WarSclerotic

Report: Iran Secretly Continuing Nuclear Weapons Work
BY: Adam Kredo November 20, 2014 10:40 am Via The Washington Free Beacon

(Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock….-LS)

Research, construction of nuke never stopped, expert report says

VIENNA—Iran never halted its clandestine nuclear weapons program despite repeated assurances to the West, according to a report that sheds new light on Tehran’s current and ongoing research into the creation of a nuclear warhead.

As the Nov. 24 deadline for nuclear talks between the West and Iran approaches, the report provides evidence that Iran continues to “vigorously” pursue a nuclear weapon.

The analysis, authored by leading former American and European officials, bolsters research conducted by the United Nations indicating that Iran continues to hide a great deal of its nuclear work.

The findings coincide with comments issued Thursday by the head of the U.N.’s nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, stating that Iran still refuses to explain its research into an atomic weapon.

“Iran has vigorously pursued its ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons,” according to the report, published by the International Committee in Search of Justice.

“No serious indications that Tehran has stopped or abandoned this project or intends to do so were observed” in multiple internal reports issued by the U.N. over the past years, according to the report.

“On the contrary, all the available information points to the conclusion that it has resorted to further secrecy and concealment to keep its program intact and unhindered,” the report concludes. “Further revelations and information all point to the fact that a military program and military related activities are at the heart of the Iranian nuclear program.”

The report was jointly authored by former U.S. Ambassador the UN John Bolton, former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, and former European Parliament Vice President Alejo Vidal Quadras.

“Tehran has worked systematically on all the necessary aspects of obtaining nuclear weapons, such as enrichment, weaponization, warhead, and delivery system at some stage,” according to the authors. “In other words, Iran has worked on specific programs and projects to master all necessary aspects of obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Multiple U.N. reports analyzed by the authors, including ones as recent as September 2014, indicate that “two [nuclear-related] systems have been fully functional [in Iran] during the whole period of the study,” according to the report.

These include Iran’s civilian nuclear programs as well as its military ones, which operate together in tandem, often in secrecy, the report states.

“These two structures resemble two concentric circles, working in tandem,” the authors write. “Over the years, the military part of the program has gone through reorganization or name changes but has moved forward including recent activities.”

Rather than halt the military components of its nuclear program, Iran has reshuffled its structure in order to obfuscate its efforts from international inspectors, who have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that Iran has been blocking efforts to investigate this work.

“According to available information, records, and documents, the military aspect of the program has been and remains at the heart of Iran’s nuclear activities,” the report says.

At least “five specific projects for enrichment” were identified by the report’s authors, who note Iran has never provided the IAEA with information of access to these sites.

Iran’s assurances that its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian use has enabled it to procure many key pieces of technology that also can be used for military purposes.

“A significant portion of the equipment for the military aspect has been obtained and procured under this guise,” according to the report. “Some organs at the highest level of the Iranian regime, including offices and centers affiliated with the president’s office have all been involved in smuggling or skirting sanctions to obtain illicit or dual-purpose equipment for these projects.”

A large number of Iranian military officials also have been identified as working on the nuclear program. The report’s authors interpret this as a sign that the nuclear program has military dimensions that go beyond civilian use.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “commanders have been involved in the nuclear program from its early stages,” according to the report. “A number of the most senior officers and top brass of the IRGC have been following this project over the years.”

It remains unclear just how the United States will interpret these findings, or those warnings issued by the IAEA on Thursday.

State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki informed reporters Thursday morning that Secretary of State Kerry will travel from Paris to Vienna to “check in” on the nuclear negotiations as they proceed.

Kerry’s “date of departure from Vienna is not yet determined,” Psaki said.

Turkish PM: Nothing will prevent us from protecting Jerusalem
By JPOST.COM STAFF 11/12/2014 05:41

(And now, a word from our moderate muslim friends in Turkey.-LS)

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu slammed Israel for its recent “attacks” on Jerusalem, vowing to defend the city and its holy sites, even if doing so alone.

“Nothing will prevent Turkey from protecting Jerusalem and the al-Aksa mosque,” Davutoglu addressed his party at a weekly faction meeting in Ankara, according to Turkish media.

Israel’s “brutal” leaders should not “dare consider” continuing their attacks on the city, Hurriyet quoted him as saying.

