledged to die for radical Islam.
FoxNews.com reported then that Booker was the subject of an FBI alert.
“Getting ready to be killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush! I am so nervous,” read a March 19. 2014 post on the Facebook page authorities believe belonged to Booker. “NOT because I’m scared to die but I am EAGER to meet my lord.”
FoxNews.com reported Booker enlisted in the Army in February 2014 and was due to report for basic training less than two months later on April 7. But the FBI interviewed him in March and alerted the Army, which formally discharged him.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/04/kansas-muslim-accused-of-plotting-to-detonate-jihad-bomb-at-fort-riley-military-base-for-the-islamic-state.html/#sthash.GNoqTbiV.dpuf

Admin Wed 08 Apr 2015, 5:45 pm

“If you hesitate, you’re shot” – A survivor of Garissa jihad massacre tells his story

The horror of this jihad massacre is vividly described by this young student who survived it.

Remember as you watch it:

this is what the West has in store for its future, thanks to the weakness and fecklessness of our leaders

Video thanks to Blazing Cat Fur

Admin Mon 06 Apr 2015, 2:58 pm

Islamic State (ISIS) Beheading “Palestinians” in Damascus
In response to this, watch for the UN and Obama to condemn…Israel. Meanwhile, as the Islamic State advances and expands its savagery, Obama says, “Fore!” Now that it is killing “Palestinians,” will he take some effective action?
“ISIS Beheading Palestinians in Damascus,” Arutz Sheva, April 4, 2015:
The savage Islamic State (ISIS) organization has seized nearly all of the Palestinian district of Yarmouk in Damascus, activists said Saturday, and there are reports of beheadings and mass killings of Palestinians.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) watchdog group said the Islamist group has taken over 90% of Yarmouk, on the southern edge of the Syrian capital.
The Financial Times cited activists who said that the jihadi group may succeed in cementing a foothold in the Syrian capital, thus increasing pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.
ISIS supporters have reportedly posted pictures of fighters beheaded by the jihadi group during the battle.
“Reports of kidnappings, beheadings and mass killings are coming out from Al-Yarmouk,” said Saeb Erekat, an member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, Saturday evening. “The priority must be to save the Palestinian refugees in the camp by creating a safe passage for them out of the death trap that Al-Yarmouk has become.”
He called on the UN, the International Committee for the Red Crescent (ICRC) and the Syrian government to help evacuate civilians.
The main group fighting ISIS inside the camp is Aknaf Beit al-Makdis, an offshoot of Hamas. Two opposition sources told the Financial Times the Syrian army had allowed a Palestinian militia allied to Assad’s forces to send weapons to the Hamas offshoot fighting in Yarmouk.
“It’s an extremely rare thing for the government to do anything even remotely co-operating with the opposition,” said one activist. “That shows you how desperate the regime is to stop ISIS from having gateway right to heart of the capital for car bombs or whatever other atrocities.”
International Business Times explained that Yarmouk has been the scene of a fierce three-way fight since ISIS entered it last week
The Sunni ISIS group struck an alliance with rival jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra (The Nusra Front – Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria), to wrest control Yarmouk from the rebels loyal to Hamas, which had been fighting against regime troops.
Al Nusra and ISIS “were able to take control on 90% of the Yarmouk camp after violent clashes against Aktaf Bait al-Maqdis and Islamic battalions,” SOHR reported, adding that two men from the latter group were beheaded by ISIS. The cooperation between ISIS and Al Nusra is significant in that the two jihadist groups have themselves been involved in an often bloody rivalry.
“Five soldiers in regime forces were killed after clashes against Islamic battalions in the camp,” SOHR added, reporting also bombardments by regime forces in the area.
The UN expressed concern about the situation in the refugee camp which was once home to between 100,000 and 150,000 Palestinians and Syrians, and now holds only about 18,000.
“The situation in Yarmouk is an affront to the humanity of all of us, a source of universal shame,” UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness told Reuters.
“Yarmouk is a test, a challenge for the international community. We must not fail. The credibility of the international system itself is at stake”.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/04/islamic-state-isis-beheading-palestinians-in-damascus.html/#sthash.bYyL8VDJ.dpuf

Admin Thu 02 Apr 2015, 8:08 pm

Report: As Nuclear Deal Closes, Iranian Troops Headed to Israel’s Border
President Obama, the architect of genocide.
Future generatios under siege by Islamic nuclear powers will curse the day that urbane savage was born wherever the hell it was.
Nothing happens for decades, then decades happen in a day- get ready, thanks to the enemy in the White House.
“Report: As Nuclear Deal Closes, Iranian Troops Headed to Israel’s Border,” Times.UK, March 30, 2015
Golan Heights rebels Golan Heights violence Iran nuclear ambitions Iran Nuclear Negotiations Israel Golan Heights Israel Syria Golan Heights Israeli border syria civil war golan heights
An IDF patrol. Iranian forces are approaching Israel’s northern border. Photo: Twitter.
The Times – Iran is close to putting its forces on Israel’s northeast border for the first time, as its allies crush rebel groups in the Golan Heights area of Syria.
The prospect of Iranian troops being posted on a frontier that has been calm for decades is causing alarm in Israel, and comes as international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions near a climax.
Read full story THE TIMES MIDDLE EAST
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4396459.ece
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/04/report-as-nuclear-deal-closes-iranian-troops-headed-to-israels-border.html/#sthash.OE8fiCMd.dpuf

Admin Tue 31 Mar 2015, 10:28 am

Barry University Officials in Florida authorize Pro-ISIS Club: JUST CHANGE THE NAME
University and college campuses are critical weapons in the left’s arsenal to destroy America. It’s not just the obvious horror of ISIS or CAIR or the MSA being welcome on college campuses. It’s that voices who oppose their savagery and carnage are banned. My colleagues and I are rarely invited to speak, and when we are, the blowback is deafening, even violent. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was uninvited from Brandeis, if you recall. It’s not just terror groups and hate preachers welcomed on US college campuses; Jewish students are routinely harassed and bullied on campus by Muslims and their leftist lapdogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0n2mgFlUi4

Published on 30 Mar 2015
Following a similar shocking video at Cornell University released by James O'Keefe last week, Barry University officials in Florida also sanction a pro-ISIS club with the stated goal of sending material support to ISIS. The only suggestion by Barry officials was to change the name of the club "because technically our country is at war with ISIS."

Admin Fri 27 Mar 2015, 11:43 pm

Israeli official: Iran deal as ‘incomprehensibly’ bad
We are under siege — it’s a coup. The Muhammadan in the White House is fully operational
Israeli official brands emerging Iran deal as ‘incomprehensibly’ bad
As Tehran hails ‘massive progress’ in talks, Jerusalem protests that regime ‘is working against American-Arab-Israeli interests without paying a price’
By Avi Issacharoff, TOI, March 27, 2015
US Secretary of State John Kerry, (L) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R)wait for the start of a meeting for nuclear talks a hotel in Lausanne Switzerland, March 26, 2015. (photo credit: AP/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)
As Iran hailed “massive progress” toward a deal on its nuclear program, an Israeli official described the terms of the looming agreement as “incomprehensibly” bad and rejected the Obama administration’s contention that it would keep the regime a year away from accumulating enough fissile material for a bomb.
Estimating that a framework deal would indeed be signed soon, and that a full agreement would follow in June, the official lamented the US-led negotiators’ apparent readiness to remove sanctions without Iran being required to halt its global terrorist activities, and listed a host of areas in which Tehran was working against American, Israeli and moderate Arab interests without being made to pay a price.
His comments underlined immense Israeli opposition to the emerging deal that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobby against it in Congress earlier this month to the abiding anger of the Obama Administration. Charged with forming a new government on Wednesday after winning the March 17 elections, Netanyahu vowed to patch up ties with the US, but insisted Israel would do everything to thwart the emerging Iranian nuclear deal, which he said was “an agreement that endangers us, our neighbors and the world.”
Speaking to the Times of Israel, the Israeli official, who insisted on anonymity, protested that “Iran will retain core capabilities,” under the emerging accord. While the Obama Administration “claims that the Iranians will remain a year away from enough fissile material for a bomb,” he added, “we don’t agree with this determination. It will be less time.”
The official stressed, however, that Israel’s opposition and dismay related to the entire nature of the international negotiation and engagement with the regime in Tehran. “The more important question is, why allow them to be in this situation at all (with core nuclear capabilities intact)?” he asked. “The Iranians are not being required to reveal their secret military projects, their missile stocks are not being discussed, and nor is the terrorism they initiate.”
“Has anyone wondered why the Iranians need centrifuges at all?” the official demanded. “Or why they are not being ordered to stop their support for Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon?”
“So yes,” he added, “for Israel, this is a bad deal.. The deal is bad because of its readiness to remove sanctions without any American demand from Iran to stop the terror. I estimate that we will have a framework deal soon, and after that a full agreement in June. This is incomprehensible.”
The official noted that “Iran is working today against American-Arab-Israeli interests without paying a price… They are in control in Baghdad, Beirut, Sana’a and Damascus. They toppled a pro-American ruler in Yemen, and are engaged in battles against Sunnis in Tikrit.”
Despite all this, the Israeli official protested, “the White House sees them as a solution and not as a problem. The administration’s weakness is broadcast across the entire region.
“Look at (the Obama Administration’s) new policy toward Syria. They let Bashar Assad survive, aren’t calling for him to step down, and are pursuing a policy of ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ You look at all this and reach the conclusion that a regional deal is being made here. That is, to say to the Iranians, ‘Come fight with us against the Islamic State, and in return we will not touch Assad or Iranian terror.”
As Iranian and American officials held further talks in Lausanne on Friday, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, “There has been massive progress on all the issues.” He added: “There are still disputes over two issues — R&D (research and development) and UN sanctions.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, for his part, said “The talks are very difficult and very complicated.”
Zarif spoke shortly after his first meeting of the day with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Zarif also sought Friday to dismiss concerns that his country’s preoccupation with the crisis in Yemen could pre-empt attempts to find common ground at nuclear talks with six world powers, saying the negotiations remained focused on sealing a deal.
Yemen is “the hot issue of the day” and has come up at the talks but “it doesn’t mean that we negotiated about it,” Zarif told reporters.
Saudi-led air strikes on Shiite rebels in Yemen are straining relations between the Sunni Gulf kingdom and predominantly Shiite Iran. Zarif said they “have to stop and everybody has to encourage dialogue and national reconciliation.”
Despite Iran’s concerns over Yemen, however, “our negotiations are confined to the nuclear” issue, he said.
The sides are hoping to narrow gaps in time to reach a preliminary deal by the end of the month. That would allow them to try and negotiate a comprehensive agreement by late June to put long-term curbs on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iranian officials have been upbeat recently about the chances of making enough progress by Tuesday to permit them to proceed into the summer. But Zarif was less bullish Friday, saying only that he hoped the sides would come to a common understanding by next week.
The Obama administration has made an accord that lessens fear about Iran’s nuclear weapons potential a top foreign policy objective.
Reflecting Tehran’s interest in reaching a deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sent a letter to President Barack Obama and the leaders of the other countries at the talks — Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. His office said Friday the letters contained proposals on how to reach a deal, without elaborating. Rouhani also spoke to the leaders of Russia, France and Britain by phone.
The fate of a fortified underground bunker previously used for uranium enrichment appeared close to resolution. Officials have told The Associated Press that the U.S. may allow Iran to run hundreds of centrifuges at the formerly secret facility in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb and the site would be subject to international inspections.
In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/israeli-official-iran-deal-as-incomprehensibly-bad.html/#sthash.Rx7sqDn3.dpuf

related
RED FLAG NEWS
ENTIRE US SENATE Votes 100-0 to Impose Sanctions on Iran if They Get Caught Cheating
The US Senate voted 100-0 – just before 6:30pm ET on Thursday – on Senator Kirk’s amendment to reimpose sanctions on the Iranians if they get caught cheating on a deal.

The nonbinding language is grounded in a section on violations written into the Kirk-Menendez legislation, which more broadly increases pressure on Iran if they fail to sign on to a deal that puts their atomic program beyond use for weaponization. The effect of the vote was to put the entire Senate on record supporting the principles of Kirk-Menendez.

The AFP quickly moved to describe the vote as “US Senate threatens Iran with new sanctions“. Note that just a few days ago Democrats had been blocking the measure.

Yesterday the entire Senate approved it.

On Thursday the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Iran was not providing needed access or information to their nuclear facilities.

