So how much rocket science does it take to figure out that the Obameister’s policy of appeasement just isn’t working? And the better question is why didn’t more people see that he was ill prepared to be the Commander-in-Chief while we were at war with an enemy he is afraid to name:  Jihadist Islam?

AMERCAN THINKER

January 10, 2010

By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

These Congresspeople ABSOLUTELY MUST be voted out of office.  In a vote of 412 to 12 last night, these morons had the audacity to vote against, vote a meaningless “present” or not vote on a very important piece of legislation that passed overwhelmingly:

The IRAN REFINED PETROLEUM SANCTIONS ACT OF 2009. More than 3/4 of the House co-sponsored this act and these idiots have revealed their true hate for America.  Let’s dump them ALL at the next bus stop, America!

Send this to everyone on your email list!!

—- NOES    12 —

—- ANSWERED “PRESENT”    4 —

—- NOT VOTING    6 —

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 10, 2009

DEBKAfile‘s military sources report that this message Iran’s defense minister Ahmad Vahidi brought to Damascus where he is attending a session of the high Iranian-Syrian defense committee which went into its second day Thursday, Dec. 10. Syrian defense minister Ali Habib is in the chair.

The Iranian visitor indicated that Tehran expects an Israeli attack within a month. According to Iranian intelligence, Jerusalem will take its green light from President Barack Obama’s forced admission after Christmas that his policy of dialogue and stiffer sanctions have failed in the face of Tehran’s rejection of the international proposal to send its enriched uranium for overseas processing.

“The countdown for war is coming close to its end,” said Vahidi to the joint defense committee. “And we must get our strategic partnership in shape ahead of time.”

The leitmotif of the Iranian defense secretary’s talks in Damascus was the fate Iran and Syria share and their strategic partnership as the only safeguards against what he called “‘American-backed Zionist aggression.” Syria must commit itself to joint military action against Israel, because “stronger defense ties between Iran and Syria are elements of deterrence in confronting the Zionist regime’s threats to the countries of the region.”

For the first, time, Gen. Vahidi openly threatened to respond to a possible Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by striking Israel’s “chemical, microbiological and banned nuclear weapons” production sites.

His message brought forth a tepid Syrian response: The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Syrian Secretary of Defense Ali Habib as commenting early Thursday, December 10, that an attack on Iran by any party would be deemed an attack on Syria and draw commensurate retaliation.

But DEBKAfile‘s military sources point out that comment did not satisfy Tehran because it is short of clear language pledging specific military action. Iranian officials mean to stay in Damascus and keep up the pressure until they elicit a firm, binding Syrian commitment to strike Israel on its ally’s behalf if Iran comes under attack.

Gen. Vahidi arrived in Damascus Tuesday aboard a special Iranian military aircraft. It carried the largest Iranian military delegation ever seen in the Syrian capital, representing every branch of Iran’s armed forces, Revolutionary Guards Corps and intelligence.

Preparations for coordinated retaliation for a potential Israeli attack also brought a top Hizballah delegation incoming from Lebanon to Damascus Tuesday night, Dec. 8, headed by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

When they met, Syrian and Iranian military officials proposed that Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist organizations start heating up Israel’s borders in the coming days to draw the attention from the world’s focus on the Iranian and Syrian nuclear programs.

Sunday, December 6, DEBKAfile‘s Washington sources reported that the Obama administration was about to launch a campaign against Syria’s covert military nuclear program based on the “smoking gun” of traces of highly processed plutonium found by UN inspectors at the bombed Syrian-North Korean facility at Dir a-Zur. The campaign will focus on this finding as evidence of Iran’s covert nuclear activities and proliferation activities

DEBKAfile Special Report

November 19, 2009

DEBKAfile‘s military sources report that the UN inspectors’ October visit to Iran turned up dual-track progress in support of its nuclear weapons program: Feverish activity was registered in the production of plutonium at Isfahan as an alternative to the Fordo enriched uranium plant near Qom which starts up in 2011.

The IAEA experts discovered 30 metric tons-IS of heavy water hidden in 600 tanks, each holding 13 gallons, according to the report they handed in last week to agency headquarters in Vienna.

From the shape of the tanks and other indications, the experts concluded that this stock had not come from the heavy water plant at Arak but was imported.

Metric tons-IS measure the amount of energy a given quantity can release. The force and types of nuclear bombs are gauged in kilotons or megatons. The American nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was equal to 20 kilotons of TNT. By this standard, the amount of heavy water discovered at Isfahan would be enough to make at least one plutonium bomb when the plutonium reactor under construction near the Arak heavy water facility is finished.

Other than its civilian uses, heavy water may be used to produce tritium, which intensifies the explosive force of nuclear warheads. The discovery of quantities of heavy water at Isfahan confirms the suspicions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program in three respects.

1. The long concealment of the Fordo site suggested to the UN inspectors that Iran has more hole-in the-corner nuclear facilities in the country. The discovery of a stock of heavy water further confirmed that Tehran is working hard to attain a nuclear weapon capacity on more than one track and at additional covert sites.

2. The IAEA wants to know who is selling Iran heavy water in violation of Security Council resolutions banning the sale or export of nuclear materials to Iran.

The very fact that some government or outside entity is willing to flout UN resolutions demonstrates that any further international sanctions would be ineffective for halting Iran’s nuclear drive, even assuming that President Barack Obama gained Russian and Chinese backing for such penalties. This backing has so far been withheld.

DEBKAfile‘s sources report from Vienna that on November 10, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei sent a request to the Iranian Nuclear Energy Committee asking it to confirm the presence of the heavy water and document its origin with a full explanation. Tehran has yet to reply.

3. The presence of the heavy water tanks at Isfahan is additional proof that the reactor at Arak is designed for military purposes, not a peaceful installation as Tehran claims.

ACT! FOR AMERICA

Did you know that, from November 5^th to November 10^th, 85% of the news stories about the Ft. Hood attack produced by ABC, CBS and NBC did not mention the words “terror” or “terrorist”?

Did you know that investigators found personal business cards belonging to Nidal Hasan that had the initials “S.O.A” — “Soldier of Allah”?

Only now are more and more news reports and commentators acknowledging, some very grudgingly, that Hasan was a jihadist. There simply is too much evidence to ignore — even for the most stubborn politically correct apologists for radical Islam.

Brigitte Gabriel has, of course, been following the Ft. Hood terrorist attack very closely, conducting numerous interviews since it happened.

Today she gives her take on how this happened, why it could have been prevented, and what this means for the future.

Click here, or the image below, to watch this very important message from Brigitte Gabriel. Then forward this email to everyone you know so we can take Brigitte’s message viral!

And if you haven’t yet signed our petition calling for a government investigation of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, click here to do so today. As of Friday morning, November 13^th, nearly 19,000 people have added their names to this petition. How about you?

October 29, 2009

by Ed White

AP – Detroit Police enter the temporary home to the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. …

• Slideshow: Radical Islamic leader killed in Detroit raid

DETROIT – A leader of a radical U.S. Sunni Islam group killed in a shootout with federal agents near Detroit repeatedly told followers that the government was the enemy and they must be willing to take on the FBI — even if it meant death, authorities said.

“You cannot have a nonviolent revolution,” Luqman Ameen Abdullah said, according to a 2008 conversation secretly recorded by a confidential FBI source.

Abdullah, 53, was killed Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn, where agents were attempting to arrest him on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. He was one of 11 people named in a criminal complaint after a two-year investigation.

FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents.

The 43-page complaint described Abdullah as an extremist who believed the FBI bombed New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 and the Oklahoma City federal building two years later. Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.

Neither Abdullah nor his co-defendants were charged with terrorism. But he was “advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States,” FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with the complaint.

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their “duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die” and to “simply shoot a cop in the head” if they wanted the officer’s bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah’s regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were “willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence,” the FBI agent wrote.

But that description doesn’t match what Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter, said he knew of Abdullah.

“He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people,” Walid said. “I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior.”

Walid said Abdullah had a wife and children. A phone number for the family had been disconnected.

Ummah believes that a separate Islamic state in the U.S. would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado for shooting two police officers in Georgia in 2000, Leone said.

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.

“They’re not taking their cues from overseas,” said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain. “This group is very much American born and bred.”

Abdullah’s mosque is in a brick duplex on a residential street in Detroit. A sign on the door in English and Arabic reads, in part, “There is no God but Allah.” The mosque was located elsewhere in the city until the property was lost in January because of unpaid taxes.

When the eviction took place, a search turned up empty shell casings and large holes in the concrete wall of a “shooting range,” Leone said.

Seven of the 10 people charged with Abdullah were in custody, including a state prison inmate, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Three were still at large. Another man not named in the complaint also was arrested.

The FBI built its case over two years with the help of confidential sources close to Abdullah who recorded conversations and participated in undercover operations involving the sale of furs, laptop computers, televisions, energy drinks and power tools.

Abdullah received at least 20 percent of any profit and claimed the “Prophet Muhammad said that it is okay to participate in theft; as long as that person prays, they are in a good state,” Leone wrote in the affidavit.

Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the FBI briefed him about the arrests.

“We know that this is not something to be projected as something against Muslims,” Hamad said.

___

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 19, 2009

Iranian Revolutionary Guards chief Mohammed Ali Jafari

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafary, Monday, Oct. 19, threatened “crushing” retaliation against the US, UK and Pakistan including the invasion of its eastern neighbor. Tehran links all three to the suicide bombing attack in Sistan-Baluchistan Sunday, Oct. 18, which killed 42 people including seven senior Guards officers. One was Gen. Nur Ali Shoustari, Jafari’s deputy, who was identified by DEBKAfile‘s counter-terror sources as commander of the al Qods clandestine terror bases in Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Jafary said: “Behind this scene are the American and British intelligence apparatus and there will have to be retaliatory measures to punish them.”

DEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources note that is the first time in Iran’s 30-year Islamic revolution that a military leader has gone to the extreme lengths of threatening to strike US and British military targets, a measure of the damage the regime and Guards suffered from the suicide attack, which has since been condemned and denied by Washington.

Jafari expanded on his charge by saying: “New evidence has been obtained proving the link between yesterday’s terror attack and the US, British and Pakistani intelligence services.” He spoke of evidence showing that all three supported the group. “A delegation would soon travel to Pakistan to present it,” he said.

A military official in Tehran then suggested Iran might launch a military thrust into Pakistan against the group blamed for the attack. Lawmaker Payman Forouzesh said: “There is even unanimity that these operations (could) take place in Pakistan territory.”

Tehran accuses the Sunni secessionist terrorist group Jundallah of Baluchistan, which is fighting for the predominantly Sunni province’s independence, of carrying out the suicide bombing in provincial town of Pisheen near the Pakistan and Afghanistan borders. In the past, Tehran has charged the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the CIA of supporting the group. It has carried out a string of terrorist attacks on regime and Shiite targets including in 2007 a failed assassination attempt on president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

DEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources report that Tehran will have to make good on its threats without too much delay or lose face among the political and ethnic minority dissidents plaguing on the regime, especially those who rose up in protest against the tainted June 20 presidential election. Hesitation will be seen as weakness.

Past Iranian reprisals were usually carried against the US or Britain indirectly in the Persian Gulf or by local Islamic surrogates like Hizballah in Iraq. Jafari’s words point to a more direct showdown this time by the IRGC or its terrorist arm al Qods.

THE ENGLISH DEFENSE LEAGUE  in the spirit of St. George presents,

THE DAY OF RECKONING

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RKgK-0HwN30

Telegraph.co.uk

Octobwer 3, 2009

By Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows.

Ahmadinejad showing papers during election.  It shows that his family’s previous name was Jewish

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia .  The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran ‘s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: “This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s background explains a lot about him.

“Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

“By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections.  He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society.”

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that “jian” ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.

“He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had,” said the Iranian-born Jew living in London .  ”Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran .”

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said it would not be drawn on Mr Ahmadinejad’s background.  ”It’s not something we’d talk about,” said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.

The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s.  But he has never revealed what it was change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch.

Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr Ahmadinejad was aged four.

The Iranian president grew up to be a qualified engineer with a doctorate in traffic management.  He served in the Revolutionary Guards militia before going on to make his name in hardline politics in the capital.

During this year’s presidential debate on television, he was goaded to admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.

However, Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad’s roots was arrested this summer.

Mr Ahmadinejad has regularly levelled bitter criticism at Israel , questioned its right to exist and denied the Holocaust.  British diplomats walked out of a UN meeting last month after the Iranian president denounced Israel ‘s ‘genocide, barbarism and racism.’

Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned denunciation of the Iranian leader at the same UN summit.  ”Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium,” he said.  ”A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews.  What a disgrace.  What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations.”

Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistently outspoken about the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jewish race.  ”They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets,” he declared at a conference on the holocaust staged in Tehran in 2006.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited  2009

CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY

September 28, 2009

By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18189.xml

A Denver airport shuttle driver from Afghanistan who plotted to blow up subway trains in New York City. A Jordanian who tried to destroy one of Dallas’ tallest skyscrapers. An American who thought he was detonating a truck bomb aimed at a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois.

Maybe it will prove to be the case that the three men at the heart of these interrupted plots – Najibullah Zazi, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and Michael Finton (also known as Talib Islam) – had no connection in a tactical or operational sense.

Still, it is absurd, and extremely dangerous, to insist that they are not connected in at least one way: What apparently animated all three of these suspects (and perhaps a number of others believed to have been involved in the New York plot who are still at large) is the seditious, supremacist theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”

Shariah requires its adherents to engage in jihad – the struggle to bring about the triumph of Islam worldwide through whatever means are available. Shariah explicitly calls for the use of violent techniques designed to instill terror in those who stand in the way of a global Muslim theocracy.

Lethal truck-bombs, pellet-laced explosive vests and backpacks and bombs or hijackers aboard aircraft have already been used for this purpose. It is a matter of time before vastly more destructive weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) become available to jihadists who believe that, pursuant to Shariah, they are fulfilling Allah’s will when they kill “infidels” or otherwise force them to submit to Islam.