He promised his country would not be silent, even as the rest of the world turns a blind eye to the recent sequence of events in the capital. Turkey, Davutoglu said, will be the most vocal opponent against Israel’s actions, which have tainted the al-Aqsa mosque.

(Don’t you just hate it when Jews taint a mosque? Oh, the inhumanity of it all.-LS)

Five Syrian Nuclear Scientists Eliminated
Nov 09, 2014, 04:40PM | Rachel Avraham Via Jerusalem Online

(Anyone what to take credit for this one?-LS)

The Syrian media reported that five nuclear scientists were eliminated by unknown assailants in the suburbs of Damascus.

There was a report from the Syrian media on the assassination of nuclear scientists within the country. A media outlet associated with the Syrian opposition reported that five nuclear scientists were killed by unknown assailants near the suburbs of Damascus.

According to one version of the story, the five had fallen victim to an explosive device that resulted in their deaths. Other sources claim that the five were fired at via a car traveling near the Harana Bridge. It is still unclear who is behind the elimination of the nuclear scientists.

In September 2007, a nuclear scientist was attacked in Deir E-Zor in north-east Syria. The attack was attributed to the Israeli Air Force, according to foreign media reports. It was said that there was a plutonium production nuclear facility under construction built under the auspices of North Korea.

Major Democratic Donor: Israel Should “Bomb The Daylights” Out Of Iran
Posted on Nov. 9, 2014, at 1:42 p.m. Rosie Gray BuzzFeed Staff

(Interesting to say the least. I’m reminded of the saying, ‘Money talks, bullshit walks.’ In this case there’s a lot of talk, but is anyone listening?-LS)

WASHINGTON — Major Democratic donor Haim Saban said on Sunday that if he were running Israel he would “bomb the living daylights” out of Iran if the current nuclear negotiations produce a bad deal for Israel.

Speaking at a conference of the Israeli American Council at the Washington Hilton opposite Republican casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Saban said that if he were in the shoes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the event of a deal with Iran that he judged to be dangerous with Israel, “I would bomb the living daylights out of these sons of bitches.”

Saban, a major Obama donor in 2012 and Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008, also expressed deep skepticism of Obama’s policy towards Iran.

“At the moment we could have increased the sanctions, we decreased them, and that was a mistake in my view,” he said.

He said that he hopes Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposed bill to vote yes or no on the potential Iran deal will pass, and that “We should have taken some steps to show that we, the United States, mean business.” The military option, he said, needs to be “a real option and not lip service.”

If he were Netanyahu in the event of a bad Iran deal, “First of all I’d come to the full realization we’re screwed maybe.”

Saban said he believes Obama will be a “foreign policy president” in the last two years of his time in office because the new Republican congress will make it hard for him to get things done domestically.

Adelson was one of the biggest donors to the Republican side during the midterm elections this year; it was reported that he was planning to spend up to $100 million during the cycle.

In a rare joint public appearance, Adelson and Saban discussed the peace process, the Iranian nuclear negotiations, the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions movement, and joked (or seemed to joke) about buying the New York Times together to produce more positive journalism about Israel. They are two of the most influential donors in American politics; Adelson is a major funder of Republican causes and candidates, and Saban, an Israeli-American, was once the top donor to the Democratic Party. Adelson and Saban are both backing the Israeli American Council, which hosted the event.

The two seemed to share a rapport and agreed on many issues, though Adelson presented a harder line on the peace process, saying that the “so-called Palestinians” are an “invented people” and that Israel should build a “big wall” to separate itself from them.

“It is not about granting a Palestinian state,” Saban said, in defense of the two-state solution. “It’s about securing the future of a democratic Israel.”

“You are committing demographic suicide,” Adelson argued. “Israel can no longer live if you say we want to live as a democracy.”

They weighed in on the BDS movement, which says it wants to end the occupation by getting individuals and institutions to boycott Israeli goods and divest from Israeli companies. Saban said he is working with the Israeli foreign ministry to work on a plan to counter BDS, and Adelson said he’s had conversations with the Israeli American Council about “forming a consortium of pro-Israel and pro-Jewish community organizations that can together man a battle group to fight against BDS.”

