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US military warns of Shabaab resurgence, strikes ‘command and logistics node’

June 11, 2017

US military warns of Shabaab resurgence, strikes ‘command and logistics node’, Long War Journal, , June 11, 2017

While announcing an airstrike that targeted a Shabaab “command and logistics node” in southern Somalia, the US military warned of al Qaeda’s resurgence in the country and said it has “taken advantage of safe haven.” The strike is the first announced by the US military since the Trump administration declared that it would expand operations against al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia.

US Africa Command, or AFRICOM, announced that it targeted a “command and logistics node at a camp located approximately 185 miles southwest of Mogadishu in a stronghold for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab organization” in an airstrike. AFRCOM assessed that eight Shabaab operatives were killed.

AFRICOM’s worrying assessment of Shabaab’s revival in Somalia is an admission that efforts by the US, African Union, and Somali government to contain and defeat the group over the past several years have failed. The US Department of Defense admitted as much in late March, when it announced that the Trump administration approved “additional precision fires” to target Shabaab throughout Somalia.

The Pentagon’s desire to actively target Shabaab reflects the growing concern that al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa is gaining strength despite the presence of both African Union and US forces, and it is plotting to attack the West. Shabaab used a sophisticated laptop bomb in an attempt to down a Somali airliner in 2016. This attack was cited by the US government as one of the reasons that electronics have been banned in the cabins of airplanes departing from 10 airports in the Middle East. [See What’s really behind Trump’s laptop ban.]

Today’s strike is part of an overarching effort to “degrade the al-Qaeda affiliate’s ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and in America.”

The AFRICOM statement also acknowledged that African Union and Somali forces have suffered significant losses at the hands of Shabaab:

In the last eight months, al-Shabaab has overrun three African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) Forward Operating Bases by amassing large numbers of fighters and attacking in overwhelming numbers. Al-Shabaab has also increased its combat capability by seizing heavy weaponry, armored vehicles, explosives, small arms, ammunition, and other miscellaneous supplies during its operations overrunning Burundian National Defense Forces FOB Leego, Ugandan People’s Defense Force FOB Janaale, and Kenyan Defense Force FOB Ceel Ad.

The terror organization has taken advantage of safe haven. The group has cemented its control [sic] southern and central Somalia, they have used this area to plot and direct terror attacks, steal humanitarian aid, and to shelter other radical terrorists.

Shabaab has successfully overrun Somali and African Union bases in the past and inflicted a large number of casualties on troops based there. In Jan. 2016, Shabaab fighters assaulted a base in Al Ade in the south and killed at least 100 Kenyan soldiers. In June 2015, Shabaab killed an estimated 60 Ethiopian soldiers in the south. That same month, Shabaab fighters killed more than 50 Burundi soldiers in Leego.

Shabaab has been resurgent in Somalia since losing ground to a combined African Union and Somali offensive in 2011. The jihadist group has slowly but methodically retaken several towns and villages that it lost, including the coastal town of Marka.

However, Shabaab’s efforts have not been confined to southern and central Somalia. Late last week, Shabaab fighters overran a base manned by Puntland forces in northern Somalia. Upwards of 60 troops were killed and Shabaab seized a large number of weapons and vehicles as well as a quantity of ammunition.

Today’s strike is the first reported by the US military against Shabaab since the Department of Defense announced that it would expand military operations. AFRICOM released a statement on April 17 to refute press reports that US forces launched airstrikes in southwestern Somalia.

Categories: Air strikes, Al Qaeda, Shabaab, Somalia, U.S. Military
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Corruption and Collusion: Obama, Comey, and the Press

June 11, 2017

Corruption and Collusion: Obama, Comey, and the Press, PJ Media, Andrew Klacan, June 11, 2017

Image Courtesy of Shutterstock

My point is simply this: when you are listening to Comey, and when you are listening to the news media sanctifying Comey or indeed demonizing Trump, just remember who it is you are listening to: unindicted co-conspirators in an administration that was rotten to the core.

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It now seems clear that Barack Obama was a corrupt machine politician in the worst Chicago mold. He used the IRS to silence his enemies, and the Justice Department to protect his friends. His two major “achievements” — a health care law that doesn’t work and a deal that increased the power and prestige of the terrorist state of Iran — were built on lies to the public and manipulation of the press. And that’s according to his own allies! Only the leftist bias and racial pathology of the media kept his administration from being destroyed by scandal, as it surely would have been had he been a white Republican.

I don’t mention this to bring up old grudges, but for what it says about the current moment and the week just passed. Here’s some of what we recently learned:

Former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony concerning former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s corruption confirmed our worst suspicions about the Obama DOJ. In an apparent attempt to help Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Lynch told Comey to refer to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s abuse of classified material as “a matter” rather than an investigation. And, as we already knew but Comey confirmed, Lynch’s secret tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton so underscored Comey’s sense of her crookedness that the self-serving drama queen Comey actually went around her to publicly declare Hillary guilty-but-not-guilty.

“It won’t get much attention, but that was pretty damning,” said CNN’s John King of Comey’s testimony about Lynch. You can translate “it won’t get much attention” into “we won’t give it much attention.”