Even more insidious, though, is what Robert Spencer calls “Stealth Jihad.” This practice involves using myriad non-violent measures to insinuate Shariah into non-Muslim societies. Adherents demand such concessions as special treatment for them and their faith in public spaces, private corporations, schools, communities and government at every level.

The prime-mover behind these demands is the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that shares the violent jihadists’ commitment to advance Shariah’s end-state of a global caliphate, but seek (for the moment, at least) to do so non-violently. The successful prosecution last year of one Brotherhood front, the Holy Land Foundation, established that the organization’s mission is “to destroy Western civilization from within…by its own miserable hand.” (In the course of the trial, the government also identified virtually every prominent Muslim-American group as Brotherhood affiliates or “friendly” to its purposes.)

What happens as tolerant democratic societies try to accommodate themselves to the stealthy form of jihad, backed by the persistent threat of the violent form – if not its actual occurrence, can be seen in much of Western Europe. For example, France now has 751 zones urbaines sensibles – Muslim-only areas that amount to “no-go” zones for French authorities. In these zones, Shariah rules instead of the laws of the host government, at the expense most notably of women’s rights, due process and public order (especially for Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims).

To be sure, accommodations to date to Shariah have not metastasized in the United States to nearly this extent. There are, however, numerous worrisome examples of concessions that have been made here, too. To cite a few: taxpayer-financed footbaths for Muslims installed at state universities; corporations providing Muslim-only prayer rooms and time off for prayers; government-sanctioned discrimination by taxi drivers against passengers deemed “impure” (haram) because they have alcohol or dogs; unhygenic practices in food plants to accommodate the preferences of Muslim workers; government-offered Shariah-compliant mortgages; Islamic proselytizing in public school curricula; etc.

The failure by U.S. and other governments’ officials to recognize the connection between Shariah and jihad (of either the violent or stealthy kind) is like refusing to acknowledge that there is a common virus causing an outbreak of swine flu. How could the medical community hope to identify appropriate prophylactic measures (for instance: Keep kids in school or shut the schools down? Take antibiotics or not?) if it were not permitted to understand the nature of the virus. There would certainly be little chance of developing effective vaccines under those circumstances.

We face approximately the same problem if we require our law enforcement, intelligence, homeland security and military personnel to behave as though there is no toxic virus – think of it as the “anti-swine flu,” since pork is the ultimate in haram under Shariah – animating those seeking to destroy us, our government and our freedom-loving way of life. At best, we will be able to stop some of the attacks the jihadists are plotting against us. We certainly will not be able to defeat the disease and thereby protect Western civilization from its potential for truly pandemic virulence.

Our natural allies in taking such a stance against Shariah are the many millions of Muslims around the world whose practice of their faith does not involve adherence to this medieval, barbaric and totalitarian program. Indeed, most Muslim immigrants in America came here to get away from Shariah in their native lands. Only by differentiating such Muslims from the carriers of this lethal virus can we hope to inoculate them against the spread of the disease – and enlist their help in protecting the rest of us by keeping American Shariah-free.

STAR-TELEGRAM

September 24, 2009

by Mitch Mitchell

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi

DALLAS — Federal agents arrested a Jordanian Thursday suspected of trying to blow up the 60-story Fountain Place building in downtown Dallas.

Undercover agents with the FBI tricked Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, into thinking that he was detonating a bomb placed in an SUV parked outside the 60-story skyscraper at 1445 Ross Ave., before they arrested him, according to court documents. The explosive device was inert and inactive, the Justice Department said in a news release.

“The identification and apprehension of this defendant, who was acting alone, is a sobering reminder that there are people among us who want to do us grave harm,” U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks said in the news release announcing the arrest.

Undercover agents posing as members of an al Qaeda sleeper cell met with Smadi several times while the terrorist suspect hatched his plot to commit jihad, or holy war, against the “Romans (Christians) and Jews,” an arrest warrant affidavit says.

The affidavit says Smadi made clear his intention to serve as a soldier for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and to conduct violent jihad. But it says he was interested in “self-jihad” because it is “the best type of jihad.”

The investigation by the FBI and members of the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force determined that Smadi was not associated with other terrorist organizations.

The FBI said Smadi was in the United States illegally and lived and worked in Italy, Texas, about 45 minutes south of Dallas.

Federal agents said they discovered Smadi within a group of online terrorists, and added that he stood out because of his willingness to conduct terrorist attacks inside the United States.

“This is not related to any other investigation,” said Mark White, an FBI spokesman. “This is a standalone terrorist. A lone individual who did whatever it is that he did.”

There is an ongoing investigation in New York and Colorado into a possible terrorist strike.

Smadi told undercover officials that he wanted to blow up a credit card center in the United States.

“Millions of people will incur losses,” the arrest warrant affidavit quotes Smadi saying. “Unemployment, poverty, hunger, and a strike to the head of the government. Don’t forget the psychological impacts on the loss of this beautiful building.”

Fountain Place, a 1.2 million-square-foot building, is home to a Wells Fargo Bank branch, Avanti Restaurant, the French bakery café Au Bon Pain, a newsstand, cleaners and other restaurants. A pedestrian tunnel connects the building to the Fairmont Hotel, and a YMCA is across the street.

Smadi is expected to make his first court appearance at 11 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in Dallas before U.S. Magistrate Judge Irma C. Ramirez.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iKuMVqht4U

September 22, 2009

By DEVLIN BARRETT and EILEEN SULLIVAN

DENVER  — Counterterrorism officials have issued security bulletins to police around the nation about terrorists’ desire to attack stadiums, entertainment complexes and hotels — the latest in a flurry of such internal warnings as investigators chase a possible bomb plot in Denver and New York.

In the two bulletins – sent to police departments Monday and obtained by The Associated Press – officials said they know of no specific plots against such sites, but urged law enforcement and private companies to be vigilant. These two bulletins followed on the heels of a similar warning about the vulnerabilities of mass transit systems.

The bulletin on stadiums notes that an al-Qaida training manual specifically lists “blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin… and attacking vital economic centers” as desired targets of the global terror network.

A joint statement from DHS and FBI said while the agencies “have no information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack, we believe it is prudent to raise the security awareness of our local law enforcement partners regarding the targets and tactics of previous terrorist activity.”

Kiichiro Sato, AP

A bulletin issued about possible terrorist plots notes that an al-Qaida manual calls for “blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin.” That, authorities said, would include stadiums, like Chicago’s Soldier Field, seen here on Sunday.

Officials noted the law enforcement bulletins are not intended for the public. Bulletins – particularly about hotels as possible targets – are common, and often don’t make news. However, a half-dozen alerts issued in the last week have received increased attention amid the ongoing investigations in New York and Denver. The first of these, about hydrogen peroxide-based explosives, specifically referred to the investigation in New York.

Separately, law enforcement officials said a Colorado man may have been planning with others to detonate backpack bombs on New York City trains in a terrorism plot similar to past attacks on London’s and Madrid’s mass-transit systems.

The investigation and the earlier warning about mass transit system have already prompted officials around the nation to step up patrols.

Two law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation told The Associated Press late Monday that more than a half-dozen individuals were being scrutinized in the alleged plot.

In a statement, the FBI says that “several individuals in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere” are being investigated.

Investigators say Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghanistan-born immigrant who is a shuttle van driver at the Denver airport, played a direct role in the terror plot that unraveled after an overnight 1,600-mile trip from Denver to New York City around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He made his first court appearance Monday and remains behind bars.

Zazi and two other defendants have not been charged with any terrorism counts, only the relatively minor offense of lying to the government. But the case could grow to include more serious charges as the investigation proceeds.

Backpacks and cell phones were seized last week from apartments in Queens, where Zazi visited.

Zazi has publicly denied being involved in a terror plot, and defense lawyer Arthur Folsom dismissed as “rumor” any notion that his client played a crucial role.

Publicly, law enforcement officials have repeatedly said they are unaware of a specific time or target for any attacks. Privately, officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case said investigators have worried most about the possible use of backpack bombs on New York City trains, similar to attacks carried out in London in 2005 and Madrid in 2004.

Backpack bombs ripped apart four commuter trains and killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11, 2004. On July 7 the next year, bombing attacks in London killed 52 subway and bus commuters.

In a bulletin issued Friday, the FBI and Homeland Security Department warned that improvised explosive devices are the most common tactic to blow up railroads and other mass transit systems overseas. And they noted incidents in which bombs were made with peroxide.

In that bulletin, obtained by The AP, officials recommended that transit systems conduct random sweeps at terminals and stations and that law enforcement make random patrols and board some trains and buses.

Investigators feared Zazi may have been involved in a potential plot involving hydrogen peroxide-based explosives, according to two law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The FBI said they found notes on bomb-making instructions that appear to match Zazi’s handwriting, and discovered his fingerprints on materials – batteries and a scale – that could be used to make explosives. He also made a trip to Pakistan last year in which he received al-Qaida explosives and weapons training, the government said.

Zazi, a legal resident of the U.S. who immigrated in 1999, told the FBI that he must have unintentionally downloaded the notes on bomb-making as part of a religious book and that he deleted the book “after realizing that its contents discussed jihad.”

A strange sequence of events began to unfold nearly two weeks ago when Zazi – already under surveillance by federal agents – rented a car in Colorado and made the 1,600-mile trek across the heartland to New York. He told reporters that he went to New York to resolve an issue with a coffee cart he owned.

He went to his friend’s place in Queens. Once there, his car was towed and authorities confiscated his computer. He was told by an NYPD informant that detectives were asking about him, and decided to cut the trip short and fly back to Colorado, authorities said.

Their surveillance blown and their main suspect flying back to Colorado, officials speeded up the investigation and launched raids on several Queens apartments in a search for explosives, but found none.

Zazi and his 53-year-old father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, were arrested Saturday in Denver. Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, was arrested in New York, where he is an imam at a mosque in Queens. The three are accused of making false statements to the government. If convicted, they face eight years in prison.

Associated Press Writers Ivan Moreno, P. Solomon Banda, and Catherine Tsai in Denver, and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.

DEBKAfile

September 23, 2009,

Up above a big military parade in Tehran on Tuesday, Sept. 22, as Iranian president declared Iran’s armed forces would “chop off the hands” of any power daring to attack his country, two air force jets collided in mid-air. One was Iran’s only airborne warning and control system (AWACS) for coordinating long-distance aerial operations, DEBKAfile‘s military and Iranian sources disclose.

The proud military parade, which included a march-past, a line of Shehab-3 missiles and an air force fly-past, was planned to give Ahmadinejad a dazzling send-off for New York and add steel to his UN Assembly speech Wednesday.

Dubbed “Simorgh” (a flying creature of Iranian fable which performs wonders in mid-flight), the AWACS’ appearance, escorted by fighter jets, was to have been the climax for the Iranian Air force’s fly-past over the parade. Instead, it collided with one of escorting planes, a US-made F-5E, and both crashed to the ground in flames. All seven crewmen were killed.

Eye witnesses reported that the flaming planes landed on the mausoleum burial site of the Islamic revolution’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini, a national shrine. According to Western observers, no distress signals came from either cockpit indicating that the collision and explosions were sudden and fast.

DEBKAfile‘s military sources say the disaster was a serious blow to the Iranian Air Force not long after its first and only AWACS went into service in April 2008. It was a renovated version of the Russian Ilyushin 76, part of Saddam Hussein‘s air force before it was transferred to Iran in 1991 during the first Gulf War.

Tehran hired Russian technicians to carry out renovations and install up-to-date radar. At the launching ceremony of the upgraded AWACS, Air Force commander Brig. Gen. Ahmad Miqani boasted its new radar systems were made in Iran and able to spot any airplane or missile at a distance of 1,000 kilometers from Iran’s borders.

The loss of this airborne control system has left Iran’s air force and air and missile defenses without “electronic eyes” for surveillance of the skies around its borders.

Watch the full-length documentary The Third Jihad online now, free of charge at www.thethirdjihad.com

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DEBKAfile Special Report

September 5, 2009

Iran’s IAEA delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh

Barack Obama has been in the White House for nine months and Binyamin Netanyahu in the Israeli prime minister’s office six months. Both have spent precious time batting the numbers of settlement apartments to and fro instead of taking resolute steps to thwart Iran’s spectacular advances on the road to a nuclear weapon. DEBKAfile‘s military and intelligence sources note that Tehran has made good use of this time for the longest strides towards its objective than at any time since its program was surreptitiously launched.

The progress confirmed by our sources consists of four major steps:

1. Iran has succeeded in secretly combining uranium processing, airborne high-explosive tests and work on designing a missile cone to fit a nuclear warhead, according to Western intelligence updates.

2. The conflicting reports on the amount of uranium enriched and number of fast centrifuge machines in operation obscure the following hard facts: The Iranians have doubled the number of ever faster centrifuges that are working at their enrichment plants.

They are moreover completing tests on a more advanced homemade centrifuge, the IR4, which will halve the time taken for converting low-grade enrichment uranium into weapons-grade material.

3. By February 2010 – and some say sooner – Tehran will have stocked enough high-grade enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs.

4. Iran has also gone into home production of nuclear fuel rods for plutonium.

Barack Obama’ repeatedly held up his plan to engage Tehran in dialogue – first until the June 12 presidential election (hoping a more rational president would replace Mahmoud Ahmedinejad); then, until the popular unrest following the disputed poll died down (for fear of being accused of interfering); and finally on the assumption that the turmoil would divide and weaken the Islamic regime and make it easier to engage constructively.

The six world powers, US, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany accordingly gave Iran until Sept. 15 to start talks.

It turned out that these delays, instead of weakening Iran’s rulers, hardened their position.

Reacting to the new intelligence presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran’s delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Friday, Sept. 4: “The government of the United States has not handed over the original documents to the agency since it does not in fact have any authenticated documents and all it has are forged document”

An anonymous US official in Vienna said Soltanieh’s accusations were baseless and the IAEA itself “had accepted the material as credible.”

But by then, the Iranian delegate had come up with a new self-serving initiative: a proposal for the agency’s board of governors to ban member states from attacking the nuclear facilities of other nations.