They lamented what they view as an anti-Israel bias in the American media, and talked about how easy it would be to buy major newspapers together. Both already have influence with specific news organizations; Adelson owns the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, and Saban is chairman of Spanish-language television station Univision.

“I wish that Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the Washington Post because it would have been nice for you and I to have bought it, Sheldon,” Saban said. “Two hundred and fifty million? Bupkis! He stole it.”

“Why don’t you and I go after the New York Times?” Adelson said. “There’s only one way to buy it. Money.”

Poll: American Jewish Voters Back Iran Nuclear Deal, Bibi, U.S. Role in Middle East Peace
By Tim Starks Posted at 11:53 a.m. on Nov. 6, 2014 Via Rollcall

(The Liberal Left and American Jews…just doesn’t seem right.-LS)

A poll commissioned by the group J Street found American Jews voted heavily for Democrats (69 percent) in this week’s elections. It also offered a window into their views on a range of foreign policy issues.

A total of 84 percent said they would strongly support or somewhat support a nuclear deal with Iran that had these parameters:

Imagine that the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, China, Russia, and Iran reach a final agreement, which restricts Iran’s enrichment of uranium to levels that are suitable for civilian energy purposes only, and places full-time international inspectors at Iranian nuclear facilities to make sure that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. Under this agreement, the United States and our allies will reduce sanctions on Iran as Iran meets the compliance benchmarks of the agreement.

Of those polled, 64 precent had heard at least some amount about the nuclear negotiations, vs. 36 percent not much/none. Whether critics would describe a deal with those parameters in harsher terminology, perhaps by pointing out what such a deal wouldn’t include, is a separate question, as is whether such a deal is possible.

The poll found that, among politicians in the United States and other public figures, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) had the highest mean support (61 percent). Next most popular were Jon Stewart and Hillary Clinton (@hillaryclinton), with Republicans faring much worse, as you might expect from a group of largely Democratic voters. (For the Republican Jewish perspective to the poll’s results on Democratic voters, try here.)

Jewish support for the military operations in Gaza this summer was strong (80 percent total support), as was support for an active U.S. role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict (85 percent). That includes support for public U.S. criticism of both Israelis and Arabs (72 percent), but not as much when Israel is singled out (48 percent).

The topics that most interested voters in this week’s elections aligned closely with that reset of the electorate, with the economy the top priority. Asked to pick two from a list, the economy generated 44 percent of the answers, with some specific foreign policy subjects getting lesser support: terrorism and national security (17 percent), ISIS and Iraq/Syria (13 percent), Israel (8 percent) and Iran (0 percent).

The poll was conducted by Gerstein, Bocian, Agne Strategies. J Street is a left-leaning, pro-peace Jewish organization.

Iran Has the Bomb
By Peter Vincent Pry February 20, 2014 Via The American Thinker

(Title got your attention? I know this an old post, but it’s still quite relevant today. What if our leaders overlooked this possibility, for whatever reason? Are they blindly leading us to our own destruction or are they just naïve? And what about Iran? Will they attempt to preempt us? I wish we had all the answers. Afterall, it’s our lives that’s on the line.-LS)

For several years now, myself and others have been warning that Iran probably already has the bomb. Contrary to Obama Administration promises that they will know when Iran crosses “the red line” to build the bomb, we have warned that such claims are false.

U.S. intelligence is not good enough to so precisely and with such high confidence monitor and verify the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Defense Science Board Report

A recently published Defense Department study “Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Technologies” (January 2014), by the blue ribbon Defense Science Board, concludes the following:

“Closing the nation’s global nuclear monitoring gaps should be a national priority. It will require, however, a level of commitment and sustainment we don’t normally do well without a crisis. …monitoring for proliferation… presents challenges for which current solutions are either inadequate, or more often, do not exist. Among these challenges are… Small inventories of weapons and materials…. Small nuclear enterprises designed to produce, store, and deploy only a small number of weapons…Undeclared facilities and/or covert operations, such as testing below detection thresholds, or acquisition of materials or weapons through theft or purchase… Use of non‐traditional technologies…”

These intelligence blind-spots align perfectly with U.S. monitoring gaps against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Defense Science Board Report is tantamount to an admission that Iran probably already has the bomb.