But all that was nothing compared to the brutal, nearly 300-page report released last week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a report absolutely blasting the previous Obama AG, Eric Holder. The report details how Holder and the Obama administration labored to cover up the details of the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal — a scandal which, unlike the non-collusion-with-Russia non-scandal, was implicated in the murder of an American law officer. Even the mom of the slain officer couldn’t get the truth out of Holder and his cronies. The report says Holder considered the officer’s family a “nuisance” because they were trying to get him to tell them how exactly the lawman died at the hands of gangsters who were wielding guns Obama’s DOJ had allowed them to buy.

We’ve heard a lot from Comey and the press this week about the precious independence of the Justice Department. And yet Attorney General Holder once said, “I’m still the president’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.” Holder was also the first attorney general ever to be held in contempt of Congress for not turning over documents relating to Fast and Furious. And, speaking of obstruction of justice — we were speaking of obstruction of justice, weren’t we? — President Obama asserted executive privilege to make it easier for Holder to keep those docs in the dark. Hey, nothing’s too good for the president’s wingman!

What a sleazy bunch they were! Hiding their corruption behind the color of their skin. Criticized for Fast and Furious in 2011, Holder said: “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him, both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.” What a sleazy bunch.

So let’s remember. Obama is the nefarious machine pol who appointed James Comey to head the FBI in the first place. This is the Comey who took no notes when he spoke with Obama, no notes when he questioned Hillary about her emails, no notes, apparently, during the cover-up conversation with Lynch that left him with “a queasy feeling,” but who suddenly began documenting his exchanges with Trump — exchanges that Trump says never happened. This is the Comey who let Hillary off the hook because he somehow knew she didn’t intend to share classified information (a matter that doesn’t exist in the relevant law), but who cannot comment on whether Donald Trump intended to obstruct justice when Trump expressed his hopes about an investigation.

And the Obama administration — this crooked gang of liars and colluders — this is the gang that was deemed “scandal free” by virtually every “mainstream” news outlet. Indeed, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson had to leave CBS News in large part because CBS would not run her work on Fast and Furious.

My point is not to excuse Trump for any of his inappropriate and sometimes boorish behavior. I hope he learns better. My point is simply this: when you are listening to Comey, and when you are listening to the news media sanctifying Comey or indeed demonizing Trump, just remember who it is you are listening to: unindicted co-conspirators in an administration that was rotten to the core.

Categories: 2016 elections and Russia, Clinton cover ups, Comey and AG Lynch, Comey and Trump, Comey leaks, Comey memos, Comey testifies, Comeygate, Democrats and Comey, Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, Great Trump - Russia conspiracy, IRS, Loretta Lynch, Media and Obama, Media and Trump, Obama administration, Obama and Department of Justice, Obama obstruction of justice
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Hezbollah Terrorists Caught in US Planning Attack

June 11, 2017

Hezbollah Terrorists Caught in US Planning Attack, ClarionProject, Ryan Mauro, June 11, 2017

New Hezbollah recruits in Lebanon salute during a ceremony (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

The pace of jihadist activity has been so intense lately that an incredibly important story has been barely reported on:

Two terrorists belonging to Hezbollah, a puppet of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, have been arrested for planning attacks in the U.S., with one scouting potential targets in New York including JFK International Airport.

Both are citizens who entered, exited and re-entered the U.S.

Although the Iranian and Syrian regimes regularly organize terrorist attacks through its Hezbollah proxy, the plotting of attacks on U.S. soil and on Americans overseas is very significant, but not unprecedented.

The two arrested terrorists are Ali Kourani of the Bronx, New York and Samer El-Debek of Dearborn, Michigan. Each is a well-trained militant who belongs to Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad branch that is tasked with perpetrating terrorist attacks, preferably with some level of deniability.

Yet, under questioning, Ali Kourani explicitly told the FBI in 2016 and 2017 that he was a “sleeper” agent of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad carrying out “black ops” for Hezbollah and “the Iranians.”

His first round of training took place in Lebanon in 2000 when he was only 16-years old. Kourani admitted to the FBI that he was accepted by Hezbollah because his family is connected to a top official in the terrorist group. He said one of his brothers is the “face of Hezbollah” in Yater, Lebanon and boasted that his family’s name is like the “Bin Laden’s of Lebanon.” In other words, his family is famous for being terrorists.

Shockingly, in 2003 (two years after the 9/11 attacks), this member of a famous terrorist family successfully entered the U.S. and became a student. He also went by the names of “Jacob Lewis” and “Daniel.”

In 2008, he then joined Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad branch. Shortly thereafter, he applied for naturalization and became a citizen in April 2009, all the while lying about his connections to terrorism. If his boasts are true, a simple look of his family would have tipped off the U.S. government about who Kourani was.

Kourani predictably lied throughout his process to become a U.S. citizen, including denying any plans to travel overseas when he applied to become a citizen. Only a month after becoming a citizen, he went to Guangzhou, China, on a so-called “business trip” to the location of a medical company that produces chemicals that can be used in bombs. Stolen chemicals from the company were later found in the possession of Iranian terrorists in Thailand planning bombings.

In 2011, Kourani went to Lebanon for a second round of terrorism training in RPG and various firearms. He then came back into the U.S. to use the skills he acquired.

On the orders of his Hezbollah handler, he began identifying and surveilling targets.