Admin Thu 26 Mar 2015, 4:40 pm

Obama-backed rebels in Yemen loot secret U.S. files about spy operations
Why is the Obama administration deliberately leaking our most sensitive documents to our worst enemies? Where were the burn bags, etc.? This isn’t incompetence. It’s treason. How many spies and key people will be targeted for assassination with this treasure trove of US intel in the hands of the enemy?
The only safe secrets are Benghazi, his treacherous nuke deal, his perfidy in the Israeli elections, the IRS scandals, spying on Americans ….
Over the weekend, US Special Forces, “the world’s most talented, capable and toughest special operations forces got the heck out of Dodge” — on orders from above, of course.
According to WaPo, the Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen. It’s in the hands of the enemy
Not a few months ago, Obama touted Yemen as his “success story.”
“Iran-backed rebels in Yemen loot secret U.S. files about spy operations,” The LA Times, March 25, 2015 (thanks to Todd)
Houthis in Sana, Yemen
Houthi fighters chant slogans during the funeral procession for people killed last week in suicide bombings in Sana, Yemen. (Hani Mohammed / Associated Press)
By Brian Bennett and Zaid al-Alayaa contact the reporter
Iran-backed rebels seize secret files about U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Yemen
An intelligence loss hampers U.S. efforts to target Al Qaeda’s most powerful franchise in Yemen
Secret files held by Yemeni security forces that contain details of American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of confidential informants and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism strikes, U.S. officials say.
U.S. intelligence officials believe additional files were handed directly to Iranian advisors by Yemeni officials who have sided with the Houthi militias that seized control of Sana, the capital, in September, which led the U.S.-backed president to flee to Aden.
For American intelligence networks in Yemen, the damage has been severe. Until recently, U.S. forces deployed in Yemen had worked closely with President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi’s government to track and kill Al Qaeda operatives, and President Obama had hailed Yemen last fall as a model for counter-terrorism operations elsewhere.
But the identities of local agents were considered compromised after Houthi leaders in Sana took over the offices of Yemen’s National Security Bureau, which had worked closely with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.
Yemeni intelligence officers still loyal to Hadi’s besieged government burned some secret files, one official said. But they couldn’t destroy all of them before the Houthi fighters, whose leaders have received some weapons and training from Iran, moved in.
The loss of the intelligence networks, in addition to the escalating conflict, contributed to the Obama administration’s decision to halt drone strikes in Yemen for two months, to vacate the U.S. Embassy in Sana last month and to evacuate U.S. special operations and intelligence teams from a Yemeni air base over the weekend.
The Houthis claimed Wednesday that they had captured that air base, Al Anad, as new fighting broke out in and around the southern seaport of Aden, the country’s financial hub, where Hadi had taken refuge. Over the weekend, the Houthis seized the central city of Taizz.
A Houthi-controlled TV channel announced a $20-million bounty for Hadi’s capture, and his Aden compound was hit by airstrikes.
Foreign Minister Riad Yassin said Hadi was overseeing the city’s defense from an undisclosed safe location. The Associated Press reported that he had fled the country on a boat.
Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said that U.S. diplomats “were in touch” with Hadi early Wednesday and that he later “voluntarily” left his residence. She said she could not confirm whether he was still in the country, calling conditions there “incredibly volatile.”
As the turmoil deepened, Yemen appeared to be descending into a civil war that could ignite a wider regional struggle.
Yemen port city of Aden seethes with separatist fervor
Yemen port city of Aden seethes with separatist fervor
Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Yemen to bolster the positions of the Yemeni government against the rapid advance of the Shiite militias, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. said Wednesday.
The objective of the airstrikes is to “defend the legitimate government” of Yemen and prevent the takeover of Yemen by Houthi militias, Ambassador Adel al Jubeir told reporters at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
Saudi Arabia reportedly moved troops, armored vehicles and artillery to secure its border with Yemen, which sits alongside key shipping routes.
After suicide bombers killed 137 worshipers at two Shiite mosques in Sana on Friday, a previously unknown group that said it was allied with Islamic State claimed responsibility. That stirred fear that the extremist group had expanded to Yemen, adding a new threat to the quickly fragmenting country.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/backed-rebels-in-yemen-loot-secret-u-s-files-about-spy-operations.html/#sthash.r8RxlZ9a.dpuf

Admin Fri 20 Mar 2015, 6:34 pm

ATLAS SHRUGS - PAMELA GELLER - Page 15 WAKE_UP_WORLD

WAKE UP PEOPLE

Iran endorses nuclear EMP attack on United States while Obama clings to ‘preposterous argument’ - See more at:
Bipartisan resistance to the Obama administration’s push for a nuclear deal with Iran surged on Capitol Hill on Thursday, even as details emerged about a potential agreement that would allow Tehran to retain up to 6,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges
Obama clinging to “preposterous argument” with Iran: Rep. Brad Sherman of California…
Obama campaigned in 2008 and 2012 on the “crystal-clear promise to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” An enormous bloody lie he told again and again and again. He grovels to Iran, Iran spits in his face and threatens America and her allies. So Obama grovels some more.
Here are some of his statements on the subject, going back to his first campaign for the presidency:

June 5, 2008, in Cairo: “I will continue to be clear on the fact that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be profoundly destabilizing for the entire region.It is strongly in America’s interest to prevent such a scenario.
June 8, 2008, to AIPAC: “The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat…. Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel.”
October 7 2008, in the second presidential debate: “We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game-changer in the region. Not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. And so it’s unacceptable. And I will do everything that’s required to prevent it. And we will never take military options off the table,”
November 7, 2008, press conference: “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.”
February 27, 2009, speech at Camp Lejeune: “(W)e are focusing on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing a strategy to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon; and actively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world.”
January 27, 2010, State of the Union address: “And as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They, too, will face growing consequences. That is a promise.”
July 1, 2010, at the signing of the Iran Sanctions Act: “There should be no doubt — the United States and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
May 19, 2011, speech on the Middle East: “Now, our opposition to Iran’s intolerance and Iran’s repressive measures, as well as its illicit nuclear program and its support of terror, is well known.”
May 22, 2011, in an address to AIPAC: “You also see our commitment to our shared security in our determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons…. So let me be absolutely clear — we remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
October 13,2011, press conference after meeting with South Korean president: “Now, we don’t take any options off the table in terms of how we operate with Iran.”
November 14, 2011, press conference: “So what I did was to speak with President Medvedev, as well as President Hu, and all three of us entirely agree on the objective, which is making sure that Iran does not weaponize nuclear power and that we don’t trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. That’s in the interests of all of us… I have said repeatedly and I will say it today, we are not taking any options off the table, because it’s my firm belief that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would pose a security threat not only to the region but also to the United States.”
December 8, 2011, press conference: (In response to question about pressuring Iran): “No options off the table means I’m considering all options.”
December 16, 2011, speech to the General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism: “Another grave concern — and a threat to the security of Israel, the United States and the world — is Iran’s nuclear program. And that’s why our policy has been absolutely clear: We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons…and that’s why, rest assured, we will take no options off the table. We have been clear.”
January 24, 2012, State of the Union address: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”
March 2, 2012, interview with Goldblog: “I… don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”
March 4, 2012, speech to AIPAC: “I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say That includes all elements of American power: A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.”
March 5, 2012, remarks after meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu: “… I reserve all options, and my policy here is not going to be one of containment. My policy is prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. And as I indicated yesterday in my speech, when I say all options are at the table, I mean it.”
March 6, 2012, press conference: “And what I have said is, is that we will not countenance Iran getting a nuclear weapon. My policy is not containment; my policy is to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon — because if they get a nuclear weapon that could trigger an arms race in the region, it would undermine our non-proliferation goals, it could potentially fall into the hands of terrorists.
March 14, 2012, remarks after meeting with David Cameron: “…And as I said in a speech just a couple of weeks ago, I am determined not simply to contain Iran that is in possession of a nuclear weapon; I am determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — in part for the reasons that David mentioned… We will do everything we can to resolve this diplomatically, but ultimately, we’ve got to have somebody on the other side of the table who’s taking this seriously.”
September 25, 2012, speech to the United Nations General Assembly: “Make no mistake: A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained…the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Once again, Obama sides with America’s enemies.“Iran endorses nuclear EMP attack on United States,” By Paul Bedard | Washinton Examiner,

March 19, 2015 |Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, second right in first row, visits a defense industry display. AP…Suspected for years of plotting to dismantle the U.S. electric grid, American officials have confirmed that Iranian military brass have endorsed a nuclear electromagnetic pulse explosion that would attack the country’s power system.

American defense experts made the discovery while translating a secret Iranian military handbook, raising new concerns about Tehran’s recent nuclear talks with the administration.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, attends a graduation ceremony of army cadets, accompanied by Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, left, Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Hasan Firouzabadi, second left in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Oct. 5 2013. (AP Photo/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week’s elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran’s threat to free nations.
RELATED: Iran nuclear talks push against deadline
“Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States,” he wrote.
A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.
Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.
Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.
Pry has suggested ways for Iran to deliver a nuclear attack: by ship launched off the East Coast, a missile or via satellite.
Either way the result could be destruction of all or part of the U.S. electric grid, robbing the public of power, computers, water and communications for potentially a year.

RELATED: Is Iran playing the U.S. in the nuclear talks?
Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, said the threat to the grid can also come from solar activity.
He has been pushing Washington and state governments to take the relatively inexpensive move to protect the electric grid, though his concern is from a nuclear attack by Iran or North Korea.
“It is increasingly frightening,” he said. “We have to get started on this.”
He noted that Iran’s top military leader recently announced that he was ready for war with the U.S.
“We are ready for the decisive battle against the U.S. and the Zionist regime,” Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hassan Firouzabadi told Iran’s Fars News Agency in 2014.
Below is from Pry’s column that discusses an Iran EMP attack:

Iran armed with nuclear missiles poses an unprecedented threat to global civilization.
One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.
Iranian military documents describe such a scenario–including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.
Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos.

- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/iran-endorses-nuclear-emp-attack-on-united-states-while-obama-clings-clinging-to-preposterous-argument.html/#sthash.ufaUffYg.dpuf

Admin Thu 19 Mar 2015, 4:01 pm

Watch-list of European Islamic State sympathisers stands at 10,000 people
How long do the media and cultural elites expect people to buy the “it’s just a tiny fringe” line of taqiyya?
I mean, really
“Watch-list of suspected European Islamic State sympathisers stands at 10,000 people,” By Aaron Brown, Express.co.uk
THE SHEER quantity of names handed over by the EU makes the task of policing the Turkish border with Syria an almost IMPOSSIBLE task, an expert has warned.
Jytte Klausen, who is the founder of the Western Jihadism Project, said the watchlist given to officials is a “capacity busting proposition”.
“The Turks complained that they can’t do it, and you know what, they can’t,” the Harvard and Brandeis University professor explained.
“It’s a capacity busting proposition, to watch out for 10,000 westerners.
“They are not going to be able to check most names on that list of 10,000.
“Only if there is a case where there is an urgent bulletin out, because it has been discovered that they had left – and the urgent bulletin would be on the top of the desk – that’s when you can catch people as happened here.”
Her comments come hours after three British teenage boys were detained by officials in the country as they planned to travel to Syria.
The three teens were detained after British police were made aware on Friday two boys had gone missing and were believed to be travelling to Syria.
Inquiries revealed they had travelled with a third person, the 19-year-old man carried out an attack in Paris in PA.
It has been reported that the trio travelled to Spain and then took a flight to Turkey. It has been reported that the trio travelled to Spain and then took a flight to Turkey.
Left to Right: The suspected Jihadi Brides – Kadiza Sultana, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase
Hayat Boumedienne, the widow of one of the terrorists who carried out an attack in Paris in January, also touched down in Syria via Turkey and Spain.
Prof Klausen described the indirect routes that are increasingly taken by would-be jihadists.
Due to gaps in intelligence sharing, travelling through another country makes it easier to arrive undetected.
She said: “There is not comprehensive data sharing among the European Union countries with respect to people who are merely suspected of doing something. Getting on a plane is subject to far less scrutiny than getting off a plane.
“Therefore you have airports like Gatwick, and other European airports, that have a lot of discount airlines flying out.
“They have been put under strict orders to look out for certain risk profiles. But they look out for their own folk, so at Gatwick, you are not going to look for people from Spain, and vice versa.”
Related articles
Three British boys who travelled to Turkey hoping join Islamic State held in London
More young British Muslims are joining IS than we expected, says politician Keith Vaz
Booking seperate tickets and splitting up the journey to war torn Syria can make it more difficult for authorities to hunt down the would-be Jihadis, she warned.
She added: “It’s become common practice to buy separate itineraries, so if you book on Ryanair to go to Spain, and you were booked on another itinerary to go from Spain to Istanbul, those two itineraries do not come up as connected travel documents when you leave Gatwick.”
She added that Turkey was not the only route to reach Syria. “We do know of a number of people who have not flown directly from Spain to Turkey, but who have taken the far more cumbersome route through north Africa.”
Once through immigration in Turkey, “It really is as easy as getting on a bus”, she said.
“I think there is a lot of very innocent traffic there too (going to the border).
“I have been on those buses in Turkey, everyone goes on the buses, there are a lot of tourists. How are you going to tell from a bunch of young girls who are tourists from people who want to go to Syria?”
She added: “These days most of them dress like tourists, or if they have a beard they shave it. The girls dress like normal teenagers.”
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/watch-list-of-european-islamic-state-sympathisers-stands-at-10000-people.html/#sthash.k3jYTN5B.dpuf

Admin Fri 13 Mar 2015, 1:41 am

Kerry tells Republicans: you cannot modify Iran-U.S. nuclear deal

“Flat wrong”? Really? “The President…shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…” — The Constitution of the United States, Article II Section 2
“Kerry tells Republicans: you cannot modify Iran-U.S. nuclear deal,” by Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, March 11, 2015:
(Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Republicans who control Congress on Wednesday they would not be able to modify any nuclear agreement struck between the United States and Iran.
Kerry said he responded with “utter disbelief” to an open letter to Iran on Monday signed only by Republican senators that said any deal would only last as long as U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, remains in office.
“When it says that Congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at any time is flat wrong,” Kerry, who has been negotiating a deal to rein in Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “You don’t have the right to modify an agreement reached executive to executive between leaders of a country.”
But Sen. Rand Paul, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, told Kerry that any deal would need approval by Congress if it affected U.S. sanctions against Iran. Paul accused the Obama administration of trying to bypass Congress.
“The letter was to Iran but it should’ve been cc’ d to the White House because the White House needs to understand that any agreement that removes or changes legislation will have to be passed by us,” the senator said.
The White House has described the letter as “reckless” and “irresponsible,” saying it interfered with efforts by six major powers to negotiate with Iran and prevent it from building a bomb.
The negotiations, which resume in Lausanne, Switzerland, next week, are at a critical juncture as the sides try to meet an end of March target for an interim deal, with a final deal in June.
“We have been clear from the beginning, we are not negotiating, a quote, legally binding plan, we are negotiating a plan that will have in it capacity for enforcement,” Kerry said. “The letter erroneously asserts this is a legally binding plan. It is not. We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Iran.”
“It is incorrect when it says that Congress can actually modify terms of an agreement at any time. That is flat wrong,” Kerry said….