Clandestine Nuclear Weapons Program

Like the North Korean nuclear weapons program, Iran’s nuclear weapons program is clandestine, mostly underground, mostly inaccessible to international inspections, and impenetrable to U.S. national technical means. Most of what we know about Iran’s nuclear program has been disclosed voluntarily by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.S. did not even suspect Iran was working on the bomb until 2002, after the program was in operation for some 15 years.

We should know from our own experience that Iran probably already has the bomb. During its World War II Manhattan Project, when nuclear weapons were only a theoretical possibility, and working with 1940s era technology, the U.S. built two atomic bombs of radically different design that both worked perfectly — in a mere three years.

Iran, with access to copious unclassified information on nuclear weapon designs, working with 21st Century technology, helped by the A.Q. Khan network, North Korea, Russia, and China, supposedly has been unable to build the bomb — after thirty years of trying. This is an implausibly optimistic assessment.

North Korea developed its first nuclear weapons in no more than 8 years.

Unreported by the mainstream media are warnings that Iran might already have the bomb by such experts as former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey; former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council Fritz Ermarth; President Reagan’s Science Advisor Dr. William R. Graham; former Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency Vice Admiral Robert Monroe; former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Ambassador Henry Cooper; and Israeli intelligence officers, the latter going public in the Israeli newspaper Maariv in September 2013.

Historically, the U.S. intelligence community has underestimated and been surprised by foreign nuclear weapon programs. They were surprised by the first Soviet A-bomb test in 1949, by the Soviet H-bomb test in 1955, by China’s first nuclear test in 1964, by discovery after the 1991 Persian Gulf War that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was within 6 months of developing an atomic bomb, by Pakistan and India’s nuclear tests in 1998, and by North Korea’s nuclear test in 2006.

Nuclear Testing Not Necessary

Nuclear testing is not necessary to develop a nuclear weapon deliverable by aircraft or missile. The U.S. Hiroshima bomb (a “gun-type” uranium bomb) was not tested before use — Hiroshima was the test. Israel, South Africa, and North Korea all developed nuclear weapons without nuclear testing.

North Korea developed its first nuclear weapon by 1993, according to a declassified CIA report and Senate testimony by then Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey. North Korea’s first nuclear test years later, in 2006, was probably for political purposes — nuclear blackmail of the U.S. and its allies — and to develop more sophisticated nuclear weapons.

Iran and North Korea are strategic partners and by treaty and in practice share science and technology. North Korean scientists are present in Iran helping its missile and nuclear programs. Iranian scientists reportedly have been present at all three North Korean nuclear tests.

A prudent U.S. foreign and defense policy would assume that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is probably on a par with North Korea’s.

See No Evil

America has a bigger problem with its intelligence community than the inadequacy of national technical means to monitor rogue state and terrorist nuclear weapon programs.

Intelligence community leaders General James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and Michael Morrell, until recently the Deputy Director of CIA, are proven liars, willing to lie to Congress and the American people to cover up the failures and transgressions of the Obama Administration.

Clapper lied about National Security Agency spying on the American people. He lied again in covering for President Obama’s false assertion that North Korea does not have nuclear missiles — during the crisis over North Korea’s threatened nuclear missile strikes in 2013 — belittling the Defense Intelligence Agency’s accurate assessment that Pyongyang does, in fact, have nuclear armed missiles.

Morrell lied when he altered CIA talking points on Benghazi to protect then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration.

Clapper and Morrell are clear indicators that the Obama Administration has corrupted — the technical word is “politicized” — the intelligence community. How can Congress and the American people trust their intelligence leaders to tell the truth about anything that reflects badly on this White House? The fish rots from the head down.

The biggest liar is in the White House.

The Obama Administration’s Geneva interim agreement with Iran is probably calculated to kick the can down the road so some future administration will get blamed if Iran eventually does a nuclear test. The model is the Clinton Administration’s Agreed Framework with North Korea, which never had any realistic chance of denuclearizing North Korea, but kicked the can to the Bush Administration, so they got blamed for the North Korean bomb when Pyongyang tested in 2006.

Nuclear Surprise

If Iran already has the bomb, why have they not yet tested?

Fritz Ermarth thinks Iran is following the example of North Korea, and probably wants to clandestinely build such robust capabilities so that its nuclear status will become irreversible.