According to the criminal complaint, his handler directed him to “surveil and collect information regarding airports, including the layout of terminals, the locations of cameras and personnel, and other security features. In response, Kourani provided detailed information to [his handler] regarding specific security protocols, baggage-screening and collection practices and the locations of surveillance cameras, security personnel, law enforcement officers and magnetometers at JFK and an international airport in another country.”

Some historical context is important here: This is a revival of Iran’s ambitions to target New York’s JFK International Airport. Iran already tried to carry out an attack at the airport once and was preparing to do so again.

The previous plan (in 2007) was to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines going to the airport. The FBI confirms that one of the individuals involved in this plot had links to “militant groups” in Iran and Venezuela and had regularly contact with Iranian authorities.

There were various other Iranian links, including the involvement of an operative who was previously part of an Iran-sponsored bombing in Argentina in 1994.

Kourani also used Google Maps to research LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York (specifically its terminals) in April 2011. He also looked up the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in Queens in February 2013.

Kourani conducted surveillance on a governmental building in Manhattan with FBI offices inside; an Army National Guard office in Manhattan; an Army Armory building in Manhattan and a Secret Service office in Brooklyn.

He looked for people tied to the Israeli military. He was also tasked with making contacts who could provide firearms to Hezbollah operatives in the U.S.

In addition, Hezbollah wanted Kourani to do something in Mexico and Canada. His handler talked about possibly having him fly to one of these countries and cross into the U.S. by land using his passport. Hezbollah has ties to Latin American drug cartels, which may have something to do with the talk of a trip to Mexico.

The surveillance of targets in preparation for expected Hezbollah attacks continued until at least September 2015, as per the complaint.

Like Kourani, Samer El-Debek is a naturalized citizen who belonged to Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad branch. He communicated via email with someone who owned a business in Iran.

El-Debek acted as an agent of the terrorist group from 2007 to September 2016, with his salary growing to over $1,000 per month plus medical expenses. He is a specialist in bomb-making and began confessing to the FBI after Hezbollah accused him of being an American spy and detained him for four months until he falsely admitted to being one.

El-Debek was first trained in 2008 and received four rounds of training total. One round included six days of religious teaching, where a sheikh taught about Islam’s rules and “martyrdom ideology.” His explosives training focused on remotely-detonated bombs.

El-Debek was specifically taught how to make IEDs like the one Hezbollah used on a bus of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in 2012 that killed 6 people and injured 32. He told the FBI that the bomber was his aunt’s nephew.

In 2009, he was sent to Thailand to dispose of bomb ingredients from a Hezbollah safehouse that they believed to have come under surveillance. His cover was that he was traveling to Thailand for paid sex, going so far as to hire a prostitute and to have her enter the safehouse so he could try to discover any surveillance taking place.

In 2011, El-Debek flew to Colombia and entered Panama on a Hezbollah mission to identify gaps in security at the Panama Canal and the Israeli embassy. He returned to Panama in 2012 to identify weaknesses in the Panama Canal’s construction and security gaps and find out how close someone could get to a ship passing through.

He was told to conduct surveillance of the U.S. embassy but did not, fearing it would compromise his mission.

Hezbollah detained El-Debek in December 2015 until April 2016, accusing him of being a U.S. spy and demanding a confession. He eventually did so. Based on the complaint, it appears the detention caused him to open up to the FBI during voluntary questioning (assuming his story is true).

This is only a tiny portion of what Iran and Hezbollah is doing to try to attack targets in the U.S. at home and abroad. This is the experience of only two Hezbollah terrorists we caught.

If this is the scale of what we do know, then what horrors are being planned that we don’t know about?

Categories: Hezbollah in America, Iranian proxies, Islamic immigration, Islamic terrorism, Latin America
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Report: U.S.-Backed Afghan Government Funding Taliban Schools, Hospitals

June 11, 2017

Report: U.S.-Backed Afghan Government Funding Taliban Schools, Hospitals, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, June 11, 2017

REUTERS/Mustafa Andaleb

The U.S.-led coalition overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001, soon after invading Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S homeland.

Afghanistan has been gripped by a Taliban resurgence since former President Barack Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat mission at the end of 2014.

“The Taliban has grown in confidence three years since Western troops withdrew from the country,” declares the Telegraph.

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The U.S. taxpayer-backed Afghan government is reportedly funding schools and hospitals operated by the Taliban as the terrorist group attempts to establish itself as a legitimate administration in the large swathes of the country under its control.

“They are trying to set up a mini-state – if not the actual state – in Helmand,” Auliya Atrafi, a journalist from the BBC Afghan service who made a film about the deteriorating security conditions there, told the Telegraph.

“In the evening when we sat with the [Taliban] elders and the local leaders, they asked us: ‘Where do you think we will be in 10 years time?’ We knew what they were thinking. They see themselves in ten years time as the government,” added the BBC journalist.

Citing the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that jihadists, primarily the Taliban, contest or control 40 percent of Afghanistan.

In particular, the Taliban controls or influences 64 percent (nine of 14 districts) of opium-rich Helmand province, located along the Pakistan border next to Kandahar, the birthplace of the terrorist group.

The Telegraph reports that the Taliban controls at least 80 percent of Helmand province, considered one of the deadliest provinces of the ongoing 16-year-old war for the American-led coalition and their Afghan allies.