Admin Sat 28 Feb 2015, 10:32 pm

President Obama Breaks Into Tears as He Says Goodbye to Holder
Pathetic. And it goes way deeper than it appears.
Holder is a terrorist loving criminal and thug who was in charge of the DOJ, always looking for civil rights violations where there were none. His stone-walling and contempt of Congress (and America) in the infamous Fast and Furious, illegal gun-running scheme, and his refusal to prosecute the Islamic groups named co-conspirators (CAIR, ISNA, MSA, MAS et al) in the largest terrorist funding trial in our nation’s history a mirror of his boss’s contempt for this great country.
His replacement, Loretta Lynch will be the same or worse, IF she is confirmed by the feckless Republicans.
Obama said Holder had led the department with integrity and helped make the US ‘free and more just.’
He praised Holder as a ‘great friend’ and a ‘great public servant’ and brushed away tears at the conclusion of his brief speech.
Holder, 64, is staying on the job until the Senate confirms his successor, which is expected soon.
The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday approved Obama’s choice of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch to succeed Holder. She would be the first black woman to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
In a veiled reference to Rudolph Giuliani’s assertion that Obama did not love his country, Holder declared ‘those who have loved this nation most have dared greatly and have sought to change the status quo for the better.’
Obama bids emotional farewell to Attorney General Eric Holder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rMLPEu2k0
(thanks to Van)
Friday, President Barack Obama spoke at the portrait unveiling ceremony for outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, which led to the commander-in-chief breaking into tears that he wiped away as he finished his remarks.
The president said, “Having good men in a position of power and authority, who are willing to fight for what is right, that is a rare thing, a powerful thing. That’s something that shapes our future in ways we don’t even understand, we don’t always imagine. It made me very proud.”

Admin Thu 26 Feb 2015, 10:38 pm

Obama is unequivocally aligned with the jihad force. The media’s deliberate silence on what is de facto treason and this stealth jihad has left the American people blind, deaf and dumb to the coming catastrophes.
“Arabs: Why is Obama Siding with Supporters of Terrorism?”
by By Khaled Abu Toameh, February 26, 2015 (thanks to Paul Schnee)
Many Arabs and Muslims see the meeting between Obama and Qatar’s al-Thani as a gift to Qatar for its continued support of Islamic radical groups across the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
On the eve of Obama’s meeting, Egyptian sources revealed that Qatar was providing weapons and ammunition to members of the Islamic State in Libya. The sources said that 35 Qatari aircraft were involved in transferring munitions.
Arab political analysts are also concerned about Obama’s ongoing attempts to appease Iran, which continues to expand its presence in Arab countries such as Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon — as well as in Syria, where it is deeply involved in backing Hezbollah and operating along the border with Israel. A Reuters report revealed that Iran also has hundreds of advisors in Iraq.
Qatar is also one of the biggest funders of Hamas, whose leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar’s capital, Doha. During the past few years, Qatar has provided Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars — money used to purchase and develop weapons to attack Israel.
By the time Obama leaves the White House, Iran will most likely be in control of more Arab countries, and Qatari-backed terror groups will be much stronger.
The Egyptians are furious with U.S. President Barack Obama for meeting in the White House this week with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. They say that the Obama Administration has once again turned its back on moderate Arabs and Muslims by endorsing those who support and fund Islamic terror groups.
The meeting between Obama and the emir of Qatar came shortly after Egypt accused the emirate of supporting terrorism.
Obama was quoted as saying that “Qatar is a strong partner in our coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL. We are both committed to making sure that ISIL [ISIS/Islamic State] is defeated, to making sure that in Iraq there is an opportunity for all people to live together in peace.”
Obama’s decision to host the emir of Qatar and his ensuing statements in praise of the emirate’s role in “combating” the Islamic State have drawn sharp criticism from the Egyptians and other Arabs and Muslims.
U.S. President Barack Obama shares some laughs with Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the White House, February 24, 2015. (Image source: C-SPAN video screenshot)
Many Arabs and Muslims see the meeting between Obama and al-Thani as a gift to Qatar for its continued support of Islamic radical groups in different parts of the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The meeting came less than a week after the Egyptian envoy to the Arab League, Tareq Adel, accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. In response, Qatar recalled its ambassador to Cairo for “consultations.”
The latest crisis between Cairo and Doha erupted after Qatar expressed reservations about Egypt’s airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya in retaliation for the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.
On the eve of Obama’s meeting with the emir, Egyptian sources revealed that Qatar was providing weapons and ammunition to members of the Islamic State in Libya. The sources said that 35 Qatari aircraft were involved in transferring weapons and ammunition to the terror group.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his regime consider Qatar to be one of the main supporters and funders of Islamic terror groups. They believe that without Qatar’s support and money, Islamic terror groups would not have been able to launch numerous attacks on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, and Hamas would not be in control of the Gaza Strip.
But President Sisi and his regime are equally furious with Obama for his public embracing of the Qatari emir.
Sisi is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia next week to hold urgent talks with King Salman bin Abdel Aziz on the crisis between Egypt and Qatar. According to reports in the Egyptian media, Sisi is also expected to complain to the Saudi monarch about Obama’s support for Qatar at a time when Egypt and other Arab countries are engaged in fighting Qatari-backed terror groups.
The Egyptian president is hoping that the Saudis will use their influence to convince Obama to stop supporting a country that openly backs terror groups.
The government-controlled media in Egypt is now full of articles and cartoons strongly denouncing Obama’s policy toward Qatar. Such attacks on Obama could not have surfaced in the media had they not been approved by Sisi and his top aides in Cairo.
One cartoon, for example, features Obama standing next to the emir of Qatar at a press conference and declaring, “We have recalled our emir from Qatar for consultations.” This cartoon is intended to send a message that Obama and the Qatari emir, a major supporter of Islamic terrorism, are buddies.
The Egyptian condemnations of Qatar are also directed at the Obama Administration, which seems to be losing one Arab ally after the other because of its perceived support for Qatar and its proxy, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Writing in the Al-Makal newspaper, columnist Ahmed al-Faqih launched a scathing attack on Qatar and the US in an article that carried the title “The Qatari dwarf that feeds the ISIS monster.”
Al-Faqih claims that Qatar is nothing but a pawn in the hands of the US and the Israeli Mossad, and that Qatar uses its resources to support terrorism.
Another columnist, Ahmed Musa, wrote that Qatar, “which is allied with Israel and the US,” was being used to fight Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya and Syria.
“Qatar us conspiring against Egypt to serve the interests of terror groups and organizations,” Musa said, noting the close ties between the Qataris and the US Administration. “The Qatari regime has aligned itself with the murderers of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorists of Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and is paying them billions of dollars.”
Arab political analysts are not only concerned about Obama’s close relations with Qatar, but also his ongoing attempts to appease Iran. They argue that what is needed now is a serious US policy to counter terrorism, as well as a new and harsh approach toward Iran.
As Obama was welcoming al-Thani, Qatar continued to face charges of supporting Islamist groups. The Egyptians say Qatar provides “financial, logistical and media support for terrorist leaders.”
Qatar is also one of the biggest funders of Hamas, whose leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar’s capital, Doha. During the past few years, Qatar has provided Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars — money used to purchase and develop weapons to attack Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to expand its presence in Arab countries such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
In Yemen, Iranian-backed Houthi militias have contributed to the collapse of the government there, Secretary of State John Kerry said this week.
In Syria, Iran is deeply involved in backing the regime of Bashar Assad and Hezbollah in their fight against opposition forces. Iranian generals and military experts are also operating in the Golan Heights along the border with Israel.
In Iraq, hundreds of military advisors from Iran are operating, according to a Reuters report. The report quoted Iraqi officials as saying that Tehran’s involvement is driven by its belief that Islamic State is an immediate danger to Shi’ite religious shrines. The Iranians have helped organize Shi’ite volunteers and militia forces to defend Iraq against Islamic State terrorists.
As for Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah continues to maintain a powerful security and political presence there.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has helped Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Hezbollah by exporting the technology that it has for the production of missiles and other equipment,” Revolutionary Guard Air Force commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted recently.
By the time Obama’s term in office ends, Iran will most likely be in control of more Arab countries, and Qatari-backed terror groups will be much stronger, killing more Muslims and non-Muslims.

Admin Thu 26 Feb 2015, 10:13 am

After Islamic State abducts 150 Christians, women raped and murdered: “I see blood everywhere, in the cities, in the neighbourhoods. The desert has changed colour. It is no longer golden yellow but blood red.”
Will these righteous savages release videos of their Islamic acts of savagery on these women and children? Will Obama shrug? Or will he attack Netanyahu?
Over 150 Christians were kidnapped, but the Obama State Department said it’s not Islamic. A church was destroyed, at least three Assyrian Christian villages have been occupied and people have had to flee. But Obama and his goon administration say it’s not Islamic.
Dropping below the level of a savage, who believes that the magic words he utters have the power to alter reality, they believe that reality can be altered by the power of the words they do not utter—and their magic tool is the blank-out, the pretense that nothing can come into existence past the voodoo of their refusal to identify it. (Ayn Rand)
The devout Muslim group is kidnppping Christians in Libya as well. Below: Family of abducted Coptic Christian Samuel Walham, one among the 21 abducted, weep in their village home. The Egyptian government and the Coptic Church, which is based in Egypt, both declared the video authentic, which was released by the Islamic State group on Sunday. (Source: AP)
“IS abducts 150 Christians, rapes and kills women, a ‘tragic situation’ for vicar to Aleppo,” Asia News, February 25, 2015
A steady stream of horrific stories is coming out of jihadist-held areas. Terrorists hold hundreds of Christians, including seniors and children. For apostolic nuncio to Damascus, “Christians feel abandoned”. There is “blood everywhere” and everyone is suffering. He believes that the war on terrorism is pointless but oil, “financial and military supplies” should be cut off.
Damascus (AsiaNews) – Initial “reports mentioned 90 people abducted but for others the actual number is greater, perhaps 150. A church was destroyed, at least three Assyrian villages have been occupied and people have had to flee. We do not have accurate information, but the initial evidence points to a tragic situation,” said Mgr Georges Abou Khazen, Latin apostolic vicar to Aleppo.
The prelate spoke to AsiaNews about Monday’s attack by the Islamic State group against Assyrian villages like Tel Tamar, Tel Shamiran, Tel Hermuz, Goran Tel and Tel Khareta, in north-eastern Syria. Jihadists reportedly raped a woman and then murdered her, but the information could not be confirmed.
Whilst everyone is suffering, “Christians feel they have been abandoned,” said Mgr Mario Zenari, apostolic nuncio to Damascus.
Bassam Ishak, president of the Syriac National Council, reports that latest figure for abducted Christians is at least 150, more than the early figure of 90. They were taken in Al-Hasakah Governorate, north-east of the country, where Assyrian Christian communities have lived for centuries.
Some reports indicate that Islamic State militants killed some hostages. “Jihadists have taken a lot of people, including women, the elderly and children,” said a local source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. “They burnt their houses, and torched a church.” And “At least six” people were killed. The terrorists “also raped a woman before killing her.”

The Syriac Military Council, a Christian paramilitary organisation, said that the IS attack on Christian villages was an act of revenge following jihadist defeat in Kobane and other villages in the area, following the Peshmerga offensive and international coalition air strikes.
The apostolic nuncio in Damascus agrees. “They came down from the mountains around 3 am Monday morning, and attacked an area largely inhabited by Assyrian-Nestorian,” he told AsiaNews.
This a “high risk area.” Some “four or five months ago, I received a text message from the bishop of Hassakah, in which he warned that the danger of a jihadist invasion was high.”
After they were pushed out of Kobane, “they shifted to these villages to seize more land,” Mgr Zenari explained. Now Christians feel abandoned, he added. However, everyone has suffered. “I see blood everywhere, in the cities, in the neighbourhoods. The desert has changed colour. It is no longer golden yellow but blood red.”
The prelate said he hopes that “sooner or later reason will prevail” and “the war will end. It must end” even though at present, “we are still in the middle of winter, not some Arab Spring.”
Addressing directly the West and the international community, the apostolic vicar to Aleppo warned emphatically that “military action against the Islamic state is not the right way” to solve the crisis and restore peace and security to Syria and Iraq. “I never believed in war because it creates more hatred and division,” he explained.
“The West claims that it is fighting these groups,” the prelate said. “Yet, it helps them too. Who is buying their oil? Who is selling them weapons? Who is involved in trafficking of priceless archaeological artefacts?”
For Mgr Abou Khazen, there is a lot of “hypocrisy” in the fight against the terrorists. “This will not be solved with bombs; cutting financial and military supplies will. What we ask is for others to stop supporting these people, to stop selling them weapons. We have been saying this for some time but no one has been listening to us.”
The attacked Assyrian community, he said, has lived “in the area for thousands of years with its own ancient traditions and rites. Defenceless, its members have been uprooted. Campaigns are undertaken to save animals threatened by extinction to allow them to live in their habitat. But what is being done for us,” he laments.
Christians are gripped by a sense of fear, Mgr Georges noted. “Many want to run away and this is a very dangerous sign. Removing Christianity from these lands would be a tragedy for everyone. Maybe the aim is to create another Afghanistan, in the hands of new Taliban”.
“This is our reading of the situation,” the prelate said. “They want to empty the Middle East of its Christians and create many small confessional states.”
“We Christians are the only ones spread across the territories of Syria and Iraq. We are the only ones who defend national unity and uphold the principle of pluralism . . . something that they increasingly want to destroy.” (DS)