Then on Saturday, Sept 5, Soltanieh, made it clear that Tehran was virtually scrapping the Western powers incentives offer which has been gathering dust since last year as the basis for talks and was about to put forward its own “comprehensive package on issues, including nuclear and economic cooperation as well as concerns about the proliferation of atomic weapons.”

The Iranian package will be handed in this week.

What do Washington and Jerusalem propose to do now in the face of Iran’s aggressive nuclear and diplomatic offensives? Will the foot-dragging continue until Iran conducts its first nuclear test?

Four years ago, prime minister Ariel Sharon said Israel must meet US demands on containing West Bank settlement “because we would need the Americans on the Iran issue.”

His successor, Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni held off Israeli action by reiterating it was up to the “international community” to stop Iran’s advance toward a nuclear bomb.

Has anything changed in Washington and Jerusalem?

JERUSALEM POST

August 22, 2009 

by Shmuley Boteach

My friends tell me that I’m the Jewish Forrest Gump, a man who unexpectedly finds himself in strange and surprising situations. But the place I find myself in now surprises even me. I’ve just discovered that Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi is going to be my neighbor. Quite literally. In about a month. In New Jersey.

I knew when I moved into our home ten years ago that the property adjoining ours was the residence of the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations. But for many years the large estate was derelict and neglected. Overgrown with grass and shrubbery, it was difficult to even stroll past it on the sidewalk. I endeavored to walk next door and greet my Muslim brothers who purportedly lived there, but we almost never saw any people. It seemed as if the property had been virtually abandoned. I had also heard from city officials that the property was millions of dollars in arrears in property taxes, with the Libyan government claiming immunity from local taxation, even though the same claim was being made on a property in New York and an exemption is provided for only one residence.

Then about three months ago, the property suddenly sprung to life with a massive construction project featuring a small army of workers laboring at a frenzied pace. I guessed that such a huge investment of millions of dollars into what had been a hovel could only mean one thing: a visit by Gaddafi. He had just appeared at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, was greeted by US President Barack Obama, and there was speculation that he would appear at the opening of the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Then, I awoke one morning to discover that my fence which separates the two properties – as well as many of the trees on the property boundary – had been cut down and removed. I walked next door and complained both to the city officials who were present as well as the Arab contractor in charge that if trees were being removed for security purposes, with the resulting intrusion into the privacy of my residence, I deserved to know. The contractor turned out to be a well-mannered gentleman. We talked some about the Middle East and established a rapport. I was assured that the damage would be fixed, the trees replanted.

Then, an article in Newsweek confirmed that Gaddafi would be travelling to New York to address the UN General Assembly. “The arrival of Gaddafi is already creating problems for New York security officials,” the article said. “He travels with a massive, heated Beduin tent.” The Libyans had applied to have the tent pitched in Central Park but had been turned down and Gaddafi would, in all probability therefore, being pitching his tent at his “New Jersey property.”

So there it was, Gaddafi as my neighbor, the Libyan leader moving into one of America’s premiere modern-orthodox communities, a community with strong political and philanthropic influence. How would he be received?

On the one hand, he deserves considerable credit for dismantling his WMD program, which included apparatus for building nuclear weapons. Whether this was due to a fear of the Bush administration in the wake of the invasion of Iraq or an effort to normalize relations with the West makes little difference to the important outcome.

It was also significant that Gaddafi agreed to pay $2.7 billion in restitution to the families of the savage Pan Am 103 terror attack of December 21, 1988, a day forever etched in my memory since my wife and I left that day to spend many years in Oxford, England. It was also significant that Gaddafi penned an Op-ed in The New York Times in January 2009 suggesting that Israelis and Palestinians move beyond their conflict and look to a unified future. In all these measures, Gaddafi appeared to be an Arab leader making serious overtures to America and the West.

But there is another side. Gaddafi continues to be a autocrat who has ruled his people for four decades. Amid his payment of restitution to the families of the Pan Am 103 attack, The Times of London just reported that Gaddafi was sending his personal Airbus 340 to transfer Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the terrorist who planted the bomb and who was being released due a terminal illness, back to Libya. As far as his Op-ed is concerned, Gaddafi was arguing for a single state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which would effectively mean the end of the Jewish State of Israel.

In light of this extremely mixed legacy, the Obama administration should insist on certain parameters before welcoming Gaddafi to the United States.

AMERICAN THINKER

August 20, 2009
  
By John Griffing
 

But if religious tolerance is good, why is this a problem? Simple-this is not an issue of religious liberty. Islam is not designed to co-exist with western civilization. It is designed to conquer it.

Most would agree that Judeo-Christian values are consistent with Anglo-American tradition. Can the same be said of Islam? Even Muslims don’t think so. The chief Justice of London’s Sharia Court made this chilling statement:

There are presently 85 Sharia courts all across Britain, and, although initial defenders of the transformation claimed that Sharia courts would only exercise authority when consistent with British law, recent developments indicate that Muslims want Sharia pushed still further. Many Muslims advocate a separate police force due to the repeated embarrassment of rampant “honor killings.”

Honor killings represent a new and growing form of homicide in many European countries, whereby Muslim families collaborate to kill fellow family members to restore honor. This practice is not alien to the US. Recently, a US Muslim man beheaded his wife, confessed to authorities, and still received a scheduled award from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Britain is not alone in its Muslim plight. In 2005, France experienced massive Muslim riots in 300 cities. Public buildings were firebombed, 200 policemen were injured, and 4,000 were arrested.[2] This is not unusual as a Muslim response to perceived offenses. Remember the Danish cartoons?

The central problem is assimilation. Most Muslims don’t move to a country with the purpose of becoming real citizens of that country. Muslims don’t want to be British or French. Muslims come for the wealth of the west, and to make the west Muslim. The evidence is transparent to anyone paying attention. The Parisian riots of 2005 were committed by second and third generation children of Muslim immigrants.

The ultimate aspiration of Muslims is total, global dominion within a theocracy known as a “caliphate.” Be they peaceful Muslims or radical Muslims, all share in this goal.

And, incredibly, we cooperate with this reverse assimilation. Somehow we Westerners now feel compelled to assimilate with Muslims instead of expecting the reverse. Paris fashion runways have even begun designing and modeling “Muslim inspired head wraps and…tunics splattered with simulated blood in what some fashionistas dubbed carnage couture.”[3]

The problem of Muslim integration is so sensitive that 751 areas have been willingly ceded to Islamic residents by the French government. Called “no-go zones” by many, these areas are off-limits to non-Muslims who value their lives. The UK is home to an indistinguishable number of “no-go zones,” with violence toward non-Muslims increasing in once peaceful areas.

Dutch Muslims have such a grip on Holland that those who speak out must live in safe houses, like Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. Yet the Dutch Minister of Justice still wants to make full Sharia an option on the next ballot, which would make Holland the first fully Islamic theocracy in the heart of Europe.

Germany could be next. Matthias Rohe, Judge on the Court of Appeals in Nuremburg wants to see full Sharia in Germany, saying, “we are ready to accept these kind of differences and would apply the norms.” Many areas of Germany are now off limits to police and other uniformed personnel, as in France and the UK.

Muslim majorities will soon be a reality. By 2050, one out of every three people in Europe will be age 60 and over. The UN’s Populations Division estimates that by 2050, if current birth rates are held, Europe will shrink by 200 million as a new Muslim majority dawns.

And now, onto this stage strides President Barack Hussein Obama, who advocates the European model for all aspects of American life; for the economy, for healthcare, and now, in our dealings with Muslims. We know where that road leads. It has been travelled by an entire continent now doomed to cultural and economic destruction.

Is this what we want? Do we really want European civilization, cultivated for centuries, to suddenly vanish? Do we really want American culture to disappear?

President Obama travels the world apologizing for America’s very existence. He redefines Islam’s historical goal as one of peaceful coexistence, its moral ethos as one of “tolerance and the dignity of all human beings,” despite the evidence to the contrary. He pledges that the US “never will be-at war with Islam,” blindly ignoring the present strategic situation. He claims that we are the “biggest Muslim country in the world,” despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans say they are Christian.

The US has steadily been bowing to Islamic pressure. Many US banks and investment firms have formally adopted Sharia Finance. Harold Koh, recent Dean of Yale Law School and current Obama Advisor to the Secretary of State, openly talks about the compatibility of Sharia with American legal precedent.

What is our fascination with Islam? Why are we so willing to capitulate to its aims without resistance? Can’t western civilization continue to champion religious liberty without committing suicide?

Radical Islam is inconsistent with American ideals, plain and simple. No two ideologies that embrace concepts so divergent as global domination and freedom can hope to coexist. There can be no compromise.

Europe is among the walking dead; their future is an Islamic one. America, however, still has a choice if we have the courage to make it.

THE NEWS AND OBSERVER

August 5, 2009

BY SARAH OVASKA AND MANDY LOCKE, STAFF WRITERS

Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, at right, smiles as he and sons Dylan, 22, prisoner at left, and Zakariya, 20, at rear, are loaded into a federal marshals’ vehicle at the Wake County jail. They were headed to the federal courthouse.   Staff photo by Chuck Liddy

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Steve Emerson, terrorism expert and founder of The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Here is a link to the letter sent by these Democratic stooges to AG Holder :

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/282.pdf

FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
By: Jamie Glazov

August 04, 2009

There are some Congressional Democratic stooges operating on behalf of Islamist groups. Can you tell us what is going on?

Emerson: We obtained a letter sent on July 24 by seven House Democrats to Attorney General Holder on behalf of 9 radical Islamic front groups relaying the complaints of the groups about law enforcement techniques in terrorist cases, including the use of informants.

The Congressmen acted as virtual lobbyists for these militant groups, asking that the AG stop employing tried and proven counter-terrorist techniques and also echoed information that was blatantly false claiming the FBI was engaged in racial profiling. The Congressmen asked that the AG meet with these groups, which are almost all derivatives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

FP: CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) is one of the groups, yes? Tell us about CAIR.

Emerson: Yes, they included CAIR, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Hamas (Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development) funding trial last year in which an FBI agent labelled CAIR a front group for Hamas and ISNA, another un-indicted co-conspirator in the same case. CAIR has defended suicide bombings and ISNA has featured anti-Semitic speakers and terrorist supporters at its most recent conference a month ago in DC.

Another group represented by the Congressmen included the Muslim American Society (MAS) which is the defacto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US (by its own admission) and whose leaders have openly called for jihad and support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

FP: And we have members of Congress actually working on behalf of these terrorist-related groups? Who are these Congressmen?

Emerson: The letter was signed by California representatives Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Mike Honda and Lois Capps, along with Ohio representatives Mary Jo Kilroy and Dennis Kucinich. Northern Virginia Congressman James Moran joined the group. Moran serves on the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee on defense. Schiff and Honda serve on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Kilroy sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.

These issues have been pushed by radical Islamist groups for months. The letter’s close tracking of the interest groups’ positions indicates that their officials dictated its terms for the members of Congress to sign. In fact, the nine entities all are listed in exactly the same sequence in this release from CAIR. The April 2009 release also cites two of the same issues as in the letter to Holder.

As I wrote in my piece, many of the representatives who signed this letter have a history of supporting CAIR. For example, Kucinich sent a video message praising the organization to the CAIR-Chicago 4^th Annual Banquet on February 23, 2008:

“As the Council on American-Islamic Relations meets I want to pledge to you. I continue to pledge for your efforts to make sure that the powerful message of Islam, a message of peace and reconciliation reverberates. I want to make sure that you know that you have a friend in the United States Congress.”

Sanchez has repeatedly attended annual CAIR banquets in Anaheim. Likewise, Honda spoke at CAIR’s 2006 national banquet in Virginia, where called his hosts “the civil rights group that will speak on behalf of the community.” Capps is included on a page of laudatory statements about CAIR, saying “I applaud CAIR for its important role in advocating for civil liberties, enhancing the understanding of Islam, and condemning acts of terrorism.”

Moran is included on the same page, saying “It is through the activities of groups like CAIR that cooperation—rather than competition—between the various faiths can be achieved.” Honda is quoted saying “CAIR’s commitment to social justice and civil rights for all Americans will help our country to ensure that respect and tolerance exists for people of all religions and ethnicities.”

In their letter, the representatives accept the claims of defendants in two criminal cases unquestioningly, despite sworn testimony to the contrary.

FP: Well we obviously see the unholy alliance at work here, the Left and radical Islam holding hands in solidarity. Can you talk about that alliance a bit and how it is working?

Emerson: This phenomenon is part of the Grand Deception, when radical Islam wittingly and unwittingly convinces the American government and the media that radical Islamists have no other agenda than to play pluralist politics when the real (and demonstrably unconcealed goal) is to infiltrate the American government and media and ultimately take over. The documents released from the Holy Land Foundation trial were shockingly clear: the Muslim Brotherhood in this country secretly aspires to a “civilizational-jihadist process” in which the Islamist groups will infiltrate the institutions of power and American society. No one can argue with hundreds of such documents that were released at the HLF trial. They were shocking and had never been seen before.