Taliban jihadists generate 60 percent of its funding from the illicit opium business in Afghanistan, the world’s top producer of the poppy plant, according to the U.S. military.

The American government has invested more than $117 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

Most of those funds (more than $71 billion) have been devoted to training, housing, equipping, and sustaining the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) in their fight against the Taliban and other jihadist groups.

Nevertheless, the Telegraph points out, “the Afghan government is funding schools and hospitals run by the Taliban as the militant group seeks to establish itself as a legitimate administration in large swathes of the country, a new film has found.”

“A report by a BBC team granted rare access to the group’s stronghold in Helmand province found the Taliban has been forced to present itself as somewhat modernized since Afghans have grown used to government services and a different way of life after the group was ousted from official power,” it adds.

An estimated 300 U.S. Marines have recently returned to the Taliban-stronghold Helmand.

The U.S.-led coalition overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001, soon after invading Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S homeland.

Afghanistan has been gripped by a Taliban resurgence since former President Barack Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat mission at the end of 2014.

“The Taliban has grown in confidence three years since Western troops withdrew from the country,” declares the Telegraph.

 

Categories: Afghan military, Afghanistan, Afghanistan - US funding, Taliban, U.S. Military
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Theresa May’s Well-Deserved Defeat, and the UK’s Uncertain Future

June 11, 2017

Theresa May’s Well-Deserved Defeat, and the UK’s Uncertain Future, PJ Media, Michael Walsh, June 10, 2017

(Shutterstock)

No wonder they lost. Spinelessness is not an attractive character trait in anyone, much less a putative leader. What Mrs. May just discovered — and what we all should learn — is that the days of managing cultural decline via the administrative and the police state are over. At this point, it’s either fight back, defend your patrimony, or die.

Americans made that choice in November, and yet the pushback from the Deep State and the Democrats remains ferocious. Absent the return of St. George, it’s hard to see how the UK comes out of this alive.

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For Irish-Americans, this is yet another Death of Little Nell moment. Theresa May’s foolish gambit in calling a snap election in order to facilitate Britain’s withdrawal from the EU has set in motion a chain of events that could well lead to the dissolution of the “United Kingdom” and the devolution of the Celtic countries — Scotland, all of Ireland, and perhaps Wales and Cornwall as well — from the British crown.

The prime minister’s decision to try to form a government with the Democratic Unionist Party of “Northern Ireland” and the Tories’ unexpected boost from the Scottish National Party (which saved them from utter defeat) will ultimately spell doom for the Great Britain the world has known since the Republic of Ireland declared its independence from the Crown in 1916 and won it by force of arms in 1921.

At City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels) has some observations on the disaster:

Theresa May has proved an apt pupil of the David Cameron school of political incompetence. Lacking principle, she is not even good at being unprincipled: a Machiavellian, it turns out, minus the cunning.

It did not help that she had the charisma of a carrot and the sparkle of a spade. As she presented herself to the public, no one would have wanted her as a dinner guest, except under the deepest social obligation. Technically, she won the election, in the sense that she received more votes than anyone else, but few voted for her with enthusiasm rather than from fear of the alternative. Her disastrous campaign included repeated genuflections in the direction of social democracy. Even after her defeat, moral if not quite literal, she burbled about a society in which no one was left behind—never mind that it would entail a society in which no one would be out in front, that is to say, a society resting in the stagnant pool of its own mediocrity.

Unfortunately, egalitarianism is a little like Islam in that, just as a moderate Muslim can always be outflanked by someone more Islamic than he, so an egalitarian can usually be outflanked by someone more egalitarian than he: and in the contest between the Conservatives and the Labour Party, no one will ever believe that the Conservatives are more devoted to equality of outcome than the Labour Party. May therefore chose her battleground with a perfect eye for defeat.

And defeat she got. Yet another childless leader of an increasingly barren European country, May — whose prime ministership was an accident of Cameron’s defeat in the Brexit referendum (she’s the Gerald Ford of England) — is scrambling to save her current mailing address at 10 Downing Street by allying with the Democratic Unionist Party in Belfast.

The Democratic Unionist Party have agreed in principle a “confidence and supply” deal to support a Conservative government, it has been announced. Theresa May was left eight seats short of an overall majority in the general election, while the DUP won 10 seats.

Tory chief whip Gavin Williamson went to Belfast on Saturday for talks with the Northern Irish party. Downing Street said the details of the outline deal would be discussed at a cabinet meeting on Monday. Any agreement would come into force when Parliament returns next week.

A “confidence and supply” deal is not a full coalition, but an agreement which sees the smaller party support the larger one in key votes such as the budget. A No 10 spokesman said: “We welcome this commitment, which can provide the stability and certainty the whole country requires as we embark on Brexit and beyond.”

Remember 1649? The Irish do

May must now turn to a handful of Unionists in England’s last major colony to save her bacon; meanwhile the Scots viewed the election as setting up yet another bite at the independence apple. So “beyond” seems a bit optimistic:

There was no mention of what concessions the DUP may have asked for, amid growing concern about the influence of a party opposed to abortion and gay marriage, and which has proved hugely controversial in the past over the homophobic and sectarian views of some of its representatives.

May earlier on Saturday lost her two closest aides as she struggled to reassert her leadership after a crushing election setback.