Israel and South Africa never tested because they elected to pursue a policy of deliberate ambiguity, to reap the deterrence benefits of being known nuclear weapon states while avoiding the international opprobrium of making their nuclear status official by testing.

However, most of my colleagues and I conclude from analysis of Iranian and Jihadi statements and writings that Tehran is not interested in the bomb for status or deterrence. The word “deterrence” does not even appear in their military writings about the bomb. It is all about nuclear use, in particular a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would cause a protracted national blackout, potentially killing millions of Americans through starvation and societal collapse.

For example: “If the world’s industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate within a few years…. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot.” (Tehran, Nashriyeh-e Siasi Nezami)

The mullahs who run Iran want the bomb for reasons of religious eschatology having to do with the Shiite version of Apocalypse, the return of their 12th Imam, and the ultimate triumph of Islam in the secular and spiritual universe. In this vision, the Jews and Infidels (that’s us) must convert or die.

The Islamic Bomb has nothing to do with deterrence theory or geostrategic calculations familiar to Western nuclear strategists. The Mullahs have their own timetable for the Apocalypse. They hold a “12th Imam Conference” in Tehran every year to study signs and portents. Their development of nuclear weapons, and the failure of the West to stop them, is itself interpreted as one of the “miracles” indicating the Apocalypse is nigh.

The possibility of nuclear EMP attack is another “miracle” as it destroys the high-tech society and weaponry that is the source of U.S. strength. In this view, Western materialism and worship of the False God that is Technology becomes our downfall.

A Nuclear EMP attack would cause us to destroy ourselves by means of the corrupt lifestyles of an anti-spiritual civilization wholly focused and dependent upon high-tech materialism. We would die for our sins in the perfect act of divine retribution:

“In the context of the final battle… all of the planes and satellites will fall, computers will fail, other equipment will be made useless and… the Earth will be shaken … by nuclear war,” prophesy Abdallah and Shayk Muhammed an-Naqshbandi, “Technology will stop or turn against the Americans.”

The Congressional EMP Commission warned that Iran has several times detonated its Shahab III missile at high altitudes, apparently simulating a nuclear EMP attack. Iran has also demonstrated the capability to launch a ballistic missile from a freighter and make a nuclear EMP strike anonymously, and so perhaps escape retaliation. Iran has also orbited several satellites on trajectories consistent with practicing a surprise nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Iran has not conducted a nuclear test because its theocracy is not interested in diplomatic “signaling” or Western theories of nuclear deterrence and arms control bargaining. When the mullahs are ready, they will make a surprise nuclear attack. The vaporization of New York City and an EMP attack that crashes American society will be their nuclear tests.

The bottom line is that Iran is a nuclear truck bomb headed our way.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry served in the CIA, the House Armed Services Committee, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the Congressional EMP Commission, and is the author of Electric Armageddon and Apocalypse Unknown both books available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com.

The Nuclear Option: America Faces Most Dangerous Two Years in 150 Years
by Charles Hurt 5 Nov 2014, 11:52 AM PDT Via Breitbart

(This battle has just begun. ‘We the People’ have spoken, and very loudly at that. The emperor now has no clothes. He’s been stripped of his political party. The Republicans now have a mandate from the People. Stop Obama now or else!-LS)

If President Obama suffered a “shellacking” in the 2010 elections, then what he endured Tuesday night was nothing short of a vicious gangland beatdown the likes of which have rarely been seen before in the history of electoral politics.

This, of course, is a wonderful and well-deserved outcome. But beware: America now enters the two most dangerous years of her existence — or certainly the most dangerous since the Great Depression and possibly going all the way back to the Civil War.

Not to dismiss the promising results of Tuesday’s election.

Voters clearly and forcefully rejected the party, politics and policies of President Obama. They slapped his socialist agenda back into the days of Soviet gulags, where it belongs.

His grand visions of mighty government ruling unchecked over desperate ghettos have been snuffed out.

Gone, too, were the so-called “low-information voters” who have been coaxed to the polls since 2008 on lies and false promises that the federal government would solve all their problems.

They are used up and wrung out.

Even the onslaught of threats and desperate accusations in endless emails to their Obamaphones couldn’t motivate those people to the polls one more time.