Their aim is simple: infiltrate the corridors of power (Congress and the government), the media, Hollywood, the intelligentsia and even law enforcement. Eighteen years after the documents were written, we can see the Muslim Brotherhood game plan has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. Hollywood, for example the likes of Howard Gordon, executive producer of the series “24” has already been conned into legitimizing radical Islamic groups  that espouse anti-Semitism, defend Hezbollah, denigrate the Holocaust, tell their members not to cooperate with the FBI, etc.
The Hollywood-based Writers Guild of America is about to hold a special seminar for CAIR, a front group for Hamas that has defended the killing of Jews and has sponsored as speakers Holocaust deniers. When was the last time the Writer’s Guild held a seminar for the KKK or, for that, matter evangelical Christians? That members of the Writer’s Guild are allowing this to happen is one of the most scandalous indicators of the pact between the left and the Islamic fascists. Where are the voices of the Guild protesting this outrageous seminar? Does the Guild endorse the notion of suicide bombers and also undermining the prosecution of Islamic terrorists? Does the Guild support Hezbollah and Hamas? Does the Guild support raw anti-Semitism? And the Muslim Public Affair Committee (MPAC), a radical group that has supported Hezbollah, claimed Israel was behind 9/11,  and has made derogatory comments about the Holocaust. Now it has established a Hollywood liaison bureau where, believe it or not, studios submit their scripts in advance for approval.
The Left’s Faustian alliance with radical Islamists is a pact with the devil that will ultimately behead the same leaders of the Left. Melissa Etheridge, avowedly gay, played in a concert for an annual conference for the MPAC, a group that believes homosexuality is a sin and that has claimed that Islamic law protects women, when the undeniable truth is that Sharia treats women as cattle and second class citizens, not to mention how it treats Jews and Christians. What does that tell us about the sheer stupidity of Etheridge, willing to sacrifice her own bedrock principles for the sake of collaborating with a group that defends Hezbollah, the group that has killed the second largest number of Americans next to Al Qaeda? And what do you think will happen to gays like Melissa Etheridge when Sharia law is imposed? Why would she lend her support to a group that has made pro-terrorist comments, published anti-Semitic cartoons and supported Hezbollah, as well as condemned her own gay lifestyle as evil?
These are not the only groups and individuals that have signed up to work with radical Islamic organizations. Fairness for Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR, the ultra left wing group that defends Venezuala’s anti-Semitic President Hugo Chavez, works closely with CAIR. FAIR and CAIR share the public relations firm and work so closely that FAIR is considered by many to be an extension of the terrorist front group CAIR.  FAIR is so much in the pocket of CAIR that the IRS should immediately launch an investigation into the financial and other ties between the two groups to determine their abuse of the tax laws governing non profits. I know with 100% certainty that CAIR has violated the tax laws for example.
J Street, the ultra left wing Jewish group, has also secretly worked with CAIR. The ACLU, founded on the notion of the need for separation of church and state, actually collaborates with CAIR—a group whose officials want to impose blasphemy laws in this country–to the point that it has appointed members of CAIR to local ACLU boards around the country. In terms of the media, NPR and PBS have actively colluded with CAIR and other radical Islamic groups to dishonestly portray them simply as “civil rights” or advocacy groups, when in fact these groups have actively championed terrorism. We have emails showing that CAIR actually “owns” reporters at various newspapers, which suggests the degree of penetration by CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood groups into the media is far more extensive and far more frightening than anyone has known to this point.

FP: And the Congressmen who signed the letter?

Emerson: Either they are thinking in terms of votes and donations or they actually believe the fascist propaganda put forth by the groups on whose behalf they signed the letter. But above all else, it demonstrates the frighteningly enormous political strides that radical Islamic groups—those that purposefully undermine the security of this great nation by attacking law enforcement’s prosecution of Islamic terrorists and also support violent jihad and who defend Hamas and Hezbollah—have succeed in getting the support of 7 Congressmen, 6 if you believe that Congressman Schiff actually made a “mistake” as he claims in signing the letter.
Finally and most disturbing is the fact that the seven congressmen actually accepted CAIR’s views of a particular Al Qaeda case in Irvine when in fact the reality is that CAIR actively colluded with the suspected terrorist to obstruct justice. When the alleged terrorist, a member of Al Qaeda, began to suspect he had been recorded by an informant calling for bombings in the US and for praising Osama bin Laden, the terrorist conspired with CAIR’s LA official Hussam Ayloush to deliberately lie and pin the blame for the terrorist rantings on the informant. This was such a blatant obstruction of justice by CAIR that Justice Department officials have considered charging CAIR’s Ayloush with obstruction of justice and lying to federal officials. But the seven Congressmen actually accepted Ayloush’s point of view and endorsed the notion that CAIR dutifully reported the informant as a terrorist suspect in the manner of a good citizen. That they accepted this version shows that the congressmen are in the pocket of CAIR.
All of this means that the secret Muslim Brotherhood plan to infiltrate the US has succeeded beyond the MB’s wildest dreams.

FP: One of the Congressman, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, is actually denying that he ever had a role in this. How can this be possible and what does it tell us about him?

Emerson: Something smells to high heaven here.

An aide to U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) contacted the Investigative Project on Terrorism to report that Schiff’s name and signature appear erroneously on the letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. After reading about the letter in this story, Schiff wrote his own letter to Holder in which he said “I never saw or approved the letter and my signature should not have appeared on the correspondence.”

According to the aide, a staffer from U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s office brought the letter to Schiff’s office and said Schiff approved having his signature added to it. Schiff, the aide said, never agreed to that. The aide said he did not know whether Schiff participated in any earlier discussions about the letter and could not explain why Sanchez’s office had the impression that he was on board.

None of this makes any sense, suggesting that Congressman Schiff got embarrassed when his name was disclosed as one of the signatories and simply sought a way out of it. Our sources tell us that the Congressman actually read the letter and approved signing it personally, something his aides deny.

FP: What does this Schiff affair say about Schiff?

Emerson: Schiff is a Congressmen who has long befriended MPAC, a group whose anti-Semitic cartoons published in their magazine, the Minaret, make the Danish cartoons look like child’s play. Schiff has been befriending radical Islamic groups for years ever since his election. That he suddenly decided to concoct a story claiming that he signed on to the letter by mistake—without explaining how that mistake could have occurred—shows that some  members of Congress are not exactly profiles in courage.
On the other hand, Congressmen like Frank Wolf, Pete Hoekstra and Sue Myrick have shown a backbone that is unparalleled in Congress in courageously tackling the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and radical Islamic groups. So it shows there are brave Congressmen as well. The FBI should be noted for standing tall and courageous in making the decision last year to sever its relations with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas. Yet, various members of Congress—like the seven who signed the letter—have deliberately flouted the FBI intelligence and policies in such an egregious way that these Congressmen are actually endangering the security of the United States.

FP: So what lessons do we draw here?

Emerson: The chief lesson here is that the Islamist plan to infiltrate American society—Congress, law enforcement, the administration (the vast extent of Obama’s willing acceptance of radical Islamic groups and leaders into key positions into his government including CAIR which I have not yet divulged), think tanks, public relations firms, academia, et—has succeeded in ways that are truly endangering our security. Yet, the stealth jihad—which is what this is—has gone unreported by the mainstream media because of factors such as laziness, the “useful idiot” syndrome, and active collaboration between these groups and reporters as well as collaboration with  other influential sectors of society.
In fact, the stealth jihad is in many ways more dangerous than acts of terrorism, which seems the only time that the American public and media wake up. The American public would be absolutely shocked to witness the degree of the radical Islamic deception perpetuated, wittingly and unwittingly, across society including law enforcement, journalism, Hollywood, Congress, think-tanks, the left, and the intelligentsia. I am not talking about an unproven conspiracy. This deception—what I call Militant Islam’s Grand Deception–is the subject of my upcoming documentary and book. It will shock viewers to their core.

FP: What can the average citizen do to counter-act these developments?

Emerson: They have to start bombarding Congress and the Obama administration with protests every day. They need to be protesting the one-sided coverage of these Islamic groups with their local newspapers who have been assiduously involved in a campaign to legitimize these groups and suppress the real evidence about them. Our organization, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, has been collecting intelligence on these groups for more than 15 years. I urge your readers to go to our site and learn about the secret Muslim Brotherhood plan to infiltrate and subvert this country, to find out more about the pro terrorist agenda of these so called “civil rights” groups. And yet, I fear that only when a violent attack occurs will the American public wake up. In his darkest hours before the war that he so courageously predicted, the great Winston Churchill said presciently that “Democracies only act when there is blood in the streets.” I fear he is right.

FP: Steve Emerson, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

NATIONAL REVIEW

by Anne Bayefsky

August 03, 2009

Saudi Arabia has thoroughly rejected appeals by U.S. President Barack Obama that the Arab world make modest gestures to Israel to show it is interested in advancing a regional peace that would include the establishment of a Palestinian Authority state within Israel’s current borders.

“The question is not what the Arab world will offer,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday. “The question really is: What will Israel give in exchange for this comprehensive offer?”

The Saudi rebuff, which also ignored an appeal by more than 200 members of Congress for “gestures” towards Israel, leaves President Obama with little room for maneuvering after his two-month-old demand that Israel freeze all building for Jews in eastern Jerusalem as well as in Judea and Samaria fell on deaf ears in Israel. American media and the Jewish community increasingly have criticized President Obama for going too far in trying to pressure Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and a close ally of the United States.

Prince Saud sidestepped a question from a reporter who asked what Saudi Arabia would do if Israel were to agree to a freeze on building, as the U.S. has demanded. He charged that Israel is “trying to distract attention from the core issue” of creating a new PA state.

“This is not the way to peace,” he said, warning that Israel may face a future of more “instability and violence.”

He reiterated demands for a “comprehensive approach.” which would include full acceptance of the Saudi Arabia 2002 initiative. It calls for Israel to surrender all of the land restored to the Jewish state in the Six-Day War in 1967, including the Old City in Jerusalem and several residential neighborhoods in the capital that are home to approximately 300,000 Jews. The plan also demands that Israel allow the immigration of five million foreign Arabs who claim to have ancestry in Israel.

Israel for the past several years has continually granted concessions to the PA while allowing the U.S. to change its Roadmap peace plan and skip over steps for an interim PA state, pending moves to halt violent and incitement.

Reporters covering the State Department have noted that the U.S. in effect has been a proxy negotiator for the PA over a future state. In an attempt to change the focus from Israel to the PA, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said at the Friday news briefing in Washington that the PA has a “responsibility to promote the peace process and return to negotiation.”

Following recent comments by American officials that indicated a more moderate tone towards Israel, Crowley added, “There’s this perception that we’re leaning in one direction and not others. We’re leaning in all directions.” One reporter drew laughter from colleagues when he responded, “Is that physically possible?”

A great end to a bunch of wonderful people!   And why the whimpy P.C. headline, News Observer?

 C‘mon let’s call it what it is:     ISLAMIC TERRORISM!

 

 

 THE NEWS OBSERVER 

July 27, 2009

 

A Johnston County Sheriff’s Deputy stops and checks cars that want to pass on the road up to a suspected terrorist base on Lakeside Circle, Willow Spring, NC on July 27, 2009. 

RALEIGH – Seven men have been indicted today in the Eastern District of North Carolina’s federal court on terrorism charges.

Indicted were: Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33; Zakariya Boyd, 20; Dylan Boyd, 22; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.

All are charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.

The charges are related to allegations that they helped raise money and provide training for terrorism operations in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Federal officials will not say where the men are being held.

Daniel Boyd is alleged in the indictment to have practiced “military tactics and the use of weapons” on private property in Caswell County, N.C., in over the past two months.

Public records show that the Boyds are residents of Willow Spring in Johnston County.

According to the indictment, Daniel Boyd, Zakariya Boyd, Dylan Boyd, Hassan, and Yaghi are U.S. citizens and residents of North Carolina. Subasic is a naturalized U.S. citizen and North Carolina resident, and Sherifi is a Kosovo native and U.S. legal permanent resident living in North Carolina.

According to U.S. Department of Justice release, all were arrested at various locations this morning by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. The indictment alleges that Daniel Boyd “is a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who, over the past three years, has conspired with others in this country to recruit and help young men travel overseas in order to kill,” said David Kris, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

According to the indictment, Daniel Boyd travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992 where he received “military-style training in terrorist training camps for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,” the justice department release stated.

From approximately November 2006 through July 2009, Daniel Boyd and the others “conspired to provide material support and resources to terrorists,” the release said, including currency, training, transportation and personnel.

The indictment says that Daniel Boyd and several of the accused travelled to Israel in June 2007 to engage in “violent jihad” but subsequently returned to the U.S. having “failed in their attempt.”

In February 2008, the indictment says, Daniel Boyd solicited funds to help pay for the travel of what it called “individuals overseas” to engage in “violent jihad” and in March 2008, discussed with Subasic plans to send two individuals abroad for this purpose.

In July 2008, Sherifi left the U.S. for Kosovo to “engage in violent jihad,” according to the indictment, later returning in April of this year “for the purpose of soliciting funds and personnel to support the mujihaden.”

The indictment also states that Daniel Boyd possessed a variety of weapons as part of the conspiracy to commit murder overseas and provide support to terrorists.

 ASSOCIATED PRESS

Court papers unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn identified the defendant as Bryant Neal Vinas, also known as “Ibrahim.”

His identity had been kept secret since his indictment late last year, and federal prosecutors refused to discuss his background Wednesday.

But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case, said Vinas provided critical information that led to a security alert about the New York City subway system last year.

Federal authorities issued an alert around Thanksgiving last year saying the FBI had received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system around the holidays. The origin of that report, the source said, was Vinas.

Prosecutors charged Vinas in a rocket attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in September 2008. Court papers allege he also gave “expert advice and assistance … on the New York transit system and Long Island Railroad.”

For five months last year, Vinas received “military-style training” from al-Qaida, according to court papers.

Also, a defense attorney in a terrorism case in Belgium said prosecutors there traveled to New York earlier this year to interview Vinas. The lawyer said Vinas had provided a statement against the French and Belgium defendants charged with traveling to Pakistan to volunteer to fight with al-Qaida.

Vinas’ defense attorney didn’t immediately return a telephone message Wednesday.

DEBKA

July 20, 2009

Tehran: Dismantle Israel’s nukes, we have no weapon program

Iran has posted a new package of “proposals” to the West in response to its offer of engagement on Tehran’s nuclear activities. Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said the “comprehensive and updated” package aims to prepare the ground for more “fluid interaction” with the West. “But we cannot speak of a Middle East without nuclear weapons without discussing the more than 200 nuclear warheads of the Zionist regime Israel,” he said. This is “based on an international approach.”

DEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources report that the point of the new package, whose contents have been transferred piecemeal to Washington and some European capitals, is for Tehran to retain the whip hand in any forthcoming negotiations by posting demands but no concessions.

Qashqavi’s words were the corollary to first statement made by the new head of the Iranian nuclear energy commission Ali Akbar Salehi after his appointment Saturday, July 18. He said the time had come to end six years of animosity between Tehran and the West and start building bridges of trust. But he also said: “legal and technical discussions about Iran’s nuclear case have finished and there is no room left to keep this case open.”