Admin Thu 26 Feb 2015, 12:21 am

Jen Psaki on Islamic State abduction of 150 Christians: It’s ‘evil,’ but it’s not Islamic
Obama’s State Department called the kidnapping of 150 Christian women and children an act of “evil,” but pointed out that most terror victims have been Muslims.
They. just. can’t. stop.
Dropping below the level of a savage, who believes that the magic words he utters have the power to alter reality, they believe that reality can be altered by the power of the words they do not utter—and their magic tool is the blank-out, the pretense that nothing can come into existence past the voodoo of their refusal to identify it. (Ayn Rand)
The Islamic State has been slaughtering Christians because they are Christians. Whether it is on a beach in Libya or a town in Nigeria or the CAR, Chad, Niger, Iraq, the Philippines, Thailand — they are following the religious imperative to “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them” (Quran 2:191).
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki is either clueless or complicit, but in any case, she is utterly wrong. According to the Islamic State and Islamic law, ISIS are not killing “Muslims.” The Sunni group does not consider Shia Muslims to be true Muslims — they are heretics, much the same way that secular Muslims or Ahmadiyya Muslims are. Under the sharia (Islamic law), the crimes of heresy and apostasy are punishable by death. ISIS is purifying the Islamic State in these bloody purges.
All of this blood and carnage is in the cause of Islam.
For those who don’t know or fully understand the millennial war between Sunni and Shia – the unending battle to prove who are the true Muslims — the preeminent scholar on Islam Robert Spencer explains:
In fact, the idea that the Sunni-Shi’ite divide, which is 1,400 years old and goes all the way back to the murky origins of Islam, is something that can without undue difficulty be “overcome” is a sterling manifestation of the general superficiality of Washington’s analysis of the Middle East, during both the Bush and the Obama administrations.
Unbeknownst to the analysts and policymakers who have influenced Washington policy for decades now, the Sunni-Shi’ite divide cannot be bridged by negotiations, or by bribes (“aid”), or by anything but the full surrender of one group to the other — which is not going to happen. This is because the divide has enough roots in each side’s differing understandings of Islam for hardliners in both camps to label the other “unbelievers,” and thus people who can lawfully be killed.
Islamic tradition holds that after Muhammad died (which is supposed to have happened in 632 AD), the Muslim community chose his companion Abu Bakr to succeed him as caliph, or successor of Muhammad as the military, political and spiritual leader of the Muslims. But one group among them thought that the leadership belonged by right to Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad’s son-in-law and one of his first followers, and after him to a member of the prophet’s household.
Ali finally did become caliph after Abu Bakr had been succeeded by two other companions of Muhammad, Umar and Uthman, but was assassinated only a few years later. Then in the year 680, his son Hussein was killed in battle with the caliph Yazid I at Karbala in Iraq, and the split between those who believed that the caliph should be the best man in the community (the Sunnis) and those who believed the Muslims should be led by a relative of Muhammad (the Shi’ites) became formal, bitter and everlasting.
There is not much doctrinal difference between the two camps, but since each believes that the other has departed from the truth of Islam, and each (particularly the Shi’ites) nurses centuries-old grudges over ancient wrongs done to them, this split is not going to be “overcome.”
But the Obama administration refuses reality and continues to churn out its own version of what it wants Americans to believe. Why one reporter doesn’t challenge them on the facts is astonishing. Not one reporter has not pointed to the Sunni vs. Shia war in the Muslim world — that’s what Psaki is erroneously referring to here.
Jen Psaki on Islamic State abduction of 150 Christians: It’s ‘evil,’ but most terror victims Muslims
US-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-PSAKI
By Cheryl K. Chumley – The Washington Times – Wednesday, February 25, 2015
The U.S. Department of State slammed the reported Islamic State siege of several Syrian villages and subsequent abduction of 150 Christian men, women and children, calling it an act of “evil” and insisting such violence needs to stop — but that most terror victims have been Muslims.
The department also fell shy of labeling the terror attack and kidnapping as rooted in anti-Christian sentiment, suggesting it was simply one of several that the Islamic State had conducted against those of all faiths — especially Muslims.
“ISIL’s latest targeting of a religious minority is only further testament to its brutal and inhumane treatment of all those who disagree with its divisive goals and toxic beliefs,” said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, Agence France-Presse reported. “ISIL continues to exact its evil upon innocents of all faiths and the majority of its victims have been Muslims.”
Ms. Psaki also said that the United States was fully committed “to leading the international coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL and to working towards a negotiated political solution that stops the bloodshed and secures a future of freedom, justice and dignity for all Syrians,” she said, AFP reported.
The problem is not just the Islamic State but all Islamic groups waging jihad

3 Muslims arrested in New York City for conspiring to support ISIS, targeting Obama, FBI and police officer
Obama is importing Muslims from jihad nations by the hundreds of thousands. What does he expect to happen? What does he want to happen?
The Obama administration’s rejection of Israel visas increased 80%, but he brought 300,000 Muslim immigrants into the US in 2013 alone.
Yesterday two Muslims were sentenced in California to 25 years for plotting to kill Americans. How can anyone think jihad isn’t already a problem here in America?
“3 arrested in New York City for allegedly conspiring to support ISIS” FOX News, February 25, 2015
Three New York City residents — two with Uzbekistan citizenship, and one a citizen of Kazakhstan — plotted to travel to Syria to join ISIS militants and ‘wage jihad,’ the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.
One of the defendants also offered to kill the president of the United States if ordered to do so, the criminal complaint alleged.
The men were identified in the complaint as Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Kazakhstan; and Abror Habibov, 30, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan.
Federal prosecutors say two of the men came to the attention of law enforcement last summer after they expressed online support for the groups. Hilofatnews.com was an Uzbek-language website that called for readers to join the terror group, the complaint said. Authorities were able to link Juraboev to the post, the complaint said.
In August, federal agents met with Juraboev and he spoke of his hopes of fighting with the terror group in Iraq or Syria, the complaint said. He also allegedly mentioned to the agents that he hoped to harm President Obama because of ‘Allah.’
Saidakhmetov was arrested early Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he tried to board a plane headed to Istanbul, authorities said. Juraboev had plane tickets for March 29 and Habibov helped fund Saidakhmetov’s trip, the complaint said.
Authorities have a recorded conversation where Saidakhmetov expressed interest in joining the U.S. military, the complaint said. He allegedly said he could offer information to Islamic militants or open fire on American troops to kill as many as possible.
According to the complaint, Saidakhmetov was recorded in January saying, “I will just go and buy a machine gun, AK-47, go out and shoot all police.”
The two had hopes of joining the terror group and–if their travel plans were dashed– had intentions to commit terror in the U.S., the complaint said. Saidakhmetov–if prevented from joining the terror group– wanted to purchase a machine gun and shoot law enforcement, the complaint said.
Saidakhmetov allegedly said, “It is legal in America to carry a gun. We will go and purchase one handgun…then go and shoot one police officer…Boom…Then we will take his gun, bullets and a bulletproof vest…then we will do the same with a couple others. Then we will go to the FBI headquarters, kill the FBI people…”
They were officially charged with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The three are expected to appear in court today.
“We will vigorously prosecute those who attempt to travel to Syria to wage violent jihad on behalf of ISIL and those who support them,” U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. “Anyone who threatens our citizens and our allies, here or abroad, will face the full force of American justice.”
Reuters reported that there are ISIS-related investigations in all 50 state

Admin Sun 22 Feb 2015, 5:25 pm

Islamic terror? I Just don't see it

Brave! Huge props to New York’s two biggest newspapers on their covers yesterday and today. Finally.
NY Daily News today
Rudy Giuliani says exactly what is in my 2010 book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.
Trying to explain his controversial comments that President Obama doesn’t love America, Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he believes the President has been influenced by communism and socialism.
“Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News.
“I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t,” the former mayor added. “Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old” through family connections.
When Obama was 9, he was living in Indonesia with his mother and his stepfather. Giuliani said he was referencing Obama’s grandfather having introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party.
The former mayor also brought up Obama’s relationship with “quasi-communist” community organizer Saul Alinsky and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Giuliani, a 2008 presidential hopeful, set off a national firestorm when he told an exclusive gathering of conservatives, pols and media figures on Wednesday night, “I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that this President loves America.The former mayor also brought up Obama’s relationship with ‘quasi-communist’ community organizer Saul Alinsky and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
“He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up: To love this country,” Giuliani said of Obama at the Manhattan dinner, which was arranged for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Amid the uproar, Giuliani has spent the last two days explaining and contextualizing his comments in various interviews — but refusing to apologize.
In his interview with The News, which had a reporter at the Wednesday night dinner, Giuliani said he stood by his comments about the President because they were “from the heart” and not politically calculated.
NY post yesterday:
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Admin Sun 22 Feb 2015, 5:07 pm

http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/muslim-brotherhood-turn-to-terrorism-against-al-sisi-regime-threats-of-attacks-against-foreign-diplomats-calls-for-jihad-and-for-assassination-of-al-sisi.html/
Muslim Brotherhood Turn To Terrorism Against Al-Sisi Regime: Threats Of Attacks Against Foreign Diplomats, Calls For Jihad And For Assassination Of Al-Sisi
This is the group Obama backed and continues to back. A Muslim Brotherhood delegation just recently visited the State Department. Did they plan this there?

“Muslim Brotherhood Turn To Terrorism Against Al-Sisi Regime: Threats Of Attacks Against Foreign Diplomats, Workers In Egypt On Turkey-Based MB TV, Calls For Jihad And For Assassination Of Al-Sisi, Regime Heads,” MEMRI, February 20, 2015:

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has recently escalated its statements and activity against the Egyptian regime, to the extent of explicitly calling for using terrorism and violence against it, and even for assassinating President ‘Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sisi. These calls included an MB communique calling on movement activists to prepare for a lengthy and uncompromising jihad and to hunger for a martyr’s death; clear incitement to violence on MB TV channels broadcasting from Turkey; and an ultimatum also on a Turkey-based MB channel, to foreign workers to leave Egypt by February 20, 2015 and to foreign diplomats by February 28, 2015 or else be targeted for attack.

Furthermore, there is an upsurge in reports of violent movements in Egypt that could be tied to the MB, the most prominent of which is the Revolutionary Retribution Movement. This movement, which emerged in advance of the fourth anniversary of Egypt’s January 25 revolution and now has branches in provinces across Egypt, calls for armed revolution against the Al-Sisi regime and has taken credit for a large number of attacks and violent incidents in Egypt carried out in the last week of January 2015; Egyptian authorities have attributed these attacks to the MB. While the MB has denied any connection to the movement, pro-MB television channels and social media indicate the existence of such a link.

This report will review calls by the MB and other organizations for jihad and for assassinating President Al-Sisi, and MB threats to carry out terrorist attacks in Egypt.

Turkey-Based MB TV Channel Threatens Terrorist Attacks Against Foreign Nationals And Diplomats

On January 29, 2015, a broadcaster on the Turkey-based MB-linked channel Rabea TV read out “Communiqué No. 7 From the Leadership of the Revolution Youth,” which called on Arab and Western foreign nationals to leave Egypt immediately and stated that those who are not gone by February 11, 2015 could become a target of attacks by the revolutionary retribution movements. The statement also called on all foreign firms to finish their work in the country and leave by February 20, 2015, and on all diplomats and ambassadors to leave by February 28, 2015, lest they be targeted by the rebels. In addition, it notified all tourists planning on visiting Egypt to cancel their plans, claiming that they were currently unwelcome there. The statement urged countries that supported the “coup” to cease their support within a month at most, otherwise all their interests in the Middle East would be targeted.

For a MEMRI TV video clip of excerpts of this statement, click below.

Clerics On Turkey-Based MB-Linked TV Channels Call For Assassinating Al-Sisi, Journalists Close To Him

On January 10, 2015, the cleric Salama ‘Abd Al-Qawi received thunderous applause from the studio audience on a program on the Turkey-based MB-linked Rabea TV channel, when he said that it would not be at all bad if someone were to assassinate President Al-Sisi. He added that anyone who did so would be doing “a good deed” that brings him “closer to Allah,” and that if he died in the process, he would be considered a martyr. He further said that this also applies to anyone who assassinates other “criminal leaders,” because, he explained, this is a tenet of Islam.

Wagdi Ghoneim, a preacher close to the MB, appeared on the Turkey-based MB-linked Misr Alan TV on January 26, 2015, saying that anyone who produces the severed heads of journalists close to the Egyptian regime – journalists whom he called “dogs” and “Hell-dwellers” – would be rewarded by Allah. An analyst on the channel claimed that journalists who support the Al-Sisi regime are accessories to all the crimes that it commits, and that their punishment should be execution – which Al-Sisi and his gang also deserve.

For a MEMRI TV video clip of excerpts of this program, click below.

MB Communique: We Should Prepare Ourselves For Lengthy Jihad, Hunger For Martyr’s Death

Another manifestation of the escalation of the MB’s statements and violence is a communique posted on the movement’s Arabic-language website on January 27, 2015. The communique, released against the backdrop of the upsurge in protests and violent incidents surrounding the fourth anniversary of the fall of the Mubarak regime, called on MB supporters to prepare for lengthy jihad and the use of force.

The heading of the communiqué, which is titled “Letter to the Revolutionary Ranks: Prepare,” features the movement’s emblem, in which the word “prepare” is situated between two crossed swords and refers to Koran 8:60: “Prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and other besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will be fully repaid to you, and you will not be wronged.”

The MB emblem

The communiqué reads: “My revolutionary brother and sister: Two crossed swords, and between them [the word] ‘prepare,’ and below them [the slogan] ‘the voice of truth, power, and freedom’ – this is the symbol of MB da’wa. All the elements of this symbol signify power: the two swords, the word ‘prepare,’ which is the symbol of power in the venerable Koran, and the three words written under the two swords, which also mean [power] – since ‘truth’ requires power to protect it, and ‘freedom’ is not given but rather taken by power. That is why the word ‘power’ appears between ‘truth’ and ‘freedom.’

“The [MB’s] founding imam [Hassan Al-Banna] diligently established [the MB’s] Scouts [movement] which epitomizes [the values of] decency and discipline, and also [the MB’s] ‘special apparatus,’ which is the most prominent representation of power. Imam Al-Banna established the jihad brigades, which he sent to Palestine to fight the oppressive Jews. The second [MB] general guide, Hassan Al-Hudaybi, reestablished the ‘special apparatus’ units to wage a war of attrition against the British occupiers.