The Conservative leader has been warned that her days are numbered after calling Thursday’s vote three years early, only to lose her majority in parliament. Senior party figures have cautioned against any immediate leadership challenge, saying it would cause only further disruption as Britain prepares to start Brexit negotiations as early as June 19.

But media reports suggest they had demanded the departure of May’s joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, as the price for allowing the 60-year-old vicar’s daughter to stay in office.

May put on a brave face after Thursday’s vote, expressing sorrow for the MPs who lost their seats but refusing to acknowledge how her election gamble backfired. “From hubris to humiliation,” said the left-leaning Guardian. “May stares into the abyss,” wrote The Times, while the Conservative-supporting Sun tabloid said succinctly: “She’s had her chips.”

As Great Britain dies, mostly thanks to the deliberate suicide of the Labour Party, it’s the Tories who are going to suffer. What England needed in the weak Cameron’s wake was a decisive leader who would reverse the effects (insofar as possible) of Labour’s gambit to boost its electorate via immigration, and to start a serious crackdown on the hordes of foreign Muslims who are already fundamentally changing the nature of the British state. Unable to stand up to bogus charges of “racism,” the Tories capitulated in principle, and got two attacks in London and the massacre in Manchester in return.

No wonder they lost. Spinelessness is not an attractive character trait in anyone, much less a putative leader. What Mrs. May just discovered — and what we all should learn — is that the days of managing cultural decline via the administrative and the police state are over. At this point, it’s either fight back, defend your patrimony, or die.

Americans made that choice in November, and yet the pushback from the Deep State and the Democrats remains ferocious. Absent the return of St. George, it’s hard to see how the UK comes out of this alive.

Categories: Administrative state, BREXIT, British parliamentary election, Formerly Great Britain, Theresa May, UK
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Iran says mastermind behind dual Tehran terrorist attacks killed

June 11, 2017

Source: Israel Hayom | Iran says mastermind behind dual Tehran terrorist attacks killed

“The mastermind and main commander of terrorist attacks on the parliament and Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini was killed by security forces,” Iranian minister says • Intelligence Ministry claims it has been “crushing” terrorist teams on a daily basis.

Reuters and Israel hayom Staff
Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops secure the area outside the Iranian Parliament building during Wednesday’s attack

Iran on Saturday said its security forces on Saturday killed the mastermind behind the twin terrorist attacks on Tehran that left 17 people dead last week, as security was tightened around the country to prevent other possible plots.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings and gun attacks on parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on Wednesday.

“The mastermind and main commander of the terrorist attacks on the parliament and Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini was killed today by the security forces,” Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi told the local Tasnim news agency.

Alavi said that in the last month the Intelligence Ministry had identified and crushed a terrorist team almost every day but had not publicized it to avoiding spreading fear among the public.

Iranian authorities have also arrested seven people it suspects of helping militants involved in attacks, a judiciary official said on Saturday.

Ahmad Fazelian, a provincial judiciary official, said the seven, suspected of “providing support for the terrorist team”, were detained in Fardis, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Tehran, the judiciary’s online news agency Mizan reported.

On Friday, authorities announced the arrests of 41 suspects in connection with the twin Tehran attacks.

Separately, the head of the judiciary in Fars province said seven people were detained in the southern Larestan area for possible ties to Islamic State, the Iranian Students News Agency reported on Saturday.

Tehran police said the car the attackers used on Wednesday was discovered on Saturday in the city center.

“The terrorists first went by car to the mausoleum and after dropping two of them off, went to the city center to attack parliament,” the police said in a statement published on state media.

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Bill to punish PA for terrorist salaries approved

June 11, 2017

Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves opposition bill to deduct tax funds to PA equal to salaries paid to terrorists in prison.

Gary Willig, 11/06/17 15:39

Source: Bill to punish PA for terrorist salaries approved – Israel National News

Elazar Stern Flash 90

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved Sunday a bill proposed by MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) to deduct sums equal to the salaries the Palestinian Authority pays to terrorists in Israeli prisons and payments made to terrorists’ families from the tax funds which Israel transfers to the PA.

The proposal was approved despite the opposition of the Attorney General and the original intention to postpone the discussion of the proposal by one week.

The amount of money the terrorists receive is proportional to the length of their prison sentence, resulting in the perpetrators of the deadliest terrorist attacks receive the highest salaries from the PA.

According to the approved agreement, MK Stern’s proposal will be approved this week in a preliminary reading, but will not be advanced in the Knesset until it is merged into a government bill that will be prepared on the subject.

The committee approved the bill despite it originating from an MK in the opposition. Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Miister Ayelet Shaked, both leaders of the Jewish Home Party, demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu support the bill Sunday morning.

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The Fourth Turning: A Summer Of Rage And The Total Eclipse Of The Deep State

June 11, 2017
by Tyler Durden
Jun 10, 2017 10:45 PM
Authored by By Michael Hart and StockBoardAsset,

Source: The Fourth Turning: A Summer Of Rage And The Total Eclipse Of The Deep State | Zero Hedge

“If you do a worldwide survey of eclipse lore, the theme that constantly appears, with few exceptions, is it’s always a disruption of the established order,” said E. C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. That’s true of both solar and lunar eclipses. 