Qashqavi’s statement is the Islamic Republic’s typical way of launching a hardball game with the West by a demand to dismantle Israel’s never-confirmed nuclear arsenal without making any promises about Iran’s nuclear program, or even the uranium enrichment activities banned by the UN Security Council. In fact, he persisted in denying that Tehran had any plan to develop nuclear weaponry.

The foreign ministry spokesman also mentioned another price for dialogue with the West: “Iran’s proposed package will suggest solutions to the economic crisis based on the principles of the Islamic economy,” he said.

IPT News

July 20, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/1100/hizb-ut-tahrir-shariah-takes-precedence-over-us

While Hizb ut-Tahrir’s controversial message attracted demonstrators and some media attention, the group at least is open about its ambitions. It not only is determined to destroy capitalism — it would shred the United States Constitution as well in favor of Shariah law.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON – The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials confirmed.

The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier’s dogtag up to the camera. His name and Social Security number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting on a bed.

The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier’s family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.

The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.

He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war (extremely hard), Islam ( wants to learn more it) and the morale of American soldiers (which he said was low.)

Asked how he was doing, the soldier said:

“Well I’m scared, scared I won’t be able to go home,” he said on the video. “It is very unnerving to be a prisoner.”

It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.

On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three (Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. No further details were released.

A U.S. defense official said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was first listed as “duty status whereabouts unknown.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year.

On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the U.S. was “still doing everything we can to return him safely.”

Julian said U.S. troops had distributed two flyers in the area where the soldier disappeared. One of them asked for information on the missing soldier and offered a $25,000 reward for his return. The other said “please return our soldier safely” or “we will hunt you,” according to Julian.

A number of civilians have been abducted in Afghanistan including aid workers and journalists, both foreigners and Afghans.

But the only other service member that officials could recall who had been captured was Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, a 32-year-old Navy SEAL. Roberts fell from a Chinook and was captured and killed by al-Qaida in March 2002. Later, a second helicopter returned under fire and dropped troops near where Roberts fell. Six more Americans died in the fighting.

___

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 18, 2009, 11:18 AM (GMT+02:00)

Kavir Lut: Iranian desert site for coming A-test

DEBKAfile‘s military sources reveal that Iran is in the last stages of construction of a nuclear test site in the Kavir Lut desert between Tehran and its eastern border with Afghanistan. The work is managed by the Iranian experts invited to attend North Korea’s nuclear test this year. (DEBKAfile reported June 27 that Iran has opened the way for a nuclear test.)

Two of the diplomats attached to the UN nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna confirmed to the Associated Press Saturday July 18 that Iran now has the means to test a weapon within six months. One said more specifically: “Iran has the capacity, if not the intention, to set off a test explosion in six months.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the two diplomats emphasized there were no indications of plans for a nuclear test and in their opinion Iran is unlikely to risk heightened confrontation with the West and chances of an Israeli attack with such a course.

For the last six months, DEBKAfile‘s intelligence sources have all stressed that this supposition is wishful thinking having confirmed that Iran is squarely on the fast track for an N-test. Once preparations are complete, its leaders will not hesitate to conduct one, following the North Korean model.

And indeed the two diplomats in Vienna admitted the Iranians were blocking UN nuclear agency attempts to upgrade monitoring resources.

As recently as July 9, DEBKAfile‘s military sources reported: “The US, Europe – and even the Binyamin Netanyahu government – appear to have adopted the same strategy for North Korea and Iran. It is a combination of harsh oral rebukes coupled with a refusal to address North Korea’s violations and Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb in any practical way, even though sanctions are clearly of no effect at all.

A blind eye is equally turned to the close collaboration between Pyongyang and Tehran on their missile and nuclear development programs. The two rogue states are also clearly in tune on their nuclear diplomacy and timetables.

According to DEBKAfile‘s intelligence sources, North Korea shared the results of its latest missile launches with Iran, exactly as it did after its nuclear and ballistic tests. But neither Washington nor Jerusalem has raised a hand. Both nuclear transgressors are getting away with the gross, ongoing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and making a mockery of international law and UN resolutions.”

Therefore, the diplomat’s estimate Saturday that the Iranians will not risk confrontation with the West or chance an Israeli attack is completely unfounded, as are the theories that the Iranian leadership is in too shaky a position at home to go forward with a nuclear test. As soon as the test site is ready, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not be deterred from taking the nuclear plunge by the unrest at home, any more than grave illness has stopped Kim Jong-II flouting international prohibitions.

Still, the US and Europe will not fall out of their chairs because they have given the ayatollahs all the time they needed to attain a nuclear weapon.

July 16. 2009
by Mickey McCarter
 

DHS hopes to correlate language of extremist groups to acts of terrorism

A privacy assessment filed by researchers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has thrown some light on a project to study “radical rhetoric” and how extreme language relates to violent activities in acts of terrorism.

The research effort, formally titled Comparative Case Studies of Radical Rhetoric, aims to examine whether characteristics of rhetoric used by extremists have a relationship with how likely they are to engage in violence.

The Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division (HFD) of the DHS Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) undertook the project to see if it could determine whether analyzing rhetoric could distinguish between groups that do and do not engage in violent attacks or could assist in predicting upcoming violent attacks by specific groups, HFD said in a privacy report made public Wednesday.

The HFD division is providing funding to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to carry out the work to correlate radical rhetoric with acts of violence. Researchers on the project use open source intelligence sources to examine the speeches, statements, and papers of four foreign extremist groups: al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Hizb ut-Tahir, and the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia.

“Central” al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, engage in terrorism against nations and institutions they oppose, the report noted. Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia follow the same ideology and goals but do not engage in terrorism, researchers said.

So the HFD division has broken the four groups into two control groups to examine their rhetorical differences and then to see if any conclusions can be drawn from the differences. By comparing the al Qaeda groups to the other two groups, researchers expressed hope they could determine who would engage in violent acts based on what they have to say.

Researchers plan to search the Open Source Center, provided by the US director of National Intelligence, and Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Web sites for documents. From the Open Source Center, researchers will pull documents that reference al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. From Hizb ut-Tahrir, researchers will use documents issued only by its central office in Jordan to focus their study on the leadership of the groups, the report said.

The rhetorical analysis undertaken in the study will examine the imagery, tone and context of rhetoric as well as the literal meaning of the words, researchers said.

The HFD division and Oak Ridge National Laboratory also plan to assemble a timeline of violent activities of al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula through use of other open source intelligence sources, such as the State Department’s Country Reports on Global Terrorism, reports developed by the Congressional Research Service, academic databases, newspaper reports, and others.

The privacy impact assessment filed by the S&T Directorate was a routine filing meant to determine if information will be shared and, if so, how it will be protected. The S&T Directorate noted there were no privacy concerns related to the foreign extremists.

DEBKA

July 13, 2009

Iran is slowing down the manufacture of the Shehab-3 surface missile in favor of mass production of the more accurate two-stage 2,000-kilometer range Sejil II ballistic missile powered with solid fuel, DEBKAfile‘s military and Iranian sources report.

More than 1,000 new Sejil IIs are projected to come off production lines in five years, at the rate of 200 a year.

Western sources say the Iranians are over-ambitious and can deliver no more than 10-15 missiles a year at present, although with a huge multi-billion dollar investment they might raise output to 30.

Liquid-fuel missiles like the Shehab take hours to prepare for firing, during which time they are exposed to oversight by US and Israel spy satellites, whereas the Sejil because it is powered by solid fuel has the huge advantage of stealth. It can only be detected by military satellites and early warning radar systems like the American FBX-T posted in the Israeli Negev after it is airborne and winging towards target.

Iran has also recruited Chinese missile experts to assist in the production of mobile launchers for the Sejil II. The combination of the solid-fuel Sejil mounted on mobile vehicles will give an Iranian missile attack the advantage of surprise, because of the difficulty of tracking and targeting them from space or the air.

DEBKAfile‘s military sources add that Iran is going all out to fill its arsenal with Sejil II missiles for outwitting Israel’s Arrow interceptors if and when they attack Israel. Western missile experts calculate that if Iran lets loose against Israel a simultaneous barrage of dozens of Shehab-3 and a handful of Sejil II, the Arrow will only intercept some of them; the rest will reach their targets.

Iran’s arms industry is driving forward at top speed to attain this capability. Israel has entered the arms race by stepping up production of the Arrow anti-missile systems.

At some point, Israel strategists had hoped the surge of unrest in Tehran sparked by the disputed June 12 presidential election would result in the regime pulling funds out of nuclear and missile industries and investing in projects for improving the lives of the disaffected populace. But the challenge to its authority has had the opposite effect. The Islamic rulers have opted for speeding up weapons production and maximizing their tools of war rather than home benefits.

By Alastair Crooke

July 12, 2009

Writing From Beirut — The troubles that have followed the Iranian presidential elections have been generally misread by the Western media and policymakers. What we are witnessing is not a frustrated East European-style “color revolution”; nor is presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s movement an uprising of liberal, Westernized sympathizers against the principles of the Iranian Revolution — although there are surely some who are hostile to the revolution among his supporters.

Rather, what we have been seeing is a power struggle — between factions of the “Old Guard” clergy who all initially assumed power in 1979 — that erupted into public view in the recent presidential election campaign. As that dispute is settled over the coming months, we can expect big changes in the top ranks of the power elite. But the revolution is not about to implode.

The essential dispute centers around prominent clerics — mainly former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — who have sought to weaken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ability to pursue his populist attack on their privileged position. These clerics also have sought to diminish the political weight of the Revolutionary Guard, which they see as increasingly at odds with their interests.

This faction of the elite is deeply threatened by Ahmadinejad’s assault on their personal wealth, and by his claims that it was these senior clerics’ pursuit of their own narrow self-interest, at the expense of ordinary people, that is the root cause of Iran’s economic woes.

It was this group of powerful clerics that stood behind the Mousavi challenge to Ahmadinejad. It was Khatami who was designated by this faction to propose to Mousavi that he stand for election; it was Khatami who initially offered the opposition leader the umbrella of their powerful political standing at the center of Iran’s elite.

Thanks in no small part to this blessing, Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, could credibly campaign on the platform of their revolutionary credentials: They were “children of the revolution”; they both participated in it, were shaped by it; and they remained disciples of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Their quarrel, they made clear, was with Ahmadinejad and his conduct of government.

Mousavi’s casting of his mission as one of restoring the revolution to its original ideals was not only an internal message; it was also replayed widely in the Arab media. But the West seemed to be hearing and hoping for something else: that he was challenging the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and would seek to flout the institutions of the revolution. In other words, that he was seeking to ignite a “color revolution” — such as Ukraine’s Orange Revolution — to change the system.

The extent to which Mousavi intended to send this signal and benefit by leveraging Western support is unclear. But that perception has opened Mousavi and his prominent backers to the risk of severe repercussions internally in the wake of the postelection turmoil.

Indeed, it is on the basis of such allegations that Hossein Shariatmadari, the influential editor of the conservative Kayhan newspaper, has called for both Mousavi and Khatami to face trial for “frightful crimes and overt acts of treason.”

Paradoxically, the Western understanding that Ahmadinejad is a tool of the clerical leadership who stands with the repressive Revolutionary Guard and Basij (the popular militia) against reform could not be more wrong. It was Ahmadinejad who campaigned against the wealth and self-interest of some of the clerical elite. Mousavi was more closely allied to those interests.

The West should also understand that there are clerics in both Qom and Tehran, some of whom despise Ahmadinejad, who nonetheless share his view that some senior clerics have failed to actualize the spirit of the revolution in their lifestyles. The Revolutionary Guard too is probably much more radical in wanting genuine reform than is generally understood.

What we are dealing with is a complex struggle over the future course of the revolution. It is a struggle for the future vision of Iran that is overlaid by deep personality differences that in turn arouse deep passions.

For now, it is clear that a powerful determination has emerged in the wake of the election to exorcise the Rafsanjani-Khatami circles from the establishment, fueled by a growing popular anger as the evidence of their external links to the West is being carefully examined. Rafsanjani, who is well aware of the dangers of becoming isolated and excluded from the circles of power, is now walking a tightrope.

On July 4, he was quoted as saying that the election crisis reflected a power struggle at the “highest levels of the system.” In a carefully worded statement, he warned that any “awakened consciousness” could not be ignored, but he also spoke of the need to safeguard revolutionary institutions. Though one step removed, his Kargozaran party has gone further, calling the election results “unacceptable” as a result of “massive election fraud.”

The impact of these recent events on Iranian foreign policy is likely to be the opposite of what Western commentators have foreseen. It is not likely that the Revolutionary Guard, which is under the control of Khamenei, will be paralyzed, but rather the reverse.

In many respects, the regional situation works to Iran’s advantage: Iraq remains at a crucial juncture; Afghanistan and Pakistan seem to be on the slide; Turkey has distanced itself from the European stance on the elections; and China has never before expressed such staunch solidarity with the Iranian regime. Neither Syria nor Hezbollah nor Hamas are poised to disengage with Iran. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem questioned the legitimacy of the street protests in Tehran and warned: “Anyone betting on the fall of the Iranian regime will be a loser. The Islamic Revolution is a reality, deeply rooted in Iran, and the international community must live with that.”

As for Iran’s relations with the West, Ahmadinejad left hardly anything to interpretation when he stated at the end of June: “Without doubt, Iran’s new government will have a more decisive and firmer approach toward the West. This time, the Iranian nation’s reply will be harsh and more decisive.”

Similarly, Khamenei has made it clear that Iran will not easily forget the disparagement and condescension displayed toward the Islamic Republic in recent weeks. From the perspective of many in Iran, a “red line” was crossed as Western leaders seemed to be trying to fan the dissent of Mousavi’s supporters into an instrument to delegitimize the revolution and execute “soft regime change.”

Despite such hopes in the West, however, an end to the revolution is not in sight. More likely is a counter-reaction that will lead to the isolation of Mousavi and his associates as popular forces allied with Ahmadinejad seek to inject new stimulus into the revolution by cleansing it of the corrupted elements of its Old Guard.

——–

Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence agent, was advisor to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Middle East issues from 1997 to 2003. He also advised the Mitchell commission looking into the causes of the Palestinian intifada and has been involved in negotiating with Hamas and other Islamist movements. He heads the Conflicts Forum in Beirut.