“Imam Al-Banna said: ‘We know that the first level of power is the power of faith, which is followed by the power of unity and commitment, and after that comes the power of force and weapons. A movement cannot be described as powerful unless it includes all these motifs. If [a movement] uses the power of force and weapons but its elements are not united, then its organization is destabilized, its faith is weak, and its fate will be doom and destruction.’ In order for Allah to grant us victory, there is no way but to fulfill the conditions of victory, as expressed by [Allah’s] words [in Koran 47:7]: ‘Oh you who have believed, if you support Allah, He will support you and plant firmly your feet…’

“The process of preparing power means, first and foremost, [preparing] the emotional state or what is termed morale… Second, physical strength… Imam Al-Banna told the brothers: ‘…A nation well-versed in the craft of death, which knows how to die honorably – Allah will grant it a powerful life in this world and an eternal afterlife of peace. What is the lethargy that disgraced us if not the love of this world and the hatred of death[?] Therefore, prepare yourselves for a mighty act, yearn for death, and you will be granted life. Act for an honorable death and you will be fully successful. May Allah grant us and you the honor of dying a martyr’s death for His sake.’ [Al-Banna] said further: ‘The MB will use active force [only] when no other means is effective, and when it is certain that it has prepared for it on the levels of faith and unity.’

“Everyone must realize that we are on the verge of a new stage, which will require the power hidden within us, in order to use it to bring back the ideas of jihad. We must prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and those who follow in our path for a lengthy, uncompromising jihad, in which we seek [to gain] the status of martyrs.

“‘And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might. [Koran 22:40]'”[2]

The Revolutionary Retribution Movement Takes Responsibility For A Series Of Attacks In Egypt

Egypt has in recent weeks seen the rise of new violent organizations, some of them linked to the MB, that call on Egypt to take vengeance against the Al-Sisi regime. These groups use names that aren’t necessarily identified with the MB, such as Students Against the Coup, The Unnamed, The Free, The Popular Resistance, and the Revolutionary Retribution Movement. While MB representatives have denied that the movement is behind these new groups, there is evidence of a connection between them.

Particularly prominent is the Revolutionary Retribution Movement, which advocates violent struggle against the regime and uses firearms. It has stated that it aims are to wage all-out war against the Egyptian government and security forces, and has already taken responsibility for a series of attacks in cities throughout Egypt.

It should be mentioned that the movement’s few official statements focus on highly secular discourse, and are not religious in nature. Its communiques speak in the name of the revolution, the people, or the popular struggle, and do not justify violence by citing the principle of jihad or Koranic verses. However, the movement calls the Egyptian regime “The Camp David Army” and implies that it is an agent of the West and Zionism.

“We’ve Had Our Fill Of Slogans About A Peaceful Revolution”; The Regime Understands Only The Language Of Bullets

A video clip tweeted by the Revolutionary Retribution Movement features two masked men armed with AK47 rifles, one of whom reads out a communiqué on behalf of the movement. The communiqué states that the current Egyptian regime is just a continuation of the Mubarak regime, and that the political situation in the country leads to bloodshed among the Egyptian people. It also stresses that the movement is not affiliated with any political stream and that it advocates armed revolution as the only possible option: “Today we inaugurate the Revolutionary Retribution Movement, which will serve as a new platform for sincere and genuine revolutionary action to purge the homeland of tyrants. We’ve had our fill of slogans about a peaceful revolution against an armed regime that understands only the language of bullets. Across the world, revolutions succeed only if they use force to protect themselves.” The communiqué states further that “no criminal or bloodletter will escape being punished for his actions. The murderers can expect surprises from us. Revenge will come.”[3]

Screenshot from the video

In a series of tweets on the anniversary of the revolution and on the following days, the movement took responsibility for attacks on security forces and government buildings in Cairo, Alexandria, Bani Swaif, Port Said, Faiyum and other Egyptian cities. The attacks involved gunfire, the planting of improvised bombs, or both.[4]

On January 29, 2015, the movement posted a communiqué taking responsibility for 32 attacks and promising further attacks. It said: “A new phase of genuine revolutionary action has begun in practice, [action] which terrifies the occupying Camp David army… The Revolutionary Retribution Movement hereby announces the [creation] of a division comprising 1,000 fighters who have placed their lives at the service of this homeland in order to end the occupation of the Camp David army and punish anyone involved in the killing of Egyptians. This, by attacking police and military targets and carrying out security ambushes in various provinces… Wait [and see] the sincere revolutionary action, far from the slogans and high-flown speeches, which knows only force and believes that the voice of the gun will drown out every other voice in the campaign to liberate the homeland and avenge the holy martyrs.”[5]

The Revolutionary Retribution Movement’s MB Connection

MB spokesman Muhammad Muntasir denied any link between the MB and the Revolutionary Retribution and Popular Resistance movements, saying that it was the Al-Sisi regime that gave rise to them with its own actions.[6] In a phone interview with Al-Jazeera TV, Muntasir said: “The MB has no connection to any of these organizations. The coup [regime] created these organizations because every action has a reaction… It is the ones who kill people indiscriminately in the streets who created these organizations. The ones who rape women and girls in prisons created these organizations. The ones who are violent towards the Egyptian people and abuse it day and night created these organizations. Do not blame these organizations before blaming the regime that gave rise to them.”[7]

Nevertheless, there are numerous indications that the MB is linked to the Revolutionary Retribution Movement.

As mentioned above, a January 29, 2015 communique on the Turkey-based MB Rabea TV called on foreign nationals to leave Egypt or else be targeted the revolutionary retribution movements. In addition, on the “Rabea Pulpit” program on that channel, the program’s host, cleric and MB member Muhammad Al-Sagheer, hosted cleric Muhammad ‘Abd Al-Maqsoud. In their discussion, the two praised Egyptian “revolutionaries” for advancing to the stage of “revolutionary retribution,” which they said constituted “an essential turning point” in the struggle against the Egyptian regime, “turning the hand of retribution against anyone who dared to attack the revolution again and again,” and taking vengeance against the “thugs” in the Egyptian security forces. The two clerics used Islamic law to justify the move to the new phase and portrayed attacks on Egyptian security forces and regime symbols as self-defense on the part of the “revolutionaries.”[8]

Muhammad Al-Sagheer

A Facebook page called “Revolutionary Retribution,” which was deleted a few days after it was created,[9] included a link to an eponymous website with a list of Egyptian officers and security forces personnel marked as targets for revenge because of their participation in the August 2013 dispersal of the MB sit-down strike at Rabi’a Al-‘Adawiyya Square in Cairo.[10] It should be mentioned that the Revolutionary Retribution Movement had tweeted on Jan 25, 2015 that it had no accounts on any social network besides Twitter; its Twitter account (Twitter.com/el3qab) was opened January 23, 2015, two days before the January 25 anniversary of the revolution.

Screenshot of the Revolutionary Retribution Facebook page taken on February 8, 2015

Another Facebook page with a similar name, “The Egyptian Revolutionary Retribution,” includes content associated with the MB, such as praise for ousted president Muhammad Mursi, photos of Egyptians giving the “Rabi’a sign” – that is, holding up four fingers – and links to other pages associated with the MB. In one post, the page’s administrators praised the ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the MB-affiliated Hamas, as a model of how to educate youth on the values of jihad.

Images from the Egyptian Revolutionary Retribution Facebook page (January 25, 29, 2015)

Additionally, MB-affiliated clerics, as well as many MB supporters, praised the Revolutionary Retribution Movement. For instance, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Sagheer tweeted: “To the decisive Revolutionary Retribution movements: [Coptic businessman Naguib] Sawiris declared that it was he who was financially supporting the Tamarrud movement [which worked to topple the Mursi regime]. I hereby tell you that his property and institutions are a legitimate revolutionary target. Rebellion [Tamarrud] will encounter retribution.”[11]

An MB supporter named Muhammad ‘Adel tweeted: “The Revolutionary Retribution people attacked a Central Security force in Faisal, and there are injuries among the force. The slogan of the day is revolutionary retribution. May our Lord grant them victory.”[12]

Following the death of dozens of Zamalek SC fans in rioting in Cairo on February 8, 2015, the pro-MB “Cars AntiCoup” tweeted: “Soccer fans should take vengeance in the form of popular resistance and revolutionary retribution in order to topple the coup [regime] before cheering on any team.”[13]

The Revolutionary Retribution Movement is also considered an arm of the MB among the ranks of Salafi-jihadis. Abu ‘Abeida Al-Gharib, an Egyptian Al-Qaeda activist in Syria, tweeted: “If my intuition is correct and the Egyptian MB is behind the Popular Resistance and Revolutionary Retribution movements in Egypt, then we are at the start of a revolution in the MB’s ideology and methodology.” In response to the tweet, another activist wrote on the same account that the movements did belong to the MB, and that the latter was using them as a bargaining chip to pressure the Egyptian regime.[14]

Endnotes:
[1] See also MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5959, Muslim Brotherhood Operatives in Turkey Call For Killing Egyptian Officials, Threaten Egypt; Turkish MP: Turkey Shelters ‘Many MB And Hamas Members,’ February 6, 2015.

[2] Ikhwanonline.com, January 27, 2015.

[3] Twitter.com/el3qab, January 23, 2015. The video is available at: Youtube.com/watch?v=VYsehmrrEPM.

[4] Twitter.com/el3qab, January 25-29, 2015.

[5] Twitter.com/el3qab, January 29, 2015.

[6] The Popular Resistance took responsibility for a series of violent acts against security forces in several provinces in late January 2015, which authorities had attributed to the MB. Aljazeera.net, January 27, 2015.

[7] Facebook.com/M.B.SPOKESMAN1, January 27, 2015.

[8] YouTube.com/watch?v=4_GzIkt55aQ, January 30, 2015.

[9] Facebook.com/3KabCawry.

[10] 3kabcawry.at.ua, Jan 29, 2015.

[11] Twitter.com/drassagheer, January 25, 2015.

[12] Twitter.com/m7md_3adl, January 25, 2015.

[13] Twitter.com/4X4_SUV, February 13, 2015.

[14] Twitter.com/Abuabeida, February 8, 2015.

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Admin Sat 21 Feb 2015, 12:07 am

Kerry: “You cannot defeat what you don’t understand,
” Muslims join jihad because of “a lost job” or lavish restaurant menus
Kerry says “you cannot defeat what you don’t understand,” and then proceeds to misunderstand the jihadis. “In our era, poisonous ideas can come from almost anywhere – from parents, teachers, friends, preachers, politicians – from the pretty woman on a radical website who lures people or the man in the next cell who proselytizes while in prison….In some cases, they may come from a lost job or from the contrast between one family’s empty dinner plate and a fancy restaurant’s lavish menu. The poison might even come from within, in the form of rebellion against anonymity, the desire to belong to a group, people who want a moment of visibility and identity, or the hunger for black-and-white answers to problems that are very complex in a remarkably more complicated world.”
But the texts and teachings of Islam that call for violence against unbelievers? No, they couldn’t have anything to do with it.
“Kerry: You Have to Understand Terrorists to Defeat Them,” by Patrick Goodenough, CNS News, February 19, 2015:
(CNSNews.com) – Declaring that “you cannot defeat what you don’t understand,” Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday suggested some reasons why tens of thousands of young people are flocking to join terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Among some of the likely motivations he listed were deprivation, a desire to avenge the death of a loved one, a response to “acts of discrimination or repression,” the desire to belong to a group, and “rebellion against anonymity.”
Absent from the list was any belief – misguided or otherwise – that joining a terrorist group was an Islamic duty or demonstration of religious zeal. (He did make reference to proselytizing in prison.)

Kerry was addressing an audience including foreign government ministers, on the third day of a White House summit on countering what it prefers to term “violent extremism.”
Some conservative critics have slammed the administration for not identifying the problem as “Islamic” or “Islamist” terrorism or radicalism. Attorney-General Eric Holder retorted Tuesday there was little to be gained by using terms like “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism.”
Meanwhile, some U.S. Islamic groups have charged that its “countering violent extremism” (CVE) initiative unfairly focuses on Muslim communities, and some organizations have declined to take part in the summit as a result.
Kerry introduced the topic of what motivates terror recruits.
“Why do people make what to many of us would seem to be an utterly wrongheaded choice and become the kind of terrorists that we’re seeing?” he asked. “It’s a question that we need to approach with humility, but also with determination, because you cannot defeat what you don’t understand.”
“Certainly, there is no single answer,” Kerry continued. “In our era, poisonous ideas can come from almost anywhere – from parents, teachers, friends, preachers, politicians – from the pretty woman on a radical website who lures people or the man in the next cell who proselytizes while in prison.
“They might grow from pictures seen on the nightly news or from acts of discrimination or repression that you don’t think much about on the day of occurrence, but which come back to haunt. It could come from the desire to avenge the death of a loved one,” he said.
“In some cases, they may come from a lost job or from the contrast between one family’s empty dinner plate and a fancy restaurant’s lavish menu. The poison might even come from within, in the form of rebellion against anonymity, the desire to belong to a group, people who want a moment of visibility and identity, or the hunger for black-and-white answers to problems that are very complex in a remarkably more complicated world.”
Kerry made clear that the suggested motivations in no way justified acts of terror like those witnessed in recent months in the Middle East and North Africa.
“We can all understand the search for meaning and doubts about authority, because at one time or another, most of us have been there,” Kerry said. “But it’s a huge leap between personal disquiet and committing murder, mayhem.”
“So let there be no confusion or doubt: Whatever one’s individual experience might be, there are no grounds of history, religion, ideology, psychology, politics or economic disadvantage, or personal ambition that will ever justify the killing of children, the kidnapping or rape of teenage girls, or the slaughter of unarmed civilians.”
ISIS fighters
ISIS fighters in Syria. (Photo: Islamic State News)
‘Silly debate’
Earlier in his presentation, Kerry alluded to recent criticism of a State Department spokeswoman for saying the response to terrorism must include addressing “root causes” like a lack of job opportunities.
“There’s been a silly debate in the media in the last days about sort of what you have to do [to prevent terror recruitment],” Kerry said.
“You have to do everything. You have to take the people off the battlefield who are there today, but you’re kind of stupid if all you do is do that and you don’t prevent more people from going to the battlefield,” he said. “So we have a broad challenge here.”
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Admin Fri 20 Feb 2015, 11:47 pm

VIDEO: White House Dawah Summit on Countering jihadViolent Extremism Opens With Muslim Prayer
This is not a counter-jihad summit, this is a come to Islam summit. Dawah at the most executive level of the US government. This is an official surrender to Islam, with all the pomp and circumstance of the Executive branch.
This is Islamic supremacism on steroids. A summit on defeating jihad is proselytizing for Islam. Insane. Obama is disarming the American people in the gravest threat to our great nation. We are under threat within and without.
Photo above: Imam Sheikh Sa’ad Musse Roble