Voters rejected the craven, crass and mafioso tactics of Senate Leader Harry Reid.

Voters stripped him of his baldly partisan use of the United States Senate as a graveyard for all House legislation in order to protect his Democrats from tough votes and insulate the President from reality.

The little man with giant fists got staggered by a nasty uppercut from voters even though Reid saw it coming for weeks. Now, the ex-boxer stumbles on the canvas all tangled in the ropes, waiting for the bell.

And voters also rejected the loony-toon delusions of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Honestly, the woman should be running a hat and wig shop in Haight-Ashbury, selling weed and prescription pills on the side. How it is that Democrats in Congress have taken her so seriously for so long will baffle historians for decades.

The silver lining for Democrats today is now they now have the perfect excuse to bounce both of them out of leadership forever.

And this is where things get very, very dangerous for America. President Obama still has two more years left in his final term.

Already, he has demonstrated again and again that he has no regard for the constitution or the legitimacy of laws when they do not suit his agenda. He flaunts his disregard for the constitutional process, dismisses laws he doesn’t like and rewrites others.

He mocks the powers of Congress. The Supreme Court has slapped him down more than any president in recent times. All of this as he tells us he is an expert on constitutional law.

Now come his very explicit threats to pass more illegal and unconstitutional presidential edicts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens already in the United States. This, in turn, will issue invitations for millions more illegals to come streaming across the border.

It will not end at immigration. Unchecked power is addictive.

Disowned by Democrats and made to feel irrelevant in this election, President Obama’s enormous and unjustified ego is deeply wounded. He is frustrated and feels caged, cornered. This is when people like him are most dangerous.

Buoyant Republicans will make an effort to engage him.

But President Obama is not a listener. He is not a negotiator. He is not a learner. He will just take what he wants. It is easier that way.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme during the Great Depression was nothing like the strains this president has put on Constitution. Indeed, not since the Civil War has America faced such a dire threat to her existence as a lawful, constitutional republic.

The difference in leadership between then and now could not be more striking.

To bind the union, Abraham Lincoln took an economic and political war and elevated it into something higher. He made it about emancipating slaves and won. And saved the Republic.

This president does the opposite. He got elected promising to elevate politics but instead finds unity and sows discord, often inciting racial divisions.

America’s only hope today is that President Obama finally turns to the bust of Lincoln he keeps in the Oval Office and listens.

Suspected shooter worked at Begin Center, vowed to be ‘thorn in Zionist side’
By Ilan Ben Zion and Elhanan Miller October 30, 2014, 3:22 pm Via Times of Israel

The owner of the Terasa restaurant, located at the Menachem Begin Center in Jerusalem,  speaks to press on October 30, 2014. Photo credit: Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

(“Yehuda, I’m sorry, but the things you said hurt me.”…Not a very good reason to shoot someone, now is it.-LS)

Mu’taz Hijazi, the man suspected of attempting to assassinate a Temple Mount activist Wednesday night outside Jerusalem’s Begin Heritage Center, was an employee at the institution’s restaurant and previously served for over a decade in Israeli prison.

Hijazi worked in the kitchen at the Terasa restaurant at the center, which has been frequented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ther Israeli leaders. The manager at Terasa Wednesday night told the news site that Hijazi was let off work at 9:40 p.m., roughly a half hour before the shooting of Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick.

His boss told the NRG news website that Hijazi had been working at Terasa for about a year, and said the restaurant was cooperating with the police investigation.

A man identified by Israeli and Palestinian media as Hijazi was killed in a shootout with police in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor Thursday morning.

The deputy director of the Begin Heritage Center told NRG that Hijazi worked for a company that contracted for the restaurant.

“We check the workers who come in here, and there are security guards like at every other public institution,” Moshe Foxman said.

Mu’taz Hijazi, in an undated photo. (photo credit: Flash90)

It wasn’t clear whether background checks had been run on Hijazi before he was hired. Palestinian sources said that Hijazi served 11 years in Israeli prison for terrorist activity during the Second Intifada, and was released in 2012. He was reported to have originally been sentenced to six years, but was given an additional five after he attacked prison guards.

In a 2012 interview shortly after his release from prison, Hijazi told the Ramallah-based Al-Quds News outlet that “God willing, I’ll be a thorn in the side of the Zionist project of Judaizing Jerusalem.”