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 11, 2009

Twenty-five Egyptians and one Palestinian suspects detained in Egypt have confessed to planning attacks on Suez Canal shipping and oil pipelines on behalf of al Qaeda. Tuesday, July 7, DEBKAfile‘s counter-terror sources disclosed that a large group of 15-20 al Qaeda terrorists, trained in Pakistan and Algeria to hijack and blow up airliners, deployed secretly in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey and Egypt for multiple attacks in the week of the G8 summit in l’Aqila or thereabouts.

For this article, click HERE.

Our military sources report that this week an Israeli nuclear-capable Dolphin submarine escorted by a missile vessel transited the Suez Canal on the way back to its Mediterranean base from a Red Sea drill that took place off Eilat last month. Marine transport insurance sources remarked that if al Qaeda terrorists had succeeded in its purpose of sinking ships and blocking the canal, through which one-tenth of global seaborne traffic passes, oil prices, insurance fees and cargo rates would have hit the roof.

The leader of the al Qaeda cell was an Egyptian, Mohammed Fahim Hussein. The Egyptian interior ministry reported Friday, July 10, that the equipment seized in their homes showed they were able to make their own remote-controlled bombs.

What you will see on this video is a glimpse of what is in store for America from the forces of militant, radical Islam.

Please take the time to watch this video. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Please contact bloggers and internet sites and ask them to link to this video. If you have dial-up internet, find a friend who has high-speed internet and watch this video.

Click here to view the video.

Watch this video carefully.

And after you do, if you’re wondering what you can do to help prevent radical Islam and its supremacist ideology from imposing itself on America, as it is doing in this video, log on to www.actforamerica.org.

Make a contribution.

Start a chapter.

Ask a friend to sign up for our email alerts, like this one.

But please, do something. Take action. Because what you’ll see on this video – and much, much worse – is commonplace in Europe and Great Britain. And now it’s here. And as the title of Brigitte Gabriel’s book exclaims, “They Must Be Stopped.”

 Click here to view the video.

HUMANEVENTS.COM

July 7, 2009

by Chuck Norris

As I gazed onto a parade route sprinkled with red, white and blue everything on July Fourth, I thought about what patriots past and present have sacrificed for our freedom. I also thought about the people in Iran fighting for “azadi,” the Persian word for “freedom.”

The White House has offered what amounts to diplomatic dribble in response to their plight for liberty. I’m not saying our president should send a militia to muscle the mullahs, but shouldn’t he at least show stronger solidarity for the protesters? Isn’t it time his actions superseded his rhetoric? Negotiating with extremists has never worked. Trying to reform them only morphs them into different monsters.

Is it just I, or are others experiencing a Carter deja vu?

Former President Jimmy Carter didn’t do enough to support an Iranian popular revolt. His foreign policy was ridiculously idealistic. Carter believed that he could negotiate his way out of anything. He tried to pacify every party. Carter believed international thugs and terrorists could be swayed from extremism by our simply presenting them what he thought was a better way.

Carter is a major reason that we are in our Middle Eastern dilemma with Iran today because, while allegedly fighting for human rights, he set the stage for the rise of two of the worst human rights violators in history — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and ultimately his modern successor, the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As many recall, during the early 1970s, democratic-flavored reforms flourished in Iran because of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from economic and educational reforms to increased rights for women, religious minorities, etc. And the Nixon and Ford administrations applauded and rewarded these reforms.

With Carter’s induction as president and push for human rights in international affairs, the Shah of Iran’s popularity declined because of accusations that he tortured thousands of prisoners. Carter demanded the shah release political prisoners, break up military trials, and permit free assemblies, among other requests — all of which only fostered political and social unrest.

Carter’s push for social reform in the name of human rights prompted the further uprising of extremists and anti-government rallies. And by the fall of 1977, anti-shah Shiite clergy and university students were conducting well-organized resistances. Carter’s connection to and influence over the shah prompted this pro-Western leader’s backlash in Iran and around the world. Even while visiting the White House in November 1977, the shah and his empress were met by thousands of protesters.

Instead of bringing further social reform to Iran, Carter fed the fire for a political revolution and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, who was then a 78-year-old theological scholar and cleric who provided leadership to Shiites. Having spent more than 14 years in exile in Iraq, in 1978 he was kicked out of the country by none other than Saddam Hussein (a tension that would lead to the eight-year war between the countries, from 1980 to 1988).

Khomeini, however, would not return to Iran until the shah was disposed. And so, on Jan. 16, 1979, the shah left Iran on an “extended holiday,” not to return. Two weeks later, Khomeini stepped back onto Iranian soil, with 6 million welcoming him and the full fanfare of even Western media.

In power, Khomeini reversed many of the shah’s reforms and ushered in an era of Islamic extremism that would serve as a model and catalyst for future terrorist groups. Nine months after Khomeini came back to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was taken over by extremists, and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. (It is reported that among the extremists was none other than 23-year-old Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, though he personally denied it to Time magazine and others. Whatever the exact nature of his involvement, he eventually would become a Khomeini successor and the president of Iran — he who denies the Holocaust, wants to wipe Israel off the map, and is in the process of building a nuclear arsenal.)

And who’s to thank for Ahmadinejad’s rise to power? Among the primary contributors is Jimmy Carter’s “fight for human rights” with the shah and Iran.

Carter carried on a political policy that ultimately enabled dictatorial rule and disabled democratic resistance, and it appears our current president is, as well. When will we learn that soft talk and small sticks get you beat up on the playground of world affairs? That is why even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently advised President Barack Obama to crank up his lukewarm lingo.

The recent civil unrest in Iran is a clear indicator that the people there are not happy with the present regime and their rule and oppression by severe Shariah law. I think what Iranians need is a new government in Tehran — and not just Mir Hossein Mousavi versus Ahmadinejad. They need a regime change and an overthrow of the 1979 Islamic revolution. They need a truly representative form of government. But that is not what our president is going to fight for.

But then, what is he fighting for? One thing is for sure: We all will reap what he sows.

 
IslamReview.com

By Pastor Jim Croft

Post the 9/11/01 Islamic terrorist attacks on America the major television
networks began filling the airwaves with interviews with consultants that
specialize in Islamic issues.  The majority of them have been less than
candid about the role of Islam in spawning international terrorism.  They
present the traditions and Holy books of Islam as those that promote peace,
tolerance, and truth.  The experts neglect to inform you of the overriding
aspects of Muslim traditions and writings that encourage hostility,
intolerance, and lying as a policy, particularly to non-Muslims.  In
reality, if the teachings of Mohammed and Muslim clerics were extracted from
the hearts and minds of the 19 hijackers of 9/11, 3,000 Americans would
still be living members of their families.  The points related in this
report have been gleaned from years of investigating Islam and
correspondence with Arabic-speaking ex-Muslims that have chosen to put their
faith in Jesus Christ.

7 Things the Islamic experts won’t tell you!

1.  About Islam’s worldview – The Muslims of Islamic states, and many within
the USA, have the tradition of a worldview that divides humanity into two
opposing halves.  Dar al-Islam, House of Islam, is the zone where Islam
rules.  The other side is the war zone that is called, Dar el Harb, House of
War.  This worldview dictates that war will continue between these two
sections of humanity until the supremacy of Islam is fully established
throughout the earth.

2.  About deceptive revisions of the Koran – There has been a great effort
among Muslim translators to enhance Islam’s appeal and reputation among
people of other faiths.  To accomplish this they have adopted a slanted,
freestyle method of translating certain sections of the Koran.  This is done
to veil the truth about their religion’s primitive barbarism and contempt
for Christians and Jews that is revealed in the original Arabic texts.  Here
is an example from the new French translation of the Koran in regard to the
Jews.  It reads, “The people of Israel will be twice destroyed as an
innocent victim, and God will reward them by elevating them to great
heights.”  The original translation reads just the opposite.  “The people of
Israel, after sowing corruption twice on earth for the purpose of dominating
other people, will push themselves up into a position of extreme power
before being punished by God.”

3.  About the Koran’s violent verses – The Koran was written in two major
stages.  These have been integrated and arranged by chapter length as
opposed to the chronological order in which they were initially written.
The first part was penned in the early years of the Islamic movement while
Mohammed was living in Mecca, Arabia.  The experts boast the verses from
these chapters as proof that Islam is a bastion of peace, love, and
tolerance.  They avoid references to verses from the second and largest
portion of the Koran.  It was written after the movement relocated its
headquarters to Medina, Arabia, and increased in strength.  These verses
often reflect religious intolerance and encourage cruel hostility towards
non-Muslims.  Here are two examples that were aimed at Jews, Christians, and
Arabs that clung to traditional tribal polytheistic beliefs.  – So when the
sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters, wherever you find them, and
take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every
ambush….  (Koran 9:5)  The only punishment of those that wage war against
Allah and His Messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is that they
should be murdered, or crucified, or their hands and their feet should be
cut-off on opposite sides, or they should be imprisoned….  (Koran 5:33)

4.  About the stage of weakness/the stage of strength strategy – The stark
differences in the tone of the verses that were written in Mecca and those
written in Medina exposes a tactic that has been characteristic of Islam
throughout its history.  Traditionally, Muslims determine the strength of
the religion in various settings as being in one of two states; the stage of
weakness and the stage of strength.  When Muslims are in the minority and
perceive that they are vulnerable, it is their custom to agree to most
anything and to be conciliatory towards other religious groups.  The moment
that they sense superiority in numbers and influence, a form of ruthlessness
sets in.  They begin to oppress minority religious groups and to demonstrate
a blatant disregard for the agreements that they made during the stage of
weakness.

5.  About sanctioned lying – Unlike Christianity and Judaism, Islam does not
simply make a provision for forgiveness if one tells a lie; it actually
encourages lying in certain situations.  This is evident in both the Koran
and the Hadith.  The latter is a collection of Mohammed’s sayings and deeds
according to his wives, relatives, and companions.  Next to the Koran, it is
the most important part of Islamic law.  In the Hadith, Mohammed was quoted
as saying, “The sons of Adam are accountable for all lies with the exception
of those spoken to reconcile two men that are quarreling, for a man to
appease his wife, and in war, because war necessitates deception.”  This is
what often makes life such a nightmare for non-Muslim women that marry
Muslim men.  Without the pangs of conscience, men are licensed to appease
their wives with promises which they have no intention of keeping.  In
addition, within Islam there is the principle of “Al Takeyya.”  The term
means, “prevention”.  This principle permits Muslims to lie at their
discretion whenever they interpret that it is expedient for the influence of
Islam or their personal protection and well-being.  They justify lying by
using the following verse as a springboard for expanded applications of Al
Takeyya.  “Let not the believers take the disbelievers for friends rather
than believers.  And whoever does this has no connection with Allah unless
it is done to guard (Takeyya) yourselves against them, guarding carefully.
And Allah cautions you against His retribution.  And to Allah is the
eventual coming.”  (Koran 3:27)  The principle of Al Takeyya is precisely
what makes negotiations with Islamic statesmen such a frustrating endeavor
for the naïve diplomats of Christianized nations.  It is imperative that
diplomatic envoys learn that when dealing with Muslims, what Muslim
statesmen say is not the issue.  The real issue is, what do they mean and
actually intend to do in their hearts.

6.  About the depth of hatred for the West – The pro-Islam experts endlessly
reiterate that only a small number of Muslims would qualify as
West-hating-radicals.  The claim is that the majority are peace-loving
moderates.  This may be true of the majority of Muslims that have immigrated
to America in pursuit of economic opportunity.  For most of these, strict
compliance with the dictates of clerics in relation to the teachings of
Islam is secondary to their thirst for prosperity and political freedom.
However, their sentiments are not indicative of the majority of the world’s
1.2 billion Muslims.  The facts are as follows:

a.  Polls indicate that high percentages of our supposed allies in Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia support Osama Bin Laden.

b.  Post 9/11, his first name, Osama, has attained a favored name status for
newborn male children in a dozen or more Muslim nations.  (In some nations 7
out of 10 baby boys are the namesakes of the terrorist).

c.  Numerous Mosques in Islamic states exhibit the photo of Bin Laden as a
hero of the faith.

d.  The abbreviated list of nations wherein Muslims mob the streets
gleefully chanting “Allah Akbar” (Allah is greater) every time America or
Israel suffers from Islamic terrorist activities includes Israel,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq,
Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines.  In America, Muslims have been
observed doing the same in many convenience marts and mosques.  (It may be
true that Christianity has a miniscule number of violent radicals; however,
you don’t find pictures of IRA terrorists hanging in the vestibules of
Christian sanctuaries around the globe or hordes of America’s Catholics
streaming to the aid of their oppressed brethren in Northern Ireland.)  The
experts can claim that most of the world’s Muslims are peace-loving
moderates, but the stats reveal that it is the radicals that have the power
to influence the hearts and minds of the Muslim masses.

7.  About envy of the West – There are two interrelated spiritual factors
for the radical Muslim’s hatred for our way of life.

a. Islamic clerics and political leaders espouse inflammatory anti-Semitic
and anti-Christian rhetoric based on the writings and sayings of Mohammed.

b. The prosperity and technology of nations that are based on
Judeo-Christian values embarrasses the Islamic claim of spiritual/cultural
superiority and provokes them to virulent jealousy.  The premise for Islam’s
exaggerated sense of spiritual/cultural superiority is built on the widely
held Muslim view that they led the world in advances in math, literature and
the sciences from 700AD until 1200AD.  Many scholars contend that the
advances were actually a continuum of the momentum that had been attained,
prior to the arrival of the Muslims, by the Persians, Jews, and Christians.
A comparison of Islamic nations and other nations gives ample evidence that
Islam stifles rather than inspires innovations.  No other nations, other
than under Muslim rule, that have claimed a history of being fountainheads
of cultural advances have ceased to continue as such.  Two atomic bombs have
not stopped the Japanese.  Politically torn South Korea, without oil, has a
gross national product of $600 billion.  Oil rich Saudi Arabia’s GNP is a
mere $186 billion.  Each year since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded
to people that have been distinguished for notable endeavors for world peace
and in literature, and for outstanding accomplishments in the sciences.
During the history of the Nobel there have been 139 Jewish recipients and
well over 200 Christians, but only 6 recipients from Islamic nations.  There
is nothing lacking in the mental capacities of Muslim people, because they
flourish in technology and the sciences when living in Westernized
democracies.  The objective evidence is that it is the rule of Islam that is
the culprit that smothers creativity.