White House Summit on Violent Extremism Opens With Muslim Prayer – No Other Faiths Represented, By Penny Starr, CNSNews.com, February 18, 2015
A Muslim prayer was recited at the start of the second day of the White House summit on “Countering Violent Extremism,” but no other religious text was presented during the portion of the event that was open to the press.
Imam Sheikh Sa’ad Musse Roble, president of the World Peace Organization in Minneapolis, Minn., recited a “verse from the Quran” following remarks by Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress.
Apparently it was Quran 47:4, “So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks…”
Imam Abdisalam Adam of the Islamic Civil Society of America offered a translation of the verses:
“In translation those verses of the Quran mean ‘Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption in the land, it’s as if he has slain mankind entirely, and whoever saves one life, it’s as if he has saved mankind entirely,’” Adam said.
He is deliberately is parsing the quote taken from verse 5:32 of the “Holy Koran.” But he is ripping it out of context and perverting its meaning. The full passage in the Koran applies to the “Children of Israel,” not to Muslims. And it’s followed in the Koran by 5:33, which calls for “execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land” for those who “wage war against Allah and his messenger, or spread mischief in the land.”
“Mosques serve as (sic) beacon of hope,” Adam said. “While imams’ provide moral compass for the Muslim community in navigating life.”
80% of mosques in America teach, preach and advance jihad.
Adam said “religious leaders” want to have “dialogue” with the U.S. government about “issues of concern” and said that Muslim imams have spoken out against terrorism.
What is “terrorism” under Islam? Non-Muslims are not “innocent” under Islam. Therefore killing them is is not terrorism.
“The peace, safety and security of the United States are of fundamental importance to the Muslim American community, and we oppose any form or shape of violent extremism that threatens peaceful coexistence,” Adam said.
“We believe in the right of all people to live in peace and security,” Adam said. “Muslim imams have condemned and continue to denounce anyone who tries to use the religion of Islam to support terrorism.”
What is “terrorism” under Islam? Non-Muslims are not “innocent” under Islam. Therefore killing them is is not terrorism.
Roble spoke in English on behalf of his organization, asking people to “make peace.”
“Make peace in yourself, in your family, in your friends, in your neighbors, in your state, in your country and of the war because you are brothers and sisters,” Roble said. “And God bless you.”
The press has had limited access to the event, which wraps up Thursday.

Admin Fri 20 Feb 2015, 5:22 pm

Islamic State threatens to send 500,000 migrants to Europe as a ‘psychological weapon’
Are the Europeans considering closing their borders in the face of this threat, which could include jihadis among the 500,000? Of course not. Europe seems bent on suicide. Gaddafi was understanding the future: the Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos, and Europe a land of chaos
“ISIS threatens to send 500,000 migrants to Europe as a ‘psychological weapon’ in chilling echo of Gaddafi’s prophecy that the Mediterranean ‘will become a sea of chaos,'” by Hannah Roberts, Mailonline, February 18, 2015:
ISIS has threatened to flood Europe with half a million migrants from Libya in a ‘psychological’ attack against the West, it was claimed today.
Transcripts of telephone intercepts published in Italy claim to provide evidence that ISIS is threatening to send 500,000 migrants simultaneously out to sea in hundreds of boats in a ‘psychological weapon’ against Europe if there is military intervention against them in Libya.
Many would be at risk of drowning with rescue services unable to cope. But authorities fear that if numbers on this scale arrived, European cities could witness riots.
Separately, the militants hope to cement their control of Libya then cross the Mediterranean disguised as refugees, according to letters seen by Quilliam the anti-terror group, reported by the Telegraph.
Italian Minister for the Interior Angelino Alfano said on Monday that Libya was the ‘absolute priority’ and insisted there was ‘not a minute to lose’ for the international community.
He said: ‘If the militias of the Caliphate advance faster than the decisions of the international community how can we put out the fire in Libya and stem the migration flows? We are at risk of an exodus without precedent.’
More than 170,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year. Since last Friday almost 4,000 have been rescued.
The spread of militancy across Libya was predicted by the country’s deceased leader Muammar Gaddafi, who warned the Mediterranean would become ‘a sea of chaos’.
ISIS had not yet made frightening inroads into Libya when he made this chilling prophecy during his last interview in March 2011.
But the Arab Spring uprising that year sparked a civil war in Libya and opposition forces – backed by NATO – deposed Gaddafi in violent coup just five months after his ominous prediction.
In October 2011, forces loyal to the country’s transitional government found the ousted leader hiding in a culvert in Sirte and killed him.
Four years later, Islamic State kidnapped 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Sirte – Gaddafi’s birthplace – before releasing gruesome footage of their beheading on the shores of the Mediterranean, just 220 miles south of Italy. In it the terrorists warned that they ‘will conquer Rome’.
In response, Italian security chiefs have approved plans to put 4,800 soldiers on the country’s streets to help prevent terrorist attacks.
The statement from the Interior Ministry said they would guard ‘sensitive sites’ until at least June and reports claim 500 will be deployed in Rome – where soldiers are already guarding diplomatic residences, synagogues and Jewish schools.
The troops are also expected to be deployed at tourist venues such as archaeological sites and monuments.
A treaty between Gaddafi and the Italian premier provided for joint boat patrols which curtailed the departure of migrant boats from Libya.
But, as the Libyan despot predicted back in 2011, if the Gaddafis were brought down, Islamists would exploit the power vacuum.
Still holding court in a Bedoin tent while holed up in the fortified citadel of Bab Al Azizya, Gaddafi warned: ‘If, instead of a stable government that guarantees security, these militias linked to Bin Laden take control, the Africans will move en mass towards Europe.’
He added: ‘The Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos.

Admin Wed 18 Feb 2015, 7:37 pm

35 More Christians Kidnapped by the Islamic State in Libya
These reports on Muslims slaughtering non-Muslim and heretical Muslims in the cause of Islam are daily. Some days there are more than one report, and Obama shrugs, while waging jihad on our freedoms here at home.
As wildly changed as the world is from 2008, when President Obama took office till now, be warned: it will be that much different from now until when he leaves office.
Obama has ushered in the era of the savage.
“BREAKING NEWS: More Egyptians kidnapped by ISIS and the Islamic State,” American Infidel via By Ajnadin Mustapha, Libya Daily
Tripoli, 16 February 2015:
There are reports that at least 35 Egyptians have been kidnapped in what appears to be a round-up at various locations in areas controlled by Ansar Al-Sharia and IS.
The Libya Herald has been told that starting this morning, in the wake of the attack on Derna by warplanes from Egypt, Egyptian nationals, many of them it seems farm workers, have been picked up by gunmen. The first reports were that seven men had been seized, but by mid-afternoon, it was being said that at least 35 had been reported missing.

Admin Wed 18 Feb 2015, 6:30 pm

VIDEO: Eric Holder blames FOX for Jihad as ISIS displays incredible show of force on Europe’s doorstep: Jihadists in Libya who beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians parade their fleet of brand new ‘police cars’ in front of cheering children
This is Obama’s Benghazi.
The Islamic State means to move on Europe via Libya. As Egypt strikes against Islamic State jihadists in Libya, the country’s ambassador warns the international community needs to act together.
Obama shrugs.

The carefully produced propaganda video was uploaded by Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia on February 5. All these groups are interchangeable. But don’ t tell Obama and co. that.
Today Eric Holder blamed Fox News for the Jihad: He mocked Fox News at the National Press Club today for talking so much about the Obama administration’s refusal to use the term “radical Islam.”
HOLDER: Whenever you’re getting criticized by both sides, it probably means you’re probably getting right.
Uh, no, it probably means you are getting it wrong. Very, very wrong.
We spend more time, more time talking about what you call it, as opposed to what do you do about it, you know? I mean really. If Fox didn’t talk about this, they would have nothing else to talk about, it seems to me.
Radical Islam, Islamic extremism; I’m not sure an awful lot is gained by saying that. It doesn’t have any impact on our military posture; it doesn’t have any impact on what we call it, on the policies that we put in place. What we have to do is defined not by the terms that we use, but by the facts on the ground. So I don’t worry an awful lot about what the appropriate terminology ought to be.
I think that people need to actually think about that, and think about will we be having this conversation about words as opposed to what our actions ought to be? This is a difficult problem. This is going to be an ongoing issue. This is something that requires us to think as a nation how we are going to deal with the domestic issues that I was describing in my previous response, and how are we going to deal with the foreign policy consequences of some very, very serious problems that our allies face, and that we face, particularly in a particular part of the world. The terminology, it seems to me little to no impact on what ultimately we have to do.
Has no impact. Your law enforcement agencies do not receive crucial training and education the jihadic doctrine — the impact is the Boston bombing. Had FDR and the US government refused to use the words Third Reich, Nazi, National Socialist German Workers Party, would we have won?
ISIS’ incredible show of force on Europe’s doorstep: Terrorists in Libya who beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians parade their fleet of brand new ‘police cars’ in front of cheering children
The video shows fleet of Toyota pickup trucks carrying Islamic State flags
Men, women and children cheer as the cars drive through city of Benghazi
Uploaded by extremist group Ansar al-Sharia who want Sharia law in Libya
The terror group pledged its allegiance to Islamic State in October last year
Linked to public and bloody executions of 21 Egyptian Christians this week
By Jay Akbar For Mailonline, 17 February 2015

Admin Wed 18 Feb 2015, 6:27 pm

US: Al-Qaida wanted recruits to pull off attack like 9/11
At a trial in New York city, another Islamic jihadist goes on trial for having nothing to do with Islam. (thanks to DF)
US: Al-Qaida wanted recruits to pull off attack like 9/11, Yahoo, February 17, 2015
FILE – In this Jan. 7, 2013 file image, Abid Naseer, second from left, is arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court where he pleaded not guilty through his attorney Steven Brounstein, center, to terrorism charges in an alleged al-Qaida plot against the New York City subways.
NEW YORK (AP) — A Pakistani terrorism suspect on trial in New York was among several young recruits under orders by al-Qaida to infiltrate Western society and pull off the biggest operation since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia Cohen told jurors in federal court in Brooklyn that the failed conspiracy in 2009 called for attacks in New York City, England and Denmark. She said 28-year-old Abid Naseer, who is acting as his own attorney, headed a cell in Manchester, England, where he attended college as part of his cover and communicated in coded emails with his al-Qaida handler about the cell’s plan to attack a shopping mall.
“That was the whole point of the Western operatives. … They knew how to blend in and conduct reconnaissance and pick the best target,” Cohen said. The goal, she added, was to “repeat the devastation of 9/11.”
The jury will be the first to see evidence seized during the Navy SEAL raid in 2011 that left Osama bin Laden dead, Cohen said.
In his opening statement, Naseer read in a monotone from prepared remarks in which he referred to himself in the third person. The time he spent on the Internet on sites like Qiran.com was part of his quest to find a woman to marry, he said.
“The evidence at trial will not show the defendant is an al-Qaida member. … He has no extremist or jihadist views,” Naseer said.
Naseer objected several times during the testimony by the first government witness, former Queens resident Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty in the New York City part of the plot that targeted the subways. For instance, he challenged the introduction of a photo of bin Laden, but was overruled.
“I agree with you that this case is not about 9/11,” U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie told Naseer during a break. But the judge said Zazi should be able to reference bin Laden in describing how he became radicalized.
Aside from Zazi, other witnesses will include testimony from British secret agents who will wear wigs and makeup on the witness stand to conceal their identities. The agents conducted surveillance on Naseer and other terror suspects in Britain before their arrests in April 2009. After no explosives were found, the men were released without being charged but ordered to leave the country — a fate Naseer avoided after a judge ruled it was likely he would be mistreated if he were sent to Pakistan.
Naseer was rearrested at the request of U.S. prosecutors and extradited to the United States in 2013.