“I’m happy most of all to return to Jerusalem,” he added.

Prior to firing at Glick at the end of the Temple Mount conference at the Begin Center on Wednesday night, Hijazi allegedly approached the rabbi, and told him, “Yehuda, I’m sorry, but the things you said hurt me.” Glick asked him what he meant, but the gunman did not respond, instead gunning him down, Channel 2 reported. Glick remained in very serious but stable condition in the hospital late Thursday.

Police cornered Hijazi at his home in Abu Tor, an Arab-Jewish neighborhood that lies on the seam line between East and West Jerusalem, Thursday morning. Israeli authorities said that they attempted to arrest Hijazi on suspicion of shooting Glick four times, but that he opened fire, was shot and killed.

Hijazi’s body was reportedly taken into Israeli custody, and his brother and father were detained by police. According to Palestinian Quds TV, Hijazi’s family said his house would be demolished within 24 hours.

View of the entrance to the Terasa restaurant, located at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on October 30, 2014. (photo credit: Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90

Islamic Jihad and Hamas both praised the shooting of Glick on Thursday. Islamic Jihad spokesperson in Gaza Daud Shihab said that the “radical Zionist” got what was coming to him, and called him one of the most dangerous inciters. Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum praised the “heroic attack” and called on East Jerusalem residents and Palestinians in general to carry out more terrorist attacks against Israel.

Fatah’s youth movement in Jordan also claimed in a message posted Thursday morning on the movement’s Facebook page that Hijazi belonged to the organization.

“With great pride Fatah salutes the martyr its heroic ‘martyr of Jerusalem’ Mu’taz Hijazi, who carried out the assassination of Rabbi Yehuda Glick,” the poster read. Glick remained in serious but stable condition Thursday after undergoing surgery on four gunshot wounds to the abdomen, chest, hand and neck.

Rabbi Yehudah Glick (Photo credit: Flash90

A website affiliated with also Islamic Jihad claimed that Hijazi was one of its members. It published a bio of Hijazi on its website, noting that he was arrested in 2000, burned and destroyed “settler property in occupied Jerusalem,” attacked two jailers with a razor after they cursed him using the name of God, beat an interrogator who had tortured him during an investigation, frequented the Al-Aqsa mosque, and spent 10 of his 11 years in jail in solitary confinement.

Israeli security officials were investigating the possibility that Hijazi was responsible for the shooting of IDF soldier Chen Schwartz in Jerusalem during this summer’s conflict with the Gaza Strip. Schwartz was shot twice in the stomach on Mount Scopus and was critically injured.

Isis wants to spread Ebola: security chief
Published: 30 Oct 2014 10:13 GMT+01:00 Via The Local (Spain)

(Even if ineffective, such an attack could result in widespread panic.-LS)

The Spanish government is taking seriously discussions in internet chat rooms on how terrorists could use biological weapons including Ebola in its war against the West, a top official said in parliament on Wednesday.

Spain’s state secretary for security, Francisco Martínez, has told Congress that jihadists with connections to the extremist force Isis have discussed on internet forums how they could use Ebola as a weapon against the United States and the West in general.

Speaking on Wednesday in the congressional Interior Committee, Martínez pointed to internet conversations of this kind as proof that jihadists treat cyberspace as “an extension of the battlefield”.

The state secretary said that it was necessary to combat the online challenge posed by extremists’ use of the internet, explaining that terrorist groups have identified six objectives in their online activities: “Threatening enemies through propaganda, preparing operations, exchanging information, ideological training, recruiting new members and acquiring finance”.

According to Spain’s RTVE public broadcasting corporation, the interior ministry number two said there had been “many examples” of threats to use the Ebola virus and other toxins in a new form of terrorism offensive against the West, referring specifically to three recent cases.

Most recently there was the “jihadist chat room” conversation discovered in mid-September in which “the use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States” was discussed in a forum Martínez described as “linked to Isis”.

The security chief also mentioned a series of tweets from July in which, he said, the terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam was shown to be considering the use of “deadly chemical products from laboratories”.

Finally, Martínez told his audience of lawmakers that Isis’s spokesman had issued an internet call for supporters to kill Westerners, including civilians, by any means possible, including “poisonous injections”.

