Seized Hamas Video Shows Israeli Commuter Train Targeted

A new train line in Israel may be vulnerable to terrorist rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Israel Hayom reports. Israeli forces seized a video showing extensive Palestinian surveillance of an Israeli passenger train from the home of a senior Hamas operative in Gaza, suggesting that an attack is being planned.

The train line is only a few months old, connecting Sderot, the town near Gaza which has been bombarded by Palestinian rocket fire for years, to Israel's center. Palestinians were discovered monitoring the train line only a few hundred meters away from the border.

As a result, Israel Railways and the IDF Southern Command are working to implement an expensive plan to protect the vulnerable stretch of track.

Hamas and other terrorists have been able to bring more advanced weaponry in Gaza, including anti-tank missiles, enhancing the risk to transportation and civilian communities in general.

As the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas seek to implement a unity government in the coming week, the video serves as a reminder that Hamas is a terrorist organization committed solely to attacking and trying to destroy Israel.

Palestinian Institute's Wishful Thinking

The Gaza based Palestinian Institute of Strategic Studies has issued a report in Arabic saying Israel's 66^th anniversary shows "the slope of the collapse of the Zionist entity is escalating." It mentions several factors which it says are contributing to this collapse, including a quantitative and qualitative improvement among Palestinian forces "which helps to increase the crisis and the problem in Israel."

The report claimed that the Jews are reluctant to immigrate to Israel, and that many Jews are immigrating away from Israel, and that the political and moral corruption is flourishing all over.

In fact, Israel's population has grown steadily, counting 8.2 million people today, 10 times the population when statehood was declared in 1948. That figure includes 1.7 million Israeli Arabs.

The report said that Israelis are defaulting from serving in the military service, and that sexual harassment in the army is increasing.

Hamas-owned Al Quds television featured the report on its main page. "The end of the Zionist state is not related to a timely prophesy, but it's related to the capability of the Palestinian resistance to expand the Israeli crisis and the problems, so the Zionist state will be incapable of countering the problems," it said, quoting from the report.

More Qaradawi Anti-Semitism, Calls For Jihad Against Israel

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, has notoriously made anti-American and anti-Semitic statements during his sermons and speeches. Earlier this week, his official Arabic website published notes from a speech Qaradawi gave at a conference in Doha entitled "Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa between the conspiracy and confrontation."

It called for the Arab and Muslim world to prioritize liberating Jerusalem over other issues.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism translated the article:

"His Eminence [Qaradawi] stated that Muslims are charged with the defense of Jerusalem and its recovery, He criticized the Arabs for complicity with Israel, pointing to the joy of the Jews at the candidate most likely to win the presidency of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. He said, the Jews 'consider him their Sisi and not our Sisi.'"

The article continues with Qaradawi blessing reconciliation between Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and the terrorist group Hamas, which controls Gaza. He called on all Palestinian factions "to defend the unity of Palestine, and to raise the banner of jihad, stressing that it is the only way to liberate the land and defend honor."

Moreover, "he [Qaradawi] stressed the need for armed resistance to the usurping enemy. He said that all the Islamic Umma is prepared for Jihad with life and money to restore Palestine, all of Palestine."

In the past, Qaradawi defended Hitler and made numerous anti-Semitic statements and gestures, including boycotting an interfaith dialogue conference in Qatar, saying he opposes discussions with Jews on principle. He has also called on Muslims to attain nucluear weapons to "terrorize their enemies."

Despite these repeated calls for violence, many Islamist groups and their supporters in the West continue to cast Qaradawi as a moderate. American academic John Esposito, who has worked closely with a number of Muslim Brotherhood front groups, calls Qaradawi a supporter of a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights."

Despite all of the troubles plaguing Middle East, such as the Sinai insurgency and the ongoing Syrian civil war, the prominent Muslim leader continues to preach as if Israel is the main source of the Muslim world's problems.

NYPD Commissioner: Seeking Suspects' Intel "An Essential Element"

A New York Times story Sunday calling attention to the New York Police Department's policy of seeking intelligence from Muslims its officers arrested won't affect the program, Commissioner William Bratton said Tuesday.

"Not at all," Bratton said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. "[T]his is an essential element of policing. I created this policy back in 1994, in New York City last time I was commissioner where every person arrested was interviewed by detectives about not necessarily the crime they committed but do they have information about other crimes and is there an ability to develop these people into confidential informants."

The Times story, which ran above the fold on Sunday's front page, cast the program – which also tries to enlist suspects to be informants – as a form of inappropriate policing.

Iran's Press TV was quick to publicize calls for a Justice Department investigation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "It is chilling to note that any Muslim who comes in contact with the NYPD will either be spied on or will be pressured to become a spy," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Seeking information about crimes and criminals is appropriate. Coercing people who have no knowledge of criminal activity to spy on law-abiding members of their faith is not."

But Bratton and Deputy Commissioner John Miller sounded unmoved. "We have to get back to planet Earth for a minute," said Miller, who runs the NYPD's intelligence division. "If you don't talk to people you don't get good intelligence," Miller said. Any controversy "is driven by how the program is characterized" more than its execution. That's because "the basic tenant of policing is that when you take people into custody you try to get information from them, this is how we take guns, this is how we seize narcotics this is how we solve murders every single day."