Admin Mon 16 Feb 2015, 10:10 pm

White House Refuses to Call 21 BEHEADING Victims Christians while Egypt launches airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Libya for savage beheading of Christians killed for their faith
While the White House REFUSES to call 21 beheading victims CHRISTIANS in a statement about the Islamic State attack, Egypt is avenging the savage slaughter of Egyptian Christians. Obama is more hardcore Islamic than most Muslim countries now.
Obama is every non-Muslim’s nightmare living under the sharia
Horror: Blood is seen in the Mediterranean Sea following the sickening beheadings. In the video the jihadis say they now plan to ‘conquer Rome’
Statement by the Obama’s Press Secretary on the Murder of Egyptian Citizens:
The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens. ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.
This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and help foster a political solution in Libya.
“The nation of the cross…”
“Egypt retaliates with air strikes after ISIS marches 21 Coptic Christians along a lonely Libyan beach and beheads them en masse for their faith,” by John Hall and Sara Malm for MailOnline, 16 February 2015
Egyptian warplanes struck at least Islamic State targets near the Islamist-held city of Derna in eastern Libya today
Strikes come after ISIS-affiliated militants beheaded 21 Egyptians Coptic Christians in a sickening filmed massacre
Men were paraded by their masked killers before being savagely beheaded on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea
The Egyptian government last night vowed to ‘avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers’
Pope Francis expressed ‘profound sadness’ over the slayings, saying the victims were ‘murdered for their faith’
Egypt launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Libya this morning as it ‘seeks retribution’ for the barbaric filmed beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.
There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011.
It is the first time Egypt has announced military action against Islamist targets in its western neighbour, having previously denied it targeted militants there, and the first time militants connected with the Islamic State terror group have been hit with airstrikes outside Syria and Iraq.
Horror: A new video has been released by ISIS showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians
To their deaths: The Christian hostages are seen being marched along the beach before the beheadings
Film: The men were marched along a beach before being forced to kneel and beheaded simultaneously
Film: The men were marched along a beach before being forced to kneel and beheaded simultaneously
A statement released by the Egyptian military this morning said: ‘Your armed forces on Monday carried out focused air strikes in Libya against Daesh camps, places of gathering and training, and weapons depots’.
Daesh is a a derogatory Arabic acronym for the Islamic State terror group, commonly referred to as ISIS or ISIL in the West.
Retaliation: Pictures claiming to be of the air strikes in Libya by Egyptian forces emerged online this morning
SHARE PICTURE
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Retaliation: Pictures claiming to be of the air strikes in Libya by Egyptian forces emerged online this morning
Blast: This morning's airstrikes are the first time Egypt has announced military action against Islamist targets in its western neighbour, having previously denied it targeted militants there
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Blast: This morning’s airstrikes are the first time Egypt has announced military action against Islamist targets in its western neighbour, having previously denied it targeted militants there
Target: Egypt's ministry of defence said jets had targeted weapons caches and training camps
Target: Egypt’s ministry of defence said jets had targeted weapons caches and training camps
Destroyed: There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since dictator Libyan Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011
Destroyed: There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since dictator Libyan Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011
Violent outbreaks from radical Islamists against Christians and their places of worship are one of the biggest factors in the deteriorating relationship between the two dominant religious groups.
Egyptian Christians also accused the country’s government of being too lenient on the perpetrators of the attacks.
The main issues for Christians in Egypt are anti-Christian attacks and political instability.
Historically Copts used Coptic language, which derives from the ancient Egyptian language written mainly in the Greek alphabet, which is still used for small parts of Christian services.
In addition to violent outbreaks, Copts complain of discrimination.
In Egypt, there is a law that requires the president’s permission for church construction.
Egyptian state television followed up the military statement by showing footage of warplanes it said were taking off to conduct the strikes.
‘Avenging Egyptian blood and retaliating against criminals and killers is a duty we must carry out,’ the military said.
The air strikes came hours after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi threatened a ‘suitable response’ to the killings of the Christians who had travelled to Libya seeking work.
Sisi, a former army chief who overthrew the Islamist president and then won elections touting his firm hand, faced a chorus of demands to retaliate after the beheadings.
Libya’s air force meanwhile announced it had launched strikes in the eastern city of Darna, which was taken over by an IS affiliate last year.
Egyptian television has repeatedly played the sickening five-minute video since its release, albeit without the beheadings actually being shown.
The footage shows black-clad militants leading their captives in orange jumpsuits along a beach before forcing them to kneel
Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: ‘Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for.’
A caption on the five-minute video reads: ‘The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian Church.’
Images taken from the video of waves breaking on the beach turning red from the blood of the victims spread among Egyptians on social media, enraging many.
The White House led condemnation of the apparent beheadings, describing the killers as ‘despicable’ and adding that the brutality shown ‘further galvanises the international community to unite against ISIL,’ an alternative acronym for the group.
Pope Francis also expressed ‘profound sadness’ over the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by Islamic militants in Libya, saying they had been killed for their faith.
‘They were executed for nothing more than the fact that they were Christians,’ Francis said in unscheduled remarks in his native Spanish following a meeting with John Chalmers, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
‘The blood of our Christian sisters and brothers is testimony that cries out (to us),’ the pontiff added.
‘Be they Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it does not matter. They are Christians, their blood is the same, their blood confesses (their faith in) Christ.’
French President Francois Hollande, whose government is poised to sign a deal selling Egypt advanced Rafale fighter jets on Monday, expressed his ‘concern at the expansion of Daesh in Libya,’ using another name for ISIS.
Libya’s embattled parliament, which is locked in a conflict with Islamists, expressed condolences in a statement and called on the world to ‘show solidarity with Libya’ against militants.
IS militants have been hammered by US-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria after taking over swathes of the two countries and the group has active affiliates in Egypt and Libya.
In recent months Libya has seen the worst unrest since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which will complicate any efforts to combat the country’s many Islamic extremist groups.
The internationally recognized government has been confined to the country’s far east since Islamist-allied militias seized the capital Tripoli last year, and Islamist politicians have reconstituted a previous government and parliament.
Egypt has strongly backed the internationally recognized government, and U.S. officials have said both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates took part in a series of mysterious airstrikes targeting Islamist-allied forces last year.
The Egyptian government declared a seven-day mourning period after the release of the video and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi addressed the nation late Sunday night.
‘These cowardly actions will not undermine our determination’ said el-Sissi, who also banned all travel to Libya by Egyptian citizens.
‘Egypt and the whole world are in a fierce battle with extremist groups carrying extremist ideology and sharing the same goals,’ he added.
The Coptic Church issued a statement saying it was ‘confident’ the Christians’ killers would be brought to justice, as it confirmed those beheaded were Egyptian Copts.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/obama-islamic.html/#sthash.zEvPH4pY.dpuf

Admin Sun 15 Feb 2015, 1:17 am

Watch VIDEO: Paraded in cages 17 Kurds ‘to be burned alive’ like Jordanian pilot: ISIS releases video

Obama took time out of his busy selfie schedule to comment on a parking dispute in North Carolina (because the victims were Muslims), but this? Nothing. Yesterday’s kidnapping and execution of 21 Christians by Muslim fighters in Libya? Nothing. He remains silent on the daily slaughter of non-Muslims and our allies in the war against the Islamic State.
The Kurds are our allies and the most consistent and effective fighting force against the Muslim fighters of the Islamic State.
OT but related (because it’s all of a piece), back in October, these same cages were paraded down Madison Avenue at the Muslim Day parade with young girls in them (here).
Paraded in cages ‘to be burned alive’ like Jordanian pilot: ISIS releases video claiming to show 17 Kurdish fighters in humiliating procession through Iraqi city
Orange clad Peshmerga are driven through crowds of jeering militants
Grim echo of Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s public burning on camera
Procession reportedly took place in northwestern Iraqi city of Kirkuk
Reports claim ISIS now has a presence in the oil rich Kurdish stronghold
By Tim Macfarlan For Mailonline
Heads bowed in terror the orange-clad Kurdish fighters are paraded through streets filled with jeering militants in the latest horrifying video release from Islamic State.
In a grim echo of the terrible fate which befell Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh the captives, reportedly Peshmerga fighters, are dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackled in cages.
Just as Lt. al-Kaseasbeh was burned alive on camera, IS are planning to do the same with their latest prisoners, according to posts on social media.
A terrified Kurdish prisoner looks out from his cage at a mob of jeering militants in the horrific scene
Each prisoner was accompanied by black clad and flag waving jihadis, some armed with AK-47s
Onlookers jeered and taunted the prisoners as their captors played to the crowds during the procession
Onlookers jeered and taunted the prisoners as their captors played to the crowds during the procession
Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh is pictured about to be burned to death in a horrific film released by ISIS. There are fears the Kurdish prisoners in the latest release could meet the same dreadful fate
Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh is pictured about to be burned to death in a horrific film released by ISIS. There are fears the Kurdish prisoners in the latest release could meet the same dreadful fate
ISIS parades caged Peshmerga prisoners through street
The grim procession apparently took place through Kirkuk in northwest Iraq, an oil rich Kurdish stronghold where ISIS now has a presence after mounting repeated attacks in recent weeks.
The parade, reportedly through the Hawija district in the southwest of Kirkuk, could be seen as revenge for horrific reports of Kurdish forces dragging the bodies of ISIS fighters through the streets of the city in the Kurdistan region of Iraq earlier this month.
In the nearly four minute long video 17 of the Iraqi Kurdistan military forces are driven one by one on the backs of white pick-up trucks with ISIS flag-waving militants toting AK-47s accompanying each prisoner.
At the end of the clip the long line of cages can be seen retreating into the sunset over the heads of massed crowds of militants.
A total of 17 Peshmerga were led through the streets of what is apparently Kirkuk in northwestern Iraq
Posts on social media suggested the Islamic State militants plan to set fire to the Kurdistan warriors
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Posts on social media suggested the Islamic State militants plan to set fire to the Kurdistan warriors
This captive stares grimly ahead as one militant records him on his smartphone as he is driven past
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This captive stares grimly ahead as one militant records him on his smartphone as he is driven past
The parade reportedly took place in Hawija in southwest Kirkuk, where ISIS is now said to have a foothold
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The parade reportedly took place in Hawija in southwest Kirkuk, where ISIS is now said to have a foothold
Lt. al-Kaseasbeh was filmed being burned to death by Islamic State extremists in a nightmarish 22-minute film which was expertly edited before being posted online.
Titled ‘Healing the Believers’ Chests’, it showed the captured airman locked in a cage before a trail of petrol leading up to its bars is set alight.
It is thought he was immolated while heavily sedated before debris, including broken masonry, is poured over the cage, which is then flattened by a bulldozer.
Officials believe Kasasbeh had been killed almost one month earlier, despite ISIS attempting to carry out a prisoner exchange in return for the captured pilot.
After the footage was released, Jordanian officials executed two Iraqi militants connected with ISIS.
They included Sajida al-Rishawi, the female would-be suicide bomber whose freedom ISIS had originally demanded in exchange for releasing Kasasbeh.
Thousands of Jordanian troops have been deployed to the country’s border with Iraq to stop Islamic State militants from infilatrating the country, it has been reported.
The country has already carried out airstrikes on ISIS targets in revenge for the murder of their pilot.
Iraqi security forces killed eight ISIS assailants wearing Iraqi army uniforms during an attack against the Ain al-Asad air base, where 320 US Marines are currently training Iraqi troops
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Iraqi security forces killed eight ISIS assailants wearing Iraqi army uniforms during an attack against the Ain al-Asad air base, where 320 US Marines are currently training Iraqi troops
Al-Baghdadi is only nine miles away from the air base, where Iraqi officials had to call for reinforcements
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Al-Baghdadi is only nine miles away from the air base, where Iraqi officials had to call for reinforcements
The latest procession of captives scene played out against the backdrop of ISIS taking the town of Al-Baghdadi in western Iraq.
The fall of the town, which the Pentagon played down as a minor setback, came as IS extremists launched an unsuccessful assault involving suicide bombers on the nearby Al-Asad air base.
‘We do assess that right now they have control of Al-Baghdadi,’ Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference, adding IS took hold of the town ‘in the past several days.’
The town is located in Anbar province, about five miles (eight kilometers) from the Asad air base, where about 300 US Marines are stationed to assist Iraqi government troops.
Iraqi soldiers repelled the IS group’s assault on the base on Friday which involved several suicide bombers, officials said.
A group of 20-25 IS fighters, most of them wearing Iraqi army uniforms, carried out the failed attack, which appeared designed to have been an initial wave of suicide bombings followed by gunmen storming in, Kirby said.
All of the militants were killed or died when detonating suicide bombs.
Pentagon: Iraqi base attack included several suicide bombers
No US military serve members were under direct threat from the attack, as they were several miles away, but two Iraqi soldiers were killed and several were wounded
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No US military serve members were under direct threat from the attack, as they were several miles away, but two Iraqi soldiers were killed and several were wounded
Kirby said that ‘at no time were US troops anywhere near the fighting,’ which was about two miles away from where the Americans were working at the sprawling complex.
American surveillance aircraft tracking the IS extremists assisted the Iraqi army forces and Apache attack helicopters were sent in but did open fire, officials said.
US-led coalition aircraft carried out five air strikes in the area over the past 24 hours, roughly 15 kilometers from the Asad base, but those were not related to the brief firefight with the IS militants at Asad, officials said.
‘There were no aircraft involved in beating back this,’ Kirby said. ‘The Iraqi security forces did this on their own.’
An Iraqi army colonel and a defense ministry official said the botched attack involved at least seven would-be suicide bombers using a military vehicle.
Al-Baghdadi had been under growing pressure for months and was one of the few towns that had remained under the Iraqi government’s control in the predominantly Sunni province.
Obama announces request to allow military forces against ISIS
But the Pentagon said the capture of the town did not represent a major setback in the war effort against the Islamists who have overrun large areas of Iraq and Syria.
‘This is arguably the first in at least a couple of months, if not more, where they (IS) have had any success at all at taking any new ground,’ Kirby said.
‘So this is an enemy that we still assess to be in a defensive posture.’
He added: ‘It’s one town. It’s not all of Anbar. It’s not all of Iraq.
‘We need to keep it in perspective.’
US officials have said it will take some time before Iraqi troops are trained and ready to stage a major counter-offensive in Anbar province, where much of the Sunni population has become alienated from the Shiite-led leadership in Baghdad.
Washington is pinning its hopes on Iraqi government plans to build up a militia among the Sunni tribes in the area against the IS jihadists.
On Wednesday President Obama formally requested from Congress the authority to use military force in the war against ISIS.
The proposal does not ask for the deployment of ground troops.
During a press conference the president said: ‘Our coalition is on the offensive, ISIL is on the defensive and ISIL is going to lose.’
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/watch-video-paraded-in-cages-17-kurds-to-be-burned-alive-like-jordanian-pilot-isis-releases-video.html/#sthash.W0vBrtpx.dpuf

WashPost exposes Obama’s disastrous Iran nuclear weapons deal point by horrible point
Obama’s submission to Iran is worse than we imagined. It means war. A war of unimaginable proportions. This deal is not a gamechanger, it’s a worldchanger.
It is no wonder that Obama is hellbent on stopping Prime Minister Netanyahu from speaking to the Congress next month. He will reason with them. The truth will expose Obama’s perfidy.
This isn’t politics or partisan gamesmanship. This is life and death, my friends.
Should Obama steamroll over Congress and ram this death deal through, the free world has only one hope – -in the country she has done more to undermine than any other on earth, Israel.
My good friend Paul Schnee has this to say about Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran: “Seldom in American history has the United States and her allies been in such lethal danger as they are in now. President Obama’s agreement with Iran, if concluded, will leave the Iranian mullahs with most of their centrifuges spinning away with the ability to become a nuclear power within a matter of months.
The terms of the agreement are so bad that they are forcing Democrats to choose between safeguarding America’s vital security interests or remaining loyal to a president whose ardent and determined pursuit of his anti-West ideology has placed the country he is supposed to be leading upon a trap-door which could be sprung by Iran almost at any moment.
For her very survival this will leave Israel with little choice but to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to secure not only her own safety but also, ironically enough, the safety of America and the West.
At that point Israel will face ferocious attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah and perhaps from the Palestinian Authority’s militia. Israel will suffer a tremendous loss of life. Iran may then unleash its terrorist cells already operating within the United States murdering many of our citizens and the cry you will hear from Iran will be, “Look what the Jews made us do!!” However, it will be Obama’s suicidal policies which precipitated this disaster placing us teetering on the brink of World War III.
You will notice from the article below that the analytical powers of Henry Kissinger at 91 years of age exceed that of every member of the White House’s national security apparatus combined.
Please contact all of your senators and congressmen and demand that Obama’s deal, which puts us all in mortal peril, be pole-axed and that any future agreement MUST be approved by the Congress of the United States where we, THE PEOPLE, govern.”
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/washpost-exposes-obamas-disastrous-iran-nuclear-weapons-deal-point-by-horrible-point.html/#sthash.vFIkuPsb.dpuf