5 Things that you can do to protect your family and community!

1.  Educate your kids – It is unbecoming for Christians to relate to anyone,
including Muslims, with uncharitable haughtiness.  Nonetheless, it is
essential that parents educate their children about the dangers of embracing
Islam as the path of expression for their personal faith.  The points that
have been made in this report can be modified and gently shared with your
youngsters.  In reality, becoming a Muslim holds sure perils that eclipse
the remote potential of being harmed by Islamic terrorists.  This is
particularly true of your daughters.  Islamic law puts women in a position
that excludes them from many of the liberties that Western parents expect
their children to enjoy as adults.  My book, The Muslim Masquerade, and
Abdullah Al-Araby’s, Islam Unveiled, disclose many of the human rights
violations that Islam routinely permits Muslim men to perpetrate against
women.  Many young women from Christian backgrounds have fallen prey to the
intriguing appeal of Islamic men.  Countless numbers of these hapless women
have reaped tragic lives of heartache.  Don’t let it happen to your child.
God honors the prayers of parents that begin to regularly pray for the
future spouses of their children while they are still in diapers.

2.  Pray that our national, state, and local police investigative agencies
will uncover the plots of the multitudes of terror cell members and their
supporters that are living amongst us.  In faith, rather than fear,
intermittently ask the Lord to protect your children, family, and friends
from potential harm by homicide bombers.

3.  Pray that our nation’s Immigration and Naturalization Service will have
the wisdom to limit the number of visas granted to persons under the age of
50 from Islamic backgrounds.  Ask the Lord to help the authorities locate
those that have false documents and expired visas.

4.  Become a profiler – The liberal establishment insists that our nation’s
constitutional amendments limit the extent to which ethnic and religious
profiling can be utilized.  Regardless of the politically correct
limitations, as an American citizen, you are free to choose not to be
politically correct.  You can assist in the needed profiling.  When
profiling do not hone in on people simply because they have Middle Eastern
physical features.  Potential Islamic terrorists cover the entire spectrum
of the nationalities of those that adhere to Christianity.  It is erroneous
to suspect that everyone with Arab physical features is a potential
terrorist.  Not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs.  Less
than 25% of the followers of Islam are of Arabic heritage.  In America, 80%
of the resident Arabs are actually Christian in their religious affiliation.
The identification of potential terrorists should never be based solely on
racial features.  When it is, a Thai Buddhist can easily be mistaken for an
Islamic Indonesian.  A group of Nigerian Muslims could easily pass as
African Baptists.  Armenian Christians may look very similar to Afghani
Muslims.  The key is to be observant of everyone’s demeanor.  Keep a
watchful eye on fellow travelers when using public transportation.
Nervousness, exaggerated clock-watching, over concern with carry-on luggage,
and rude avoidance of customary cordialness can all be indicators.  If
anyone or anything looks suspicious, regardless of the nationality of those
involved, report it to the authorities.  Subsequent to terrorist attacks
monitor the responses of people in venues where terrorism supporters might
be expected to congregate: mosques, convenience marts, university campuses,
etc.; if anyone acts hostile or overly jubilant, report it to the FBI.

5.  Educate others – Put legs on your prayers by sending this report to your
friends, clergymen, and any civic representatives that are responsible for
the safety of the nation and our communities.

———

Jim Croft’s book, The Muslim Masquerade, and his teaching newsletter, In
Search of Truth, may be obtained by contacting him via e-mail:

jcroft8942@adelphia.net
www.pccchurch.org/jc_ministries.htm
www.pccchurch.org/gccchurch.htm
Source: http://www.islamreview.com/articles/islamicterrorism.shtml

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 7, 2009

Western anti-terror agencies have warned that a large group of 15-20 al Qaeda terrorists, trained in Pakistan and Algeria to hijack and blow up airliners, deployed secretly in at least six European and Middle East countries in early July. They are standing ready to carry out multiple terrorist attacks.

The terrorists are believed to have landed in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey and Egypt.

The dates to watch, local authorities were warned, were July 4, July 7, the fourth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks on the British transport system in which 52 people died, and July 8-9, when the G8 summit meets in the Italian town of L’Aqila. US president Barack Obama will fly in from talks with Russian leaders in Moscow.

Al Qaeda planners, say the Western sources, know it is extremely hard to break through the massive security cordons protecting summit leaders. They are therefore planning to hijack passenger planes of airlines belonging to the targeted states and blow them up in mid-air.

DEBKAfile‘s counter-terror sources report the first specific red alert on Saturday, July 4, referred to the possible hijack of Turkish Airways planes taking of from Turkish airports for US destinations or Tel Aviv. Special precautionary measures were put in place at both ends of their routes.

The alert is still in force.

FrontPageMagazine.com

July 6, 2009

 Reviewed by David Forsmark

No matter how much you may have researched, discussed, or even protested the ways in which Sharia Law oppresses women forced to live under its dictates– and even if you have read every word written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Nonie Darwish— the masterful new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., is invaluable viewing.

Like The Passion of the Christ, (which a number of the Stoning film makers were also involved with) The Stoning of Soraya M. comes harrowingly close to adding experience to something which can be too often relegated to the intellectual.

In his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama proved he needs to take the time to watch this film.  While he might admire empathy as a quality for Supreme Court justices, he expressed it in all the wrong places while discussing the role of women in the Muslim world.

Rather than point out that the majority of American military conflicts in the past two decades have protected Muslims from invasion and even genocide– and brought expanded rights to tens of millions of Muslim women– Obama bafflingly grabbed this obscure ACLU talking point to illustrate our goodwill:

“The U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.  I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal,…”

To pretend the wearing of the hijab is largely a choice for women that must be defended against Western cultural imperialism goes far beyond the usual crock of diplo-speak.  The hijab is merely the outward manifestation of the seamless garment, if you will, of Sharia Law’s enslavement of women, which ultimately results in brutal acts such as the title atrocity of The Stoning of Soraya M.

Obama did have one criticism for the Sharia system, one which (coincidentally, of course) happens to cut close to home for one of his most loyal union constituencies– “but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.  And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.”

A major problem, to be sure.  But what about the right of a woman to marry—or not—whom she pleases, to speak and associate with whom she pleases, to make a living, and yes, to dress as she pleases, including not to wear a hijab?  How about the right of a woman not to be beaten for neglecting to cater to every whim of a man—and sometimes even when she does?

And ultimately, as this movie so memorably illustrates, to be allowed to at least defend herself in court when her own life is at stake; and not to be killed when she becomes inconvenient to her family or husband?

While many will understandably focus on the climactic act of brutality in The Stoning of Soraya M., the film’s plot, as it unfolds, subtly provides a detailed look at Sharia’s systematic subjugation of women in every aspect of life– from her place in the home to her place in the public square.

With all the vital issues raised by the film, it seems almost crass to discuss its artistic or commercial merits, as one would Star Trek, or Up.  But it is nonetheless important.  As the deserved tanking of films like Lions for Lambs and Redacted proves, Americans don’t buy tickets for crude propaganda; and as important as murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s Submission may have been, (mainly by bringing world attention to Ayaan Hirsi Ali) the film itself is basically unwatchable.

It might seem shallow to rate Stoning as a piece of “entertainment,” but it must be said that this is a compelling and gripping piece of storytelling that compares favorably to William Wellman’s 1943 anti-lynching classic, The Ox-Bow Incident.  Audiences seem to agree.  The Stoning of Soraya M. took the Audience Prize at the recent Los Angeles film festival—and not because of any media hype that made it the Thing To Do.

Stoning is based on the 1994 book by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, who accidentally uncovered the story while stranded by car trouble in a remote Iranian village in the mid-1980s.

Sahebjam, (played by James Caveziel) is approached by Zahra an older, well-off widow who seems to have some stature in the town that protects her from harm.  Zahra is powerfully played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who was an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress in House of Sand and Fog, and memorably played a conflicted jihadist mother in Season 4 of 24.

Zahra is determined to tell the world the story of her niece, Soraya, who was falsely accused of adultery by her corrupt husband, Ali, the town jailer who was trading mercy to a condemned prisoner in exchange for taking the man’s 14-year-old daughter as his next wife.  While Sharia Law allows a man four wives, Ali cannot afford two, and Soraya refuses to give him a divorce as he plans to leaver her and their daughters destitute, taking only their boys with him.

Ali manipulates the corrupt town Mullah, the weak-willed mayor, and intimidates a crucial “witness,” into supporting his plot to legally murder his wife with the consent and participation of the town—and even Soraya’s family.

As encouraging as it may be to see young Iranians marching in the street, they have a lot more to overcome than just the rulers at the top of their culture.  The Stoning of Soraya M. reveals the insidious nature of Sharia Law by showing the way everyone is forced or drawn to participate in Soraya’s murder, from officials to her own sons.  It takes a village to stone Shorayah.

And that is not the only gutsy decision made by director Cyrus Nowrasteh and his screenwriter wife, Betty Giffen Nowrasteh.  Showing the stoning in detail has caused some to cringe; but it is important to show that this is not a quick death, and to realize the savagery of the group mentality necessary to carry this slow torture to its conclusion.  Allowing us to look away with a fade to black would not convey the true brutality of what Sharia requires.

The Nowrastehs also had a tough artistic choice to make.  A straightforward chronological telling of the story with its inevitable conclusion might have made the film too much to bear.  By employing the devise of framing the tale of Shorayah with the efforts of Zahra to get the truth out, they opened themselves to the charge of trivializing the story by giving it a thriller element; but because of this element, the audience is given some glimmer of hope to hang onto.

The device works beautifully.  While the film certainly has an agenda, it is a compelling story, not merely a sermon.

I should also say a word about the courage of actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who has certainly not flinched from taking politically charged—and politically incorrect—roles.  She gives another magnificent performance here, giving the film its moral center and keeping it from being just a grim story of victimhood.

Cyrus Nowrasteh, who also was the screenwriter for The Path to 9/11, and The Day Reagan Was Shot, is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood .  But how big a force depends on the support of everyone who has ever complained about the lack of moral vision in Hollywood .

Don’t be intimidated by the somber subject matter.  Get out and see The Stoning of Soraya M.

Too many people have risked too much to get the truth out, if we ignore it, their efforts are in vain.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 3, 2009

___

A powerful cleric said Friday that Iran will put British Embassy staffers on trial for fomenting postelection turmoil, a step that would likely increase Iran’s isolation and alienate Western nations that have been trying to keep options open with Tehran despite its crackdown on protesters.

The announcement fueled calls in Europe for tougher action against Tehran. Britain is pressing for members of the European Union to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran to protest the staffers’ arrests last week.

The standoff is a test of how far Iran’s clerical rulers are willing to go to shore up their position at home after the wave of protests — even if they risk wrecking possibilities for dialogue between Tehran and the West, a major policy goal of President Barack Obama that Tehran cautiously welcomed.

After quashing the street demonstrations, Iran’s leadership has been trying to erase any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by portraying the unrest as sparked by foreign meddling, not by public anger over the June 12 election, which the protesters said was fraudulent. Prosecuting the detained Iranian members of the British Embassy staff could help boost its case before the Iranian public.

At the same time, the arrests test the U.S. and Europe’s policy, which has so far been to avoid an overly harsh reaction to Iran’s postelection crisis. The West has been wary of condemnations of Iran’s leadership, in part for fear of undermining prospects for future talks with Tehran, particularly over its controversial nuclear program.

So far, the EU has taken an incremental approach. On Friday, a day after issuing a public call for the staffers’ release, governments across the 27-nation bloc summoned Iran’s ambassadors to present the demand in person.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the EU’s “escalatory approach to Iran was working.”

But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his country backs Britain’s push for tougher action, “so that Iranian leaders will really understand that the path that they have chosen will be a dead end.”

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said his country is “deeply concerned” about the personnel, who he said “have not engaged in any improper or illegal behavior.” He said he would speak with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki about the issue.

Word of the trials came from Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an ultra-conservative who is one of the most prominent figures in Iran’s clerical leadership and is close to the country’s supreme leader.

Jannati took a tough line in a sermon to thousands of worshippers attending Friday prayers at Tehran University, accusing Britain of being behind the protests.

London “designed a velvet revolution” to topple Iran’s Islamic government and the detained staffers confessed to their role, he told the crowd, where some chanted slogans against the U.S. and Israel.

“In these events, their embassy had a presence,” he said. “Some people were arrested. Well, inevitably, they will be put on trial.”

He did not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the nine embassy personnel originally arrested had been released, but British officials say two are being held.

Government officials could not be reached on Friday for confirmation the staffers would be tried. Jannati does not hold a position in the government, but is the head of the Guardian Council, a powerful body in the clerical hierarchy that stands above the elected government.

The council oversees elections, and it carried out a partial recount which was ordered after Ahmadinejad’s pro-reform rival Mir Hossein Mousavi cried fraud and said he was the victor. The recount ultimately upheld Ahmadinejad’s election victory.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the results would stand, and ruling clerics promptly called the elections “pure” and “healthy.”

Giant protests erupted in Tehran and other cities over the results, but they were put down in a tough crackdown after Khamenei declared unrest would no longer be tolerated. Police say 20 “rioters” were killed during the violence. During his sermon, Jannati said seven or eight members of the paramilitary Basij militia were also killed. Basijis took a leading role in putting down the protests, often clashing with demonstrators.

There have been no street protests since Sunday, but Mousavi appears driven to maintain his opposition and even to raise the stakes. In a defiant statement on Wednesday, he said he considered the government illegitimate and demanded political prisoners be released. Still, he has been laying low, making no public appearances for days amid calls by many hard-liners for him to be prosecuted.

In major cities across Iran, clerics delivering Friday prayer sermons told worshippers to accept the supreme leader’s ruling on the results, according to transcripts on the state news agency IRNA.