“People depend on the sun’s movement,” Krupp said. “[It’s] regular, dependable, you can’t tamper with it. And then, all of a sudden, Shakespearean tragedy arrives and time is out of joint. The sun and moon do something that they shouldn’t be doing.”

On August 21st of this year, the United States will witness its first total solar eclipse seen across the totality of the country in nearly forty years. For millennia, humans have gazed towards the skies in awe, observing that heavenly bodies move regularly and predictably with mathematical certainty, and this has inspired poets, philosophers, and other thinkers to ruminate on man’s relationship to the universe, and the possibility that human activity is ruled by laws and patterns independent of human activity.

Although many of these ideas that were fashionable hundreds of years ago, such as astrology, have been put to rest by contemporary scientific knowledge, perhaps there is value to be gleaned from entertaining the possibility that there are indeed larger forces and patterns governing human affairs. Against the backdrop of this cosmically anomalous event, are we on the cusp of a more temporal form of disruption this summer in the United States?

Since President Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, much of the press have made note of Steve Bannon’s interest in an influential book published in 1997 called, “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous With Destiny.”

In this book, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe make the argument that our ideas about the nature of history, linear time, and progress are illusory, and that if we want a more accurate concept about the way that history unfolds, we would do well to study the ancient Greek concept of cyclical time. This concept views national and global historical phenomenon not as randomly occurring events, or the linear march of historical “progress,” but instead sees them as recurring archetypes placed into a larger tapestry of a greater repeating historical cycle.

According to Strauss and Howe, the relative geographic and historical isolation of the United States provides a unique opportunity to view this cycle unfolding regularly and predictably every 80 years.

This 80-year cycle can be divided into four stages or seasons, each lasting approximately twenty years:

  1. High– This initial stage occurs immediately following a period of crisis. The High is characterized by strong institutions, a sense of collective destiny, and a weakness of individuality. The most recent example of this would be the period of prosperity and conformity in the U.S. immediately following the conclusion of World War II.
  2. Awakening– The second stage, or turning, is a period of questioning established values and asserting one’s independence from established norms and morals, be they spiritual or political. This stage may be seen as a rebellion of the previous era’s emphasis on material wealth and conformity. The 1960’s, with the psychedelic revolution, anti-war protests, Civil Rights marches, and New Age spiritual movements can be seen as recent characteristics of this second stage, as well as Reaganomics and the mid-1980s Wall Street ethos.
  3. Unraveling– The emphasis on autonomy and the questioning of spiritual, political, and individual authority in the Awakening stage eventually destabilizes society, leading to the Third Turning, in which institutions are weak and untrusted while the subjective experience of the individual is emphasized. This stage can be thought of as the inverse of the initial High stage, where collective destiny is replaced by atomization. Recent symptom of this stage would be the culture wars, corporate malfeasance, a lack of faith in government, social justice movements, and political correctness.
  4. Crisis– In the Fourth Turning, a destabilizing event, usually involving warfare, leads to the destruction and reconstruction of institutions of power. In the face of destruction, Americans are forced to unite and forge a vision to restructure a disrupted society. This fourth stage can be seen as the inverse of the Awakening stage, and the authors cite World War II as the defining event of the most recent period of Crisis.

Strauss and Howe predicted that the next Crisis period that the U.S. would face would happen sometime around 2005 and end around 2025. Anyone who has been paying attention over the last decade would have a difficult time refuting this. The financial crisis of 2008 threw the planet into discord, and we are now just beginning to see some of the political ramifications of this. We may be reaching the apex of this crisis this summer, or at least we will witness a significant acceleration of it.

The institutions that once defined American stability are rapidly crumbling. Mounting debt, unsustainable consumerism, and illegal immigration are chipping away at once sturdy foundation of America.

And the robust civil discourse needed to solve these problems has been interrupted by advocates of social justice, sometimes violently. Recent small skirmishes between the two sides may be headed toward larger eruptions.

Some analysts are predicting a ‘Summer of Rage’, which will boil over in violent protests all across the United States. The DNC has called for a George Soros-financed ‘Resistance Summer’, in which protestors are encouraged to invade town halls, and organize rallies and neighborhood meetings to undermine President Trump. This will culminate in a national training being billed as a ‘Resistance Summer Camp’ to effectively train operatives inorganizing strategies.

Meanwhile, other leftist groups are calling for a day of ‘Impeachment Marches’ on July 2nd in dozens of major cities across the country. Their goal is to pressure congressional representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

Emboldened by a mainstream media apparatus which functions as a mouthpiece of Deep State interests, these activists are determined to overturn democratically elected officials and overturn law and order on the grounds that they personally disagree with the results.

As we have seen in recent months, Trump supporters, conservatives, and other patriots are not afraid to confront leftist activists in the streets, and this is likely to intensify as these DNC-backed groups become more desperate and confrontational in their tactics.

James Comey’s congressional testimony this week showed that the Trump administration is indeed attempting to break the old political order and its far-too-power Deep State. The cracks are surfacing now, and this will likely shatter and spill into many facets of social life outside of the realm of politics.

This shattering seems to be the apex, or perhaps the precursor to the major Crisis event described by Strauss and Howe in the Fourth Turning, and it is proving to be a global movement, as evidenced by the recent elections this week in the United Kingdom.