The emerging Iran nuclear deal raises major concerns
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2015 file picture US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, listens to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as they walk in the city of Geneva, Switzerland, during a bilateral meeting ahead of nuclear discussions. (Martial Trezzini/AP)
By Editorial Board February 5
AS THE Obama administration pushes to complete a nuclear accord with Iran, numerous members of Congress, former secretaries of state and officials of allied governments are expressing concern about the contours of the emerging deal. Though we have long supported negotiations with Iran as well as the interim agreement the United States and its allies struck with Tehran, we share several of those concerns and believe they deserve more debate now — before negotiators present the world with a fait accompli.
The problems raised by authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, Virginia’s junior senator, can be summed up in three points:
●First, a process that began with the goal of eliminating Iran’s potential to produce nuclear weapons has evolved into a plan to tolerate and temporarily restrict that capability.
●Second, in the course of the negotiations, the Obama administration has declined to counter increasingly aggressive efforts by Iran to extend its influence across the Middle East and seems ready to concede Tehran a place as a regional power at the expense of Israel and other U.S. allies.
●Finally, the Obama administration is signaling that it will seek to implement any deal it strikes with Iran — including the suspension of sanctions that were originally imposed by Congress — without a vote by either chamber. Instead, an accord that would have far-reaching implications for nuclear proliferation and U.S. national security would be imposed unilaterally by a president with less than two years left in his term.
The first and broadest of these problems was outlined by Mr. Kissinger in recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The talks, he pointed out, began as a multilateral effort headed by the European Union and backed by six U.N. Security Council resolutions intended “to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option.” Though formally the multilateral talks continue, “these negotiations have now become an essentially bilateral negotiation” between the United States and Iran “over the scope of that [nuclear] capability, not its existence,” Mr. Kissinger said.
Where it once aimed to eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, the administration now appears ready to accept an infrastructure of thousands of Iranian centrifuges. It says its goal is to limit and monitor that industrial base so that Iran could not produce the material for a warhead in less than a year. As several senators pointed out last month during a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, the prospective deal would leave Iran as a nuclear-threshold state while theoretically giving the world time to respond if Tehran chose to build a weapon. Even these limited restrictions would remain in force for only a specified number of years, after which Iran would be free to expand its production of potential bomb materials.
Mr. Kissinger said such an arrangement would very likely prompt other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, to match Iran’s threshold capability. “The impact . . . will be to transform the negotiations from preventing proliferation to managing it,” he said. “We will live in a proliferated world in which everybody — even if that agreement is maintained — will be very close to the trigger point.”
A related problem is whether Iran could be prevented from cheating on any arrangement and acquiring a bomb by stealth. Mr. Kaine (D) underlined that an attempt by the United States to negotiate the end of North Korea’s nuclear program failed after the regime covertly expanded its facilities. With Iran, said Mr. Kaine, “a nation that has proven to be very untrustworthy . . . the end result is more likely to be a North Korean situation” if existing infrastructure is not dismantled.
The administration at one time portrayed the nuclear negotiations as distinct from the problem of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, its attempts to establish hegemony over the Arab Middle East and its declared goal of eliminating Israel. Yet while the talks have proceeded, Mr. Obama has offered assurances to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the two countries have shared interests in the region, and the White House has avoided actions Iran might perceive as hostile — such as supporting military action against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
For their part, the Iranians, as Mr. Kaine put it, “are currently involved in activities to destabilize the governments of [U.S.-allied] nations as near as Bahrain and as far away as Morocco.” A Tehran-sponsored militia recently overthrew the U.S.-backed government of Yemen. Rather than contest the Iranian bid for regional hegemony, as has every previous U.S. administration since the 1970s, Mr. Obama appears ready to concede Iran a place in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and beyond — a policy that is viewed with alarm by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, among other allies.
Former secretary of state George P. Shultz cited Iran’s regional aggression in pronouncing himself “very uneasy” about the ongoing negotiations. “They’ve already outmaneuvered us, in my opinion,” he told the Armed Services Committee.
While presidents initiate U.S. foreign policies, it is vital that major shifts win the support of Congress and the country; otherwise, they will be unsustainable. Yet Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested in Senate testimony that the administration intends to postpone any congressional vote on a deal indefinitely, meeting its commitments to Iran by using provisions allowing it to suspend legislatively enacted sanctions. Mr. Blinken conceded that the Iranian parliament would likely vote on any accord but said that Congress should act only “once Iran has demonstrated that it’s making good on its commitments.”
Such a unilateral course by Mr. Obama would alienate even his strongest congressional supporters. It would mean that a deal with Iran could be reversed, within months of its completion, by the next president. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Mr. Obama wishes to avoid congressional review because he suspects a bipartisan majority would oppose the deal he is prepared to make. If so, the right response to the questions now being raised is to seek better terms from Iran — or convince the doubters that an accord blessing and preserving Iran’s nuclear potential is better than the alternatives.
Read more about this topic:
Michael Singh: The first step toward an Iran deal: No new nuclear concessions
Eric Edelman, Dennis Ross and Ray Takeyh: A nuclear deal with Iran will require the West to reevaluate its presumptions
Charles Krauthammer: Iran’s emerging empire
Ray Takeyh: Iran poised to choose poverty over nuclear disarmament
Laurent Fabius, Philip Hammond, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Federica Mogherini: Give diplomacy with Iran a chance

Obama: Iran Won’t Pursue Nuclear Weapons Because It’s ‘Contrary to Their Faith’ (VIDEO)
http://woundedamericanwarrior.com/obama-iran-wont-pursue-nuclear-weapons-because-its-contrary-to-their-faith-video/#
In a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday, President Obama said he believed a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons was possible because Supreme Leader Khamenei said it would be “contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
The issues now are sufficiently narrowed and sufficiently clarified where we’re at a point where they need to make a decision. We are presenting to them in a unified fashion, the P5+1 supported by a coalition of countries around the world are presenting to them a deal that allows them to have peaceful nuclear power but gives us the absolute assurance that is verifiable that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
And if in fact what they claim is true, which is they have no aspiration to get a nuclear weapon, that in fact, according to their Supreme Leader, it would be contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon, if that is true, there should be the possibility of getting a deal. They should be able to get to yes. But we don’t know if that’s going to happen.
Video, transcript via RCP.
—Courtesy of Truth Revolt

Admin Wed 11 Feb 2015, 4:09 pm

Obama: Iran Won’t Pursue Nuclear Weapons Because It’s ‘Contrary to Their Faith’
There he goes again, Imam Obama proselytizing, dissembling and disarming the kuffar in the cause of Islam. In his remarks today on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Obama assigns good faith to the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.
As for Iran’s nuclear fatwa, “Unfortunately, no one can find the fatwa. And even if it did exist, it would appear that it is nothing more than a ploy to sow confusion among Iranian adversaries—especially the United States.”
iran nuke
Arms Control and Regional Security for the Middle East explained this:
There are several questions surrounding the ‘fatwa’ itself, its wordings, its binding nature, its date of issuance, in addition to questions arising from giving a key role to a religious edict that could have direct implications on the ongoing international negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
First, the Iranian authorities have never presented the text of this ‘crucial’ document and the term fatwa is in fact only used by other parties (including the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its nuclear negotiators, and U.S. officials) and never by the Ayatollah himself. The Supreme Leader’s website, which is extremely comprehensive and includes the texts of all of his teachings, statements, and speeches, has not uploaded this piece, which is referred by others as the ultimate ruling regarding the nuclear issue by Iranian officials. This decree has been a key legal document supporting Tehran’s claims that its nuclear ambitions, the most important issue in the country’s foreign policy, are merely peaceful. The fact that its exact wordings or date of issuance has not been disclosed can be viewed as peculiar. Publishing the fatwa, as well as accurate translations of it, on the Supreme Leader’s website, providing a link to it on the new nuclear energy website, could help address these issues.
Second, observers note that if such a fatwa exists, its scope has seemed to change overtime. The most relevant statement by the Supreme Leader that could be considered as the fatwa, stipulates:
According to our faith, in addition to nuclear weapons, other kinds of WMD, such as chemical and biological weapons also constitute a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is a victim of the use of chemical weapons itself, feels the danger of the production and stockpiling of such weapons and is ready to employ all its means to counter them. We consider the use [کاربرد] of these weapons as haram [prohibited under Islamic law], and the attempt to immunize human kind from this great disaster the responsibility of all.
According to the Iranian 2005 Communication to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the wording of the fatwa was as follows: ‘the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam.’ Yet, in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei message, which was read at the opening of the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation in 2010, the Supreme Leader’s explicit prohibition has merely encompassed the ‘use’ of these weapons. Recent statements, by the Ayatollah himself, merely highlighting a ban of the use, with philosophical and ethical discussion about the production and stockpiling of these weapons, rather than a concrete prohibition. The possession is not mentioned in his statements, leaving a grey area in what is the key issue in Iran’s nuclear debate. The fact that the only concrete line is drawn for the ‘use’ of these weapons raises a question regarding the stance of the Supreme Leader on nuclear deterrence. Indeed, he has made it clear that he does not believe the ‘possession’ of weapons of mass destruction is in the interest of the country and raises ethical and philosophical issues with these weapons. Yet, he falls short of taking a clear legal position on the production and possession of these weapons, which may hint at his wish to.
This narrowing of the scope of this prohibition was later limited to the ‘use’ of such weapons, creating some confusion in the West, mainly due to inaccurate translations, which did not highlight what seems to be a shift in the leadership’s discourse. Yet, a number of observers have noted the change, which has led many to be skeptical of the fatwa. Tehran could address these concerns by publishing the exact text of the decree and highlighting its scope, by describing whether it covers the production, transfer, stockpiling, possession, threat of use, or use of nuclear weapons.
Third, there are also a number of pending questions regarding the significance of the fatwa itself. Mousavian argues: ‘[t]he validity of the fatwa should not be underestimated. Because of the strong bond between religion and politics in Iran, the supreme leader’s religious fatwas carry both legislative and religious importance.’
Yet, whether or not Khamenei has the authority to even issue such a decree has been debated. Some argue that he is not a marja’ in the traditional sense, but rather a member of the Shiite clergy, who has received much of his authority not from his religious education and status but from his political power. They note that until his presidency in 1981, Khamenei was merely a hojjat al-Islam and has, until now, not received the approval of any major marja’. In fact, the requirement set by the first Constitution of the Islamic Republic, according to which, the supreme leader needed to be a marja’ was removed in the second version of it, as the founder of the regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, knew well that otherwise no one would be able to succeed to him, as among his followers were no prominent religious authorities. For this reason, an institution was established under the Islamic Republic, called shora-ye fatwa or the Fatwa Council is in charge of issuing fatawa. Hence, the Supreme Leader’s fatawa (plural of fatwa) only have a political and ideological weight and nonreligious grounds. To address this issue, Tehran could take a key step. Indeed, while a number of Iranian Shiite clerics have spoken on the matter, supporting the view that nuclear weapons are indeed prohibited by the faith, a number have not expressed their views on the matter. Collecting the views of prominent Shiite maraje’ would help shed light on this issue.
Fourth, a key argument against the fatwa is that it does not constitute an absolute and irreversible rule. Furthermore, the idea of maslahat-e nezam, the rough equivalent of Raison d’Etat in the Islamic Republic’s political ideology (the notion in its modern, abstract form does not exist in the Islamic tradition), enables the supreme leader to overrule any religious rule, including temporary suspension of explicit Qur’anic prescriptions – even in the cases of the foundations of the faith – in order to safeguard the regime, let alone fatawa. Indeed, the supreme leader’s ultimate goal is to preserve the Islamic state and the notion of maslahat-e nezam provides him the tool to do so. It was with this idea in mind that the founder of the regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, had formulated this notion: the preservation, at all costs, of the Islamic state. In other words, critics argue that should Iran be attacked, threatening the Islamic Republic, it could resort to not only producing but also using nuclear weapons. However, it is important to note that the reversal of such a decree would come at a great political cost. Indeed, not only has the decree been issued by the highest political power in the country, it has been relied upon as the key plank of the Iranian nuclear narrative for over a decade.
If a nuclear weapon is needed to advance Islam and destroy the kufar, then it is not haram.
Imam Obama speaketh:
Obama: Iran Won’t Pursue Nuclear Weapons Because It’s ‘Contrary to Their Faith’
“…according to their Supreme Leader, it would be contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon…” By Bradford Thomas transcript via RCP, February 9, 2015
In a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday, President Obama said he believed a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons was possible because Supreme Leader Khamenei said it would be “contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
The issues now are sufficiently narrowed and sufficiently clarified where we’re at a point where they need to make a decision. We are presenting to them in a unified fashion, the P5+1 supported by a coalition of countries around the world are presenting to them a deal that allows them to have peaceful nuclear power but gives us the absolute assurance that is verifiable that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
And if in fact what they claim is true, which is they have no aspiration to get a nuclear weapon, that in fact, according to their Supreme Leader, it would be contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon, if that is true, there should be the possibility of getting a deal. They should be able to get to yes. But we don’t know if that’s going to happen.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/obama-iran-wont-pursue-nuclear-weapons-because-its-contrary-to-their-faith.html/#sthash.lBhtcwoG.dpuf

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