Earlier in October US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson dismissed suggestions Isis was planning to use biological weapons, including the Ebola virus, to attack the United States.

“We’ve seen no specific credible intelligence that [Isis] is attempting to use any sort of disease or virus to attack our homeland,” Johnson said in remarks to the Association of the United States Army.

Owner Declares Her Gun Range a Muslim-Free Zone
September 30, 2014 Via Moonbattery

(How to exercise your right to avoid death.-LS)

Is this still a free country? If so, we still enjoy the fundamental right of freedom of association. That would mean there will be no retaliation from the Islamophile federal government over Jan Morgan’s announcement that Muslims are no longer welcome at her Hot Springs, Arkansas business, the Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range.

The policy is well-founded. From the owner’s website:

The primary reasons I do not want muslims shooting at my range are listed:

1) The Koran (which I have read and studied thoroughly) and (which all muslims align themselves with), contains 109 verses commanding hate, murder and terror against all human beings who refuse to submit or convert to Islam. Read those verses of violence here.

2) My life has been threatened repeatedly by muslims in response to my publication of those verses from their Koran. Why would I want to rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me?

3) * The barbaric act of beheading an innocent American in Oklahoma by a muslim
* the Boston bombings (by muslims)
* the Foot Hood mass shooting (by a muslim) that killed 13 people and injured over 30 people
* and the murder of 3000 innocent people (by muslims) on 9/11
This is more than enough loss of life on my home soil at the hands of muslims to substantiate my position that muslims can and may follow the directives in their Koran and kill here at home.

4) Two muslims walked in to my range last week with allah akbar ring tone and message alert tones on their smart phones. They spoke very little english, one did not have proof of U.S. citizenship, yet they wanted to rent and shoot guns.
Their behavior was so strange, it was unnerving to my patrons. No one would enter the range to shoot while they were there. Some of my customers left.
(can you blame them?)

5) * Muslims, who belong to and, or, support ISIS, are threatening to kill innocent Americans.
* Muslims, who belong to or support AL Qaeda, are threatening to kill innocent Americans.
* Muslims who belong to or support HAMAS are threatening to kill innocent Americans.
See a common thread here?

6) I have a federal firearms license… The ATF informed us when we received the license that if we feel any reason for concern about selling someone a firearm, even sense that something is not right about an individual, or if we are concerned about that persons mental state, even if they pass a background check, we do not have to sell that person a gun.
In other words, a federal agency has given us this kind of discretion for service based on the nature of the business. I can and have turned people away if I sense an issue with their mental state.

7) I understand that not all muslims are terrorists. […] Since I have no way of discerning which muslims will or will not kill in the name of their religion and the commands in their koran…I choose to err on the side of caution for the safety of my patrons. […]

In summary, people who shoot at my range come from all religious backgrounds… some are atheists… I do not care about their religious beliefs until or unless those beliefs command them to commit violent crimes against innocent people and I witness those crimes increasing, as we all have lately.

If you had received death threats by muslims, would you want the government telling you that you had to allow them in to your home or business and hand them a loaded gun?

I will do whatever is necessary to provide a safe environment for my customers, even at the cost of the increased threats and legal problems this decision will likely provoke.

Jan Morgan- owner / The Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range

Ironically, gun ranges are the one place Americans are relatively safe from Muslims, since everyone there is armed, and any Religion of Peacenik who starts murdering people to please their evil god will be cut down quickly. Nonetheless it is Morgan’s store, and if she doesn’t feel it wise to provide guns to Islamists, that is her decision to make. Any non-Muslim within driving distance is encouraged to patronize her business; she will need every penny she can lay her hands on to fight off the lawsuits and federal government.

If she has the courage to stand up to both Islamic maniacs and the Injustice Department, she can probably withstand being denounced as a “bigot” by foolish moonbats even at pro-gun sites who don’t understand that she is not denying anyone their rights, because her business is private.

We will hear sanctimonious squawking about the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom from liberals who normally undermine this clause at every opportunity. But even if you regard Islam as a legitimate religion and not a fascistic death cult, the First Amendment protects people from the government, not from Jan Morgan. If you want to worship Allah at the gun range, you are still free to do it at someone else’s.

Kudos to this brave woman.