As the Soros-backed DNC footsoldiers wreak havoc in American cities this summer, and the old political order is eclipsed by what is shaping up to be a much more democratic order, we can expect these types of events to increase in frequency as well as intensity.

 

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Islamization of Europe: Erdogan’s New Muslim Political Network

June 11, 2017

Islamization of Europe: Erdogan’s New Muslim Political Network, Gatestone Institute, Yves Mamou, June 11, 2017

What is notable is that France’s new Muslim party, the Equality and Justice Party (PEJ), is an element of a network of political parties built by Turkey’s President Erdogan and AKP to influence each country of Europe, and to influence Europe through its Muslim population.

What is their program? The classic one for an Islamic party: abolishing the founding secularist law of 1905, which established the separation of church and state; mandatory veils for schoolgirls; and community solidarity (as opposed to individual rights) as a priority. All that is wrapped in the not-so-innocent flag of the necessity to “fight against Islamophobia”, a concept invented to shut down the push-back of all people who might criticize Islam before they can even start.

“[The Islamist party’s] purpose is to conquer the world, not just have a mandate. Its mechanics were already established…. Islamists took power in the name of democracy, then suspended democracy by using their power…. Convert the clothes, the body, the social links, the arts, nursing homes, schools, songs and culture, then, they just wait for the fruit to fall in the turban… An Islamist party is an open trap: you cannot let it in. If you refuse it, your country switches to a dictatorship, but if you accept it, you are at risk of submission….” — Kamel Daoud, Algerian writer, in Le Point, 2015.

In the legislative elections that will take place June 11 and 18 in France, political parties are finalizing preparations: choosing their candidates, and printing posters and stickers. Business as usual? Not really.

(Image source: Rama/Wikimedia Commons)

One newcomer arose in the political spectrum: a Muslim party, the Parti Egalité Justice (“Equality and Justice Party”; PEJ). What is notable is that PEJ is an element of a network of political parties built by Trukey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), to influence each country of Europe, and to influence Europe through its Muslim population.

PEJ: A Pro-Erdogan Party in France

The PEJ was created in 2015 in Strasbourg, the de facto capital of eastern France, on the border with Germany. PEJ has already approved 68 candidates — not enough to cover the whole territory but enough to compete efficiently in districts where Turkish and Muslim populations are strongly represented. French citizens of Turkish origin are estimated to represent 600,000 people in France, out of a Muslim population estimated at 5-15 million, but official statistics do not exist.

Another Muslim party, “Français et Musulmans” (“French and Muslims”), is also quietly preparing to erupt on the political scene of the French legislative elections. “Français et Musulmans” originates from L’Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF) which has been rebaptized “Muslims of France”. “Français et Musulmans” is the French branch of Muslim Brotherhood.

The PEJ, is the first party in France established by Turks. PEJ already participated in elections of the Provincial General Assembly in March 2015, but was eliminated in the first round. According to the magazine Marianne: “PEJ is closely connected to Council for justice, equality and peace (Cojep), an international NGO which represents, everywhere it is based, an anchor for AKP”, the party of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayip Erdogan. According to L’Express “many managers of PEJ are also in charge in Cojep”.

What is their program? The classic one for an Islamist party: abolishing the founding secularist law of 1905, which established the separation of church and state; veils mandatory for schoolgirls in public schools; halal food for all schools; support for Palestinians; and community solidarity (as opposed to individual rights) as a priority. All that is wrapped in the not-so-innocent flag of the necessity to “fight against Islamophobia”, a concept invented to shut down the push-back of all people who might criticize Islam before they can even start.

According to the magazine Marianne, Mine Gunbay, responsible for women’s rights in the city council of Strasbourg, fearlessly and tirelessly denounced the metamorphosis of Strasbourg into “political laboratory of the AKP”. Strasbourg is the city where Erdogan was authorized by former president Hollande to hold an electoral rally in October 2015. Legally.

Another noteworthy Turkish move in France is the probable nomination of Ahmet Ogras, the representative of Turkish Islam in France, as next president of the Conseil français du culte musulman (“French Council of Muslim worship”, CFCM). Ahmet Ogras is known for his good relationship with Erodgan’s AKP party. CFCM is the legal structure built by French politicians to have a single Muslim talking-partner. Until now, all presidents of CFCM were of Algerian or Moroccan origin.

Austria

In Austria, in 2016, “Turkish citizens” founded the New Movement for the Future (NBZ) party. The goal of the party is to give Turks a voice in politics across Austria. The NBZ Chairman, Adnan Dinçer, explained that the rise of extremist right-wing parties have caused them to work faster. “Political actors are making decisions about the minorities working here, but we are not involved in this decision-making mechanism,” he said. The NBZ makes it clear that they support controversial Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and condemn the “Gülen movement”, which the Turkish government claims carried out a coup attempt in July 2016.

Netherlands

Denk, a party founded by Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk in March 2017, became the first-ever ethic minority party in the Dutch parliament. The party, apparently a mouthpiece for Turkish president Erdogan, won three seats in the recent election, which was focused on immigration.

Party leader Tunahan Kuzu said: “This is the beginning of a new chapter in our history. The new Netherlands has given a vote in the House.”

Bulgaria

The Muslim population of Bulgaria is made up of Turks (Sunni), some Shi’ites, Bulgarians and Roma, who together represent 7-8% of the total population. In Bulgaria, there are three Muslim political parties, in which most of the members are Turkish and Muslim.