In the northern city of Rasht, Ayatollah Zeinolabedeen Ghorbani said “anyone still saying they don’t accept the results … should be ashamed of themselves as a believer and a Muslim.”

Jannati’s message in his sermon was clear — that supreme leader Khamenei had guided the country out of the crisis. “A nation that has rule by the cleric (the supreme leader) and the law does not leave a problem unsolved,” he told the crowd.

He indirectly accused Mousavi of treason, pointing out that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, once said that “anyone disrupts unity has not only committed a sin but also has committed treason against the Islamic Republic and the system.”

Jannati demanded that those involved in the protests “repent and ask God to forgive them.”

____

Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press correspondent Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

TIA Daily

June 30, 2009

by J. Patrick Mullins 

In his speech in Cairo on June 4 directed to the Muslim world at large, President Barack Obama proposed “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” a new relationship “based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.” Determined to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” the president contended that ” America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition.”

“As a student of history,” the president offered historic examples of peaceful and mutually beneficial relations between the United States and Muslim nations that might serve as a basis for this “new beginning.” He said:

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America ‘s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco . In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States .

President Obama’s historical claims served less to enlighten his audience about the past than to conceal inconvenient facts which do not suit his rosy characterization of Islam and its relations with the early American republic.

Over the centuries preceding the American Revolution, Morocco and the other Muslim Barbary States of North Africa claimed the Mediterranean Sea as their own. Pirates operating freely out of North African ports, with the encouragement of Muslims rulers, seized European ships and used their “infidel” passengers and crews as hostages held for ransom or as slaves condemned to lives of hard labor and corporal punishment. From the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, about one million Europeans (including American colonists) endured enslavement in the Muslim world. (Giles Milton, White Gold, p. 271)

With the exception of Britain , which preferred reprisal to bribery, Europe’s monarchical nations paid annual tribute to the Barbary States in return for the free passage of their merchant ships in the Mediterranean .

Britain’s regulatory laws forbade its thirteen American Colonies from trading directly with nations outside of the British Empire; the desire for freedom of trade in the Mediterranean Sea was one factor in America ‘s decision to declare independence from King George III. With loss of protection by the British Navy, though, American ships entering the Mediterranean became vulnerable to Muslim piracy.

So many American merchant ships flocked to Tangiers that Congress requested recognition of US independence from the Sultan of Morocco. On December 20, 1777, Sultan Sidi Mohammad ben Abdullah al-Qatib granted recognition and accordingly forbade his own pirates from attacking American merchant ships headed for Moroccan ports. President Obama did not mention that, when Congress did not move quickly enough in signing a formal treaty with Morocco , the Sultan began seizing American ships and crews in October 1784. (Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy, pp. 20-22, 28)

Espousing an “erect and independent attitude” toward foreign powers, America ‘s minister to France , Thomas Jefferson, urged Congress to appropriate $2 million for a navy and then retaliate militarily against the Barbary States . Having so recently ended its costly war with Britain , Congress was loath to enter another war, and it lacked the revenue to raise and sustain a navy. Rather than spend $2 million on a navy, Congress allocated $70,000 to pay the Dey of Algiers ransom money for the release of American hostages. In February 1785, the Algerian potentate greeted this offer with additional demands for money. (Power, Faith, and Fantasy, pp. 24-25)

In June 1786, Jefferson advocated war against the Barbary States . Instead, Congress instructed him and the US minister to Britain , John Adams, to negotiate a settlement with Morocco . Jefferson and Adams offered Sultan Sidi Mohammad a bribe of $20,000 in return for the release of a US ship, its crew, and a treaty of peace. The Sultan accepted these terms and released the ship as agreed—and it was immediately captured by the Barbary State of Tunis. The other pirate states learned from Morocco ‘s example to seize American persons and property and hold them until Congress offered money for “peace.”

Congress directed Adams to negotiate with the Pasha of Tripoli, Abd al-Rahman. The pasha demanded that Congress pay $1 million per year to Tripoli and Tunis (about one tenth of the federal government’s annual budget) for the privilege of navigating the Mediterranean . Thinking a war against the Barbary Pirates “too rugged for our people to bear,” Adams reluctantly proposed an annual tribute of 200,000 pounds in return for peace.

Abd al Rahman rejected the offer and renewed his demand for $1 million, explaining to Adams the principle behind the Barbary States ‘ policy of attacking European and American shipping:

It was…written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their [Muslims'] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. (Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 27)

George Washington considered the exchange of tribute for peace to be utter folly. He had no illusions about the “purchased friendship of these barbarians.” He wrote the Marquis de Lafayette in 1786: “Would to Heaven we had a navy to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-existence.” He wrote Lafayette the following year that it was “the highest disgrace” to pay tribute to the Barbary Pirates, “who might for half the sum that is paid them be exterminated from the earth.”

In 1790, the sultan of Morocco died, and his successor resumed piracy against the Christian world in violation of Morocco ‘s treaty with the United States . (White Gold, p. 271) Beset with pleas from American captives in North Africa, Jefferson again recommended war against the Barbary Pirates in December 1790. The Senate rejected his proposal and earmarked $140,000 for tribute—which Jefferson , as President Washington’s secretary of state, had to deliver, to his disgust. (Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 33)

In 1795, the Dey of Algiers signed a treaty of peace with the United States —in return for $650,000 in bribes. Tunis and Tripoli were, in the words of historian Michael Oren, “quick to follow Algiers ‘ example of first attacking the Americans and then negotiating with them from an advantage.” Tripoli seized three ships and Tunis seized one. In 1796, the US negotiated the Treaty of Tripoli, which the Senate unanimously approved and President Adams signed in 1797. (Power, Faith, and Fantasy, pp. 36-38)

As President Obama quoted in part, Article 11 of the treaty included the liberal statement that “[a]s the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen.” But the pasha of Tripoli held no such liberal, enlightened opinions himself, having expressed to Adams ten years before his obligation as a Muslim to make holy war on the infidels until they acknowledge Islam’s authority over them.

During the Adams presidency, the US government sent 20% of its annual revenues to pay protection money to the Barbary States . Perversely, the Senate cited these costly treaties as proof that peace could be achieved through diplomacy rather than war—and as reason to cut the president’s budget for building warships. (Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 38)

The first three of the six frigates commissioned by Congress came on line in March 1799. When Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801, he discontinued the payment of tribute to the Barbary States . Tripoli declared war on the US , seizing the USS Philadelphia and its 305 crewmen in 1803. In a daring nighttime operation, Stephen Decatur recaptured and burned the Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor. In 1805, the US Marines landed “on the shores of Tripoli ” to retaliate for Barbary attacks. The expedition was suspended when President Jefferson reached a peace agreement with the pasha.

In 1815, President Madison dispatched the fleet to the Mediterranean on a campaign against Algiers , Tripoli , and Tunis . Having used the Royal Navy to suppress the Atlantic trade in black slaves, the British Prime Minister Lord Castlereagh redirected it against the Mediterranean trade in white slaves in 1816. The British fleet attacked the Dey of Algiers in August 1816 and leveled his capital, killing 2,000 Algerians at a loss of 141 British dead. The Dey surrendered unconditionally and granted all demands, including the release of a thousand captives and the permanent abolition of Christian slavery. Where centuries of tribute and concessions had failed, war swiftly ended the depredations of the Barbary Pirates. (White Gold, pp. 271-276)

The British seamen who turned their cannons on the fortresses of Muslim slavers on the West Coast of Africa—let alone President Lincoln and the Union Army—would have been surprised to hear President Obama claim in his Cairo address that, “[f]or centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves,” but “it was not violence that won full and equal rights.” He appears as self-blinded to the righteous violence used by the US government to free blacks from American slavery as he is to the wrongful violence used by the Barbary States to enslave white Americans and Europeans.

In the case of both Barbary piracy and Civil War emancipation, the historical facts do not affirm the wisdom of Obama’s political goal: achieving peace with hostile Muslim powers through the “open hand” of diplomacy. To justify a diplomatic initiative with America ‘s professed enemies, the president has created a false history that obscures the clear lessons of the past. As a “student of history,” President Obama has a great deal yet to learn.

J. Patrick Mullins is assistant professor of history at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

Perhaps the funeral will be more revealing than the news media…

Courtesy of PD blog

Since Michael Jackson’s death last week, there has been tribute after tribute, recognizing his talent and incredible professional accomplishments. The news media also has mentioned troubles in his personal life. What is noticeable missing is the mainstream nightly news media–as far as I know–is the mention of his reported conversion to Islam last November. If it has been mentioned, I suspect it has not received much coverage.

Generally, conversion to any religion is an enormous step in someone’s life–a transforming event to say the least. It usually is not entered into lightly, as there are many changes that accompany it. While a momentous occasion, it can be fraught with challenges such as the loss of family, friends and even employment.

Michael Jackson’s conversion is disputed. Clearly, he was exposed to Islam and Islamic readings as discussed in a YouTube video about his brother Jermaine who converted to Islam 20 years ago. Songs purportedly sung by Michael Jackson about Allaah (swt) also are circulating.

Some comments have been made that if he were Muslim, why is he having a Christian funeral. While state law varies, it appears that under California law his parents can decide what type of funeral to arrange.

Moreover, the fact that he may have been quiet about his conversion is not particularly surprising. I have known converts who waited quite some time before telling family, friends, and/or work associates that they had converted. And not every convert jumps in 100 percent. Many enter slowly into Islam, gradually increasing their practice before it is widely known that they are Muslim.

It appears that Michael Jackson has made no clear statement about his conversion one way or another. Only Allaah (swt) knows the truth about his status when he died.

Even with the controversy surrounding his religious affiliation, that–in and of itself–is newsworthy and deserves some mention by the US nightly news stations. I wonder if Michael Jackson purportedly had become a Scientologist in the year before he died whether that would have received more coverage.

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morons at the NEW YORK TIMES and Amnesty International!

AMERICAN THINKER  

June 30, 2009

Rick Moran

 
The New York Times called it “torture porn.” But audiences at the Los Angeles Film Festival had a different take; they named the controversial film “Best Feature” at the gathering.

Dennis Pragerwriting at Townhall has some thoughts about the film and conservative complaints about Hollywood:

Yet, now, released as if by Providence the week after the fraudulent elections in Iran and the suppression and murder of Iranian dissidents, is a film about the nature of the radical Muslims who govern Iran. Titled “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” the film depicts events based on the true story of a woman stoned to death in a rural village in Iran in 1986 for allegedly committing adultery.

If you want to understand the type of people who run Iran, see this film. If you want to understand why men and women risk their lives to demonstrate against the fascist theocracy that rules Iran, see this film. The film is about the type of people who become “supreme leader” (Ali Khamanei) or president of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). It is about their mendacity, their use of religion to commit barbarity, and, of course, their despicable treatment of women.

Many of us lament Hollywood’s lack of courage, its lack of moral seriousness, and its political correctness. Here, then, is a courageous, morally deep, and politically incorrect film that mainstream reviewers — as cited above — have lavished praise on. It should be the ideal film for serious Americans who properly complain about Hollywood’s offerings. But if a riveting drama with a courageous theme, Oscar-level acting, which is as relevant as today’s headlines, fails at the box office, Hollywood will have been vindicated.

It therefore seems clear to me that those who do not see this film have forfeited the right to complain about Hollywood.

Prager informs us the film is opposed by Amnesty International because, according to them, they are already fighting these practices so the film is unnecessary. Unintentional humor is a strong suit of AI and their disregard of “Stoning” only makes their illogic more amusing.

The film will not get wide release but keep an eye out at your local artsy type movie house. There will also be showings at a lot of churches. Any way you can, I would urge you to see this powerful, maddening film.

posted June 29, 2009 at 8:20 am EST

Five of the nine Iranian employees of the British embassy in Tehran that had been arrested were released on Monday, even as Iran continued to insist that Britain was involved in organizing protests over the results of the country’s June 12 election, which many Iranians believe was rigged to return incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

The BBC reports that Iranian intelligence officials appear to be using the embassy employees still in their custody to make the case that the election protests had only a limited domestic component.

“Iran’s Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hoseyn Mohseni-Ezhei on Sunday said “the British embassy played a crucial role in the recent unrest both through its local staff and via media”, Iran’s Irna news agency reported. “We have photos and videos of certain local employees of the British embassy, who collected news about the protests.

“The embassy sent staff among the rioters to direct them in order to escalate the riots so that the rioters could file fabricated reports about the [rallies] to the world rom various locations,” the Iranian minister added.

Nevertheless, on Sunday, about 3,000 protestors took to the streets of Tehran, some shouting “Where is my vote?” before they were violently dispersed, the Associated Press reported.

Witnesses said riot police used tear gas and clubs to break up a crowd of up to 3,000 protesters who had gathered near north Tehran’s Ghoba Mosque in the country’s first major post-election unrest in four days.

Some described scenes of brutality, telling the Associated Press that some protesters suffered broken bones and alleging that police beat an elderly woman, prompting a screaming match with young demonstrators who then fought back.

Some analysts believe that the highly unusual detention of embassy employees is part of a deliberate effort to ratchet up tensions with the West, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Nader Mousavizadeh, a diplomatic expert and consulting senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the arrests show that the forces around Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are attempting to create more antagonism with the outside world.

“They think it will serve their interests in the near term and justify their hard line in domestic policy because they can say, ‘Look, the rest of the world is out to get us,’ ” Mr. Mousavizadeh said. “A more open, engaged Iran is one that will want more choices about relations with the outside world, about women’s rights, about political rights. And that fundamentally doesn’t serve the interests of the hardline faction now in control.”

Juan Cole, a historian of the Middle East at the University of Michigan, writes on his blog Informed Comment that mass protests are likely over for now in Iran because “security forces are too well organized and too loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to allow it.” He also writes that former Iranian President Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani appears to have abandoned Mir Hossein Mousavi – the man the protestors feel had the election stolen from him – over the weekend, a “bad sign” for the challenger.

Rafsanjani has clearly decided to defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on handling the outcome of the elections, and has come out as critical of the crowd politics and occasional turbulence they produced. As a multi-billionaire and man of the establishment, he may well have been frightened that the massive street rallies for Mousavi a week ago signaled a danger to the status quo, which he is attempting to preserve.