Bratton's comments underscore what Patrick Dunleavy pointed out Monday. Using suspects to try to learn about other crimes and conspiracies is an everyday police practice, has been for years, and simply is common sense. The Times tried to make that a scandal.

FSA Cooperation With Al-Qaida Continues in Syria

Cooperation between the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, continues even as the FSA tries to obtain more American arms.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, an FSA element, has teamed up with Jabhat al-Nusra in recent weeks in attempts to capture strategic hilltops in Syria's southwestern Quneitra province overlooking the Israel-held Golan Heights.

"The FSA and Nusra Front are cooperating on the front line," Abu Omar Golani, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front's media coordinator, told the Journal.

FSA forces have struggled over the past year to seize the hills in the area from government forces. Cooperation between the FSA and Jabhat al-Nusra has included "military operations rooms" where they jointly planned strategy before battles and helped coordinate unit activities, according to Golani.

FSA leaders denied that such coordination was taking place even though Jamal Maarouf, head of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, has previously admitted to fighting alongside Jabhat al-Nusra.

"It's clear that I'm not fighting against al-Qaida. This is a problem outside of Syria's border, so it's not our problem. I don't have a problem with anyone who fights against the regime inside Syria," Maarouf told the U.K.'s Independent newspaper last month.

Maarouf also expressed his support for Jabhat al-Nusra in a January Twitter post, saying all of the anti-Assad forces – including the al-Qaida affiliate – were fighting together against the regime.

The news comes as Ahmed Jarba, president of the rebel Syrian National Coalition (SNC), is in Washington this week and is slated to meet with President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Jarba publicly appealed to the Obama administration to provide the FSA with more advanced weapons, especially shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles such as the Stinger. He vowed that advanced weapons systems would only be used by select "professional" fighters to ensure that they do not fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Videos surfaced in the Internet over the past month showing FSA fighters using U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missiles. Rumors in the Israeli press suggest that the CIA has moved weapons to Jordan and plans to start arming small groups of "vetted" Syrian rebels within a month.

Fears that such weapons could fall into Jabhat al-Nusra's hands have spurred reluctance on Capitol Hill to arm the FSA rebels, who have experienced a recent spate of defections.

Numerous FSA Supreme Military Council officials have expressed support for Jabhat al-Nusra, or had their brigades fight alongside the al-Qaida franchise, since Syria's civil war started in 2011.

Such developments may serve to further reinforce reluctance in Washington to arm the FSA.

ISNA Official's U.S. Visits Draw Senator's Attention

A longtime Islamic Society of North America leader appears to be at the center of an inquiry by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley about a "hands off" list within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) service.

Grassley, R-Iowa, released a letter on Tuesday that he sent to the Department of Homeland Security in February asking for an explanation of what "hands off" meant, the Washington Post reports. The letter included CBP emails from 2012 about the impending U.S. visit of "an Egyptian born Canadian citizen who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood" and a close associate of a supporter of Hamas, Hizballah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The documents are redacted, blocking the subject's identity.

But they also describe the subject as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation's Hamas-support trial and as someone who said "that the US is staging car bombings in Iraq and that [it] is ok for men to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks."

Jamal Badawi, a member at large on ISNA's governing board as recently as 2012, fits all of those descriptions. He appears among Holy Land Foundation fundraisers on the prosecution's unindicted co-conspirator list. He is listed in a 1992 telephone directory of American Muslim Brotherhood members. In 2004, he issued a fatwa saying husbands can physically punish wives who persist "in bad habits and showing contempt of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations" as a way to avoid divorce.

ISNA was created by Muslim Brotherhood members in America in 1981.

Badawi, who also served as a board member for the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) Canada chapter, expressed doubt in 2005 over who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That year, he speculated in a Saudi Arabian newspaper that U.S. forces were sneaking explosives into the cars of innocent Iraqis, "and when the car reaches the checkpoint it explodes and they call them suicide bombers, perhaps the occupants of the car were not even aware that they are carrying a bomb in their car."

That kind of record should have been sufficient to keep the subject out of the United States for "endorsing and inciting" terrorism under the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), a May 10, 2012 email appended to Grassley's letter said. But other emails note that the subject sued at least twice over prior denials of admission into the United States, and that, in 2010, his records were removed from a watch list "and the DHS Secretary was involved in the matter." Under the INA, terrorism-based grounds of inadmissibility require special waivers from the federal government before the person can enter the country.

Although standard procedure for someone with this background calls for secondary inspection before entering the United States, Badawi has entered without it since 2010, the emails indicate.

CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske replied in April, telling Grassley that there is no list "which would render an individual free of the grounds of inadmissibility or from any other inspection requirement." A traveler might avoid "secondary inspection because information available to CBP has been reviewed and examined on numerous prior occasions," Kerlikowske wrote.