One of these parties is The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (HÖH), founded in 1990 by Ahmet Doğan. In 2014, HÖH was represented by 38 people in the 240-member parliament and had four MEPs in the European Parliament (EP).

HÖH, which made a coalition with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), thus has a say in the country’s administration, even though leadership changed after a 2013 assassination attempt against Doğan.

Because Erdogan was not satisfied with HÖH, he has worked to create other pro-Turkish parties in Bulgaria.

Germany

Many Germans of Turkish descent have chosen to invest in German established political parties and influence them from within. Some, however, are trying to influence policy from without.

The Allianz Deutscher Demokraten (“Alliance of German Democrats”, ADD) is a small party founded by Remzi Aru, evidently as a reaction to the German Parliament’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

ADD is friendly toward Erdogan and has been trying to establish an electoral base within immigrant and Muslim communities. Its leaders nevertheless had difficulty collecting the 1,000 signatures necessary to participate in the May 2017 North Rhine-Westphalia state election.

Another Muslim-German party is the Bündnis für Innovation und Gerechtigkeit (“Alliance for Innovation and Justice”, BIG), which has existed since 2010, but without much success.

German law prohibits foreign funding of political parties, and a party of Turks would have to fulfill a certain range of obligations to get its certification as an official political party.

The Islamist Trap

An Islamist party in a democracy is, according the Algerian writer, Kamel Daoud, “a trap”. Especially in France. In an op-ed published in Le Point in 2015, he writes:

“An Islamic party in France? What a fascinating political object: one cannot refuse it, but one cannot accept it. Nothing better summarizes the situation as a French trap… If France says Yes, she submits in the long term. An Islamic party is an Islamist party by a natural slope…. By definition. Its purpose is to conquer the world, not just to have a mandate. Its mechanics were already established…. Islamists took power in the name of democracy, then suspended democracy by using their power. At best. At worse, Islamists opted for the approach of the crab that keeps its claws behind his back: no political ambitions, but a millenary ambition in the mind: convert the clothes, the body, the social links, the arts, nursing homes, schools, songs and culture, then, they just wait for the fruit to fall in the turban… An Islamist party is an open trap: you cannot let it in. If you refuse it, your country switches to a dictatorship, but if you accept it, you are at risk of submission….

“As soon as it bursts onto the political scene, the same consequences appear as in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, the Sahel or Tunisia: it divides the country between Eradicators (those who want to eradicate the Islamists) and Reconcilers (those who advocate dialogue with Islamist monologue) and the Fatalists (those who are waiting for something good to happen).”

As a fine political analyst, Kamel Daoud knows — and everybody knows with him — that nobody in France has the solution to confront the Islamist problem. The only question is: who will win? Reconcilers or Eradicators? One thing is sure for now, Reconcilers are in power for the next five years.

Another thing is sure: the first veiled woman elected as a Member of Parliament will trigger a civilizational that which has no equivalent in French history.

Yves Mamou, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.

Categories: Erdogan, French parliamentary elections, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Europe, Islamist political parties, Turkey and Islamisation of Europe
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Netanyahu: I told Nikki Haley It’s Time to Dismantle UNRWA

June 11, 2017
By David Israel

17 Sivan 5777 – June 11, 2017

Source: Netanyahu: I told Nikki Haley It’s Time to Dismantle UNRWAThe Jewish Press | David Israel | 17 Sivan 5777 – June 11, 2017 | JewishPress.com

UNRWA officials celebrating in a school run by the agency

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning called for the dismantling of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Speaking at his cabinet meeting, the PM said that the Arab refugees have their own separate agency which is connected to incitement against Israel, and which perpetuates the refugee problem rather than solve it – which is why it has to be dismantled and integrated into other UN agencies.

The PM told the cabinet that “a Hamas tunnel has recently been discovered under two schools in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is using schoolchildren as human shields and this is the enemy that we have been fighting against for many years, an enemy that is committing a twofold war crime. On the one hand, it first attacks innocent civilians and then hides behind children. On Friday I instructed the Foreign Ministry Director General to file an official protest against Hamas at the UN Security Council.”

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Netanyahu then confided: “Last week I met with US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. I thanked her, on your behalf as well, for her sharp words in favor of the State of Israel and against the anti-Israel obsession at the UN. I told her that the time has come for the UN to reconsider the continued existence on UNRWA.”

“Since World War Two, there have been – and continue to be today – millions of refugees,” Netanyahu stated, adding, “And these millions have the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), while most of the Palestinian refugees are settled and have a separate commission. This is UNRWA; it has its own institutions and considerable incitement against Israel. I regret that UNRWA, to a large degree, by its very existence, perpetuates – and does not solve – the Palestinian refugee problem. Therefore, the time has come to disband UNRWA and integrate it into the UNHCR.”

About two months ago, all 100 US Senators signed a letter calling on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to “act against the anti-Israel bias” in the UN, and demanding extensive reforms in UNRWA.

Ambassador Haley said during her visit to Israel last week that “the UN is bullying Israel, simply because it can,” and noted that “We’re starting to see a change, I think they know they can’t go on responding as they have done until now, they feel that the tone has changed.”

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