Seattle Muslim Pleads Guilty to Firebombing Gay Nightclub

A Muslim man formerly from Bellevue, Wash., who told a friend he thought "that homosexuals should be exterminated" pleaded guilty Friday to charges he firebombed a gay nightclub in the city on New Year's Day.

Search warrant documents filed in King County Superior Court say the friend, who also is a Muslim, went straight to the FBI because he thought he might be "be planning some terrorist activity."

Musab Mohammed Masmari, brought a one gallon tank of gas hidden inside a shopping bag into a Seattle gay nightclub around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 31 while approximately 750 people celebrated inside.

Masmari poured the gasoline on a carpeted staircase in the club just after midnight while hiding the container holding the rest of the gasoline behind a planter. He then lit the gas and ran away from the club, prosecutors said.

No one was injured in the firebombing. Two U.S. military personnel who were at the club put out the fire and the club's sprinkler system activated.

Law enforcement identified Masmari was identified from surveillance videos. He was arrested on Feb. 1 as he was on his way to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to board a flight out of the country to Turkey.

"Exterminate is a word you think of – you exterminate rodents, you exterminate roaches, not people," said Shaun Knittel, spokesperson for Neighbours nightclub, told Seattle's KIRO TV.

Masmari initially was charged with arson, but federal authorities took over the case after determining the attack was motivated by hate and the desire to commit terrorist acts.

Masmari faces a five-year prison sentence under terms of his plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31. The federal judge, however, is not bound by the agreement and could give him up to 20 years in prison.

UK "Trojan Horse" Plot May Have Spread

Attempts to incorporate stringent Islamic practices into UK schools may have proliferated from Birmingham to other cities, the London Times reports. School governors may have violated employment procedures by hiring staff based on their Islamic adherence as opposed to their skill sets, said Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).

This marks the first time that school leaders have acknowledged that claims related to Islamist influences permeating in Birmingham schools may be justified. UK investigators are conducting inspections at 21 Birmingham schools, and the city council is examining complaints regarding about 30 schools.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has become personally involved in combatting alleged Islamist infiltration into UK schools, the Times reports.

"I am hugely concerned about the allegations…I don't want to see Islamist entryism into our schools. That is a very worrying development," said Cameron.

Hobby believes that the "Trojan horse" plot by extremist Muslims to dominate schools in Birmingham is connected to other "large cities," but refused to name any.

"A tight network of religious leaders of the Islamic faith has made a concerted effort to get involved in the running of schools and to strengthen the power of governing bodies to have a dominant influence in shaping the character of local schools," said Hobby.

The allegations include some governors forcing schools to incorporate strict Islamic practices. Some of the concerns involve denying children, particularly girls, sex education, or music and arts lessons, if it is perceived to contradict Islamic teachings. In the past six months, five non-Muslim head teachers resigned.

Report: Pakistan's ISI Targeted US and Israeli Consulates in India

Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI) has a controversial history of assisting terrorists, including the Taliban and al-Qaida. Now, the Times of India is reporting that Pakistan's ISI has plans to conduct terror attacks on two foreign consulates in India, including the U.S. consulate in Chennai and the Israeli consulate in Bengaluru.

Official sources say that a Sri Lankan national confessed Sunday that Pakistani high commission in Colombo reportedly hired him as part of ISI's alleged plans to conduct reconnaissance on the two foreign consulates in India.

Sakir Hussain, a suspected ISI operative, reportedly told officials that he was supposed to set up travel papers and safe houses for two men the agency was sending from Maldives to Chennai.

An unnamed Southeast Asian country tipped an Indian central security agency about the possible attack, the Times of India report says. Hussain was placed under surveillance. He was detained after he arrived in Chennai, and has been undergoing interrogation. He reportedly identified a Pakistani official in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as his handler. Hussain said he was tapped for his skills in human trafficking and forgery, including passports.

The story does not explain why the ISI wants to wage the attacks.

But investigators reportedly found pictures of the consulates, including the roads leading up to them. These pictures "were downloaded at a computer within the premises of Pakistan high commission at Colombo and the same had been shared with Sri Lankan authorities," the Times story said, citing sources.

A Pakistani official in Sri Lanka dismissed the claims.

Fatah Official Calls for Martyrdom to "Liberate" Jerusalem

Even during the peak of Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations, Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi said that Palestinians would not abandon violence as a potential means. According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), Tirawi said that negotiations are just one option and do not replace use of the "rifle."

Tirawi has proclaimed that the two state solution does not exist and has called for Israel's destruction, asserting that "Palestine is Gaza…the West Bank… and Haifa, Jaffa, Acre," referring to all of pre-1967 Israel as "Palestine."

Violence and Martyrdom are central to Palestinian success, he said.

"Not a centimeter of Jerusalem will be liberated unless every grain of Palestinian soil is soaked in the blood of its brave people," said Tirawi at an event marking World Teachers' Day in December.

He also revealed that Palestinians "have conducted negotiations, while not laying down the rifle."

Click here to view Tirawi's statement.

PMW has documented the PA and Fatah's policy of alternating violence with diplomacy as a means to attain political goals. Tirawi's view that Palestinians "will rest the fighter's rest, but each period has its method of struggle," reflect this principle.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings