13 killed, 10 police kidnapped in Iraq Sunni-Shia violence

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed four state-backed Sunni fighters in Iraq on Saturday, security sources said, apparently viewing them as collaborators with the Shi'ite-led government of a nation plagued by sectarian hatred.

Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in Iraq have been amplified by the conflict between mostly Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite-dominated forces in neighbouring Syria.

The four "Sahwa" militia fighters were killed in an attack on their headquarters on the outskirts of Garma, 9 km (six miles) east of Falluja, a city in the western province of Anbar.

Gunmen also ambushed and kidnapped 10 Sunni policemen near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, a Sunni heartland bordering Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni militant groups have been behind previous violence targeting security forces in a campaign to destabilise the Baghdad government, which they reject as illegitimate. [...]

In other violence, tribesmen clashed with security forces and set four of their vehicles ablaze after a woman and three of her young children were killed in an army raid north of Ramadi.

A car bomb parked near an entrance to the town of Latifiya, south of Baghdad, killed five people, police said.

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Armed Tuareg and Arab groups clash in northern Mali

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Fighting has broken out in northern Mali between Tuareg separatists and local Arab-led gunmen, only days after the African country won a $4.2 billion aid pledge to help it recover from a conflict with Islamists affiliated to al Qaeda.

Rebel and military sources both confirmed the clashes, although they differed over precisely which groups were involved.

The violence highlights how pockets of fighters who escaped a four-month French-led offensive against the al Qaeda-linked militants in the north are undermining efforts to restore state authority ahead of a presidential election set for July 28. France said this week the 'terrorists' had been defeated.

The MNLA, a Tuareg rebel group, said its forces were attacked in the town of Anefis by a column of Islamist fighters on Friday. Its Paris-based spokesman, Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, said fighting continued on Saturday morning, with two of the group's fighters and at least seven Islamists killed so far.

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Islamist rebel groups clash in northern Syria (plus kidnappings galore)

BEIRUT (AP) — A wave of tit-for-tat kidnappings between rival Islamic militant groups in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo risks sparking large-scale internal fighting between rebels after clashes killed at least four militants earlier this week, activists said Saturday.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said a coalition of rebel groups known as the Judicial Council had accused another armed opposition faction, the Ghurabaa al-Sham, of plundering factories in Aleppo's industrial neighborhood. Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a former commercial center, is split between rebel and government control.

Any internal fighting between rebels in the city would play into the hands of the regime, which is trying to tarnish the image of the opposition by saying it is dominated by extremists linked to al-Qaida network. [...]

The two groups, the Judicial Council and the Ghurabaa al-Sham, clashed on Tuesday near Aleppo in fighting that left four members of the Judicial Council dead, Abldul-Rahman said. He added that the Judicial Council is now holding dozens of members of Ghurabaa al-Sham captive.

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Gunmen seize elderly father of Syria's deputy FM

A slow day if Mohammedland.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – Gunmen on Saturday abducted the elderly father of Syria's deputy foreign minister, his office and a Lebanese TV station said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Armed Syrian opposition groups have targeted top officials in President Bashar Assad's regime and their families in the past.

The father of Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was seized Saturday in the village of Ghossom in the southern Daraa province, Mekdad's office said. An official in the office said the man is in his 80s, but he did not know his name.

The abduction was also reported by Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which has several reporters in Syria and is seen as sympathetic to the regime.

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Armed groups bomb Libyan military posts in Benghazi

BENGHAZI (Reuters) - Armed groups attacked military posts in Libya's second city Benghazi with bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, an army commander said on Saturday. [...]

No one was hurt in the four overnight attacks on three Benghazi army posts, said the military commander, Hamed Belkhair. Homemade bombs were thrown in three of the attacks and a rocket-propelled grenade was fired in the fourth, he said.

The army had sent extra forces to the eastern city after a car laden with explosives blew up near a hospital there on Monday, killing three people. Attacks on police stations have become a frequent occurrence in recent weeks.

"The national army is being subjected to these attacks because they are doing a great job of cleaning the city of criminals' shelters," said Belkhair.

Russia Sends Warships to Syria

(WJD) Russia has sent at least 12 naval warships to patrol its naval base near Syria, an aggressive move warning the U.S. and the west against intervention in Syria's bloody civil war, several news sources reported Friday.

The New York Times reported that Russia has also sent advanced anti-cruise missiles to Syria. Previously, the Russians had delivered missiles called Yakhonts to Syria, but reportedly, this new shipment includes missiles with a more effective advanced radar.

The United States and Russia have been planning an international conference aimed at ending the conflict in Syria, which has resulted in some 70,000 deaths.

Meanwhile, the Times also reported that Israel has warned Syria to stop the transfer of advanced military weapons to Islamic militants. Israel has repeatedly signaled more military strikes will be considered to keep that from happening.

Earlier this week, mortar shells fired from across the Syrian border landed on Mount Hermon. Israel closed the popular hiking spot in the Golan to the public for a few hours as a precautionary measure.

NY: 16 Palestinians arrested for selling bootleg cigarettes and funneling the money to Hamas and Hezbollah

One of the arrested is linked to 1994 murder of Yeshiva student Ari Halberstam on Brooklyn Bridge.

14 of the arrested are in the US illegally.

NEW YORK (News12) - Sixteen people have been arrested in connection with a Palestinian cigarette smuggling ring that has possible ties to Middle East terrorist groups.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the NYPD busted the ring on Wednesday they say has made millions of dollars selling tax-free cigarettes in the city and upstate. Members of the ring allegedly dodged $80 million in taxes and pocketed at least $10 million.

Prosecutors believe the ring was run by brothers Basel and Samir Ramadan, of Ocean City, Maryland. Law enforcement officials say some members of the group may be affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Among those arrested is Youssef Odeh, 52, of Staten Island, a supporter of notorious terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Rahman is serving a life sentence for his role in an attempted 1993 plot to blow up New York landmarks.

Saudi religious bigots target Twitter

(Riyadh) It appears that in the deeply conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia where free speech is somewhat restrained, the little people have taken to social media in which to express themselves, which is why the highest take of Twitter in the world is in Saudi Arabia. Well, for the powers that be, that just isn't right. How dare the people do as they wish? Which is why the authorities have started playing the religious morals card in which to try and turn the people away from expressing themselves.

Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh (for Allah's sake, whatever happened to a simple Mr Smith?), the head of Saudi Arabia's religious police, has warned citizens against using Twitter. I quote:

Anyone using social media sites - and especially Twitter - "has lost this world and his afterlife".

The one good thing about this modern age is, it opens everybody's eyes to the freedoms that each man, woman and child is born with and that the religious bigot telling you to bend over and take it like a man isn't speaking for God. No matter how many times he tells you it's a secret, all you have to do in which to break their religious spell, is say hello to somebody you don't know.

Arab Spring yummies: Syrian rebel defends eating dead soldier's organs as revenge

(Telegraph) The actions of Khaled al-Hamad, known by the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar, handed an instant propaganda victory to the Syrian govenrment, which accused the West of ignoring rebel atrocities.

The video purported to show the leader of a breakaway rebel faction cutting the lungs out of a soldier’s corpse before apparently eating a small piece of the organ.

”I swear to God we will eat your hearts, Alawite soldiers of Bashar the dog,” he said, referring to supporters of President Bashar al-Assad from the minority Alawite sect.

Speaking to Time magazine, he said had no regrets about taking revenge - “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” - after finding images of regime abuses on the dead soldier’s mobile phone.

“We opened his cell phone and I found a clip of a woman and her two daughters fully naked, and he was humiliating them,” he said.

”Hopefully,” added Hamad, “we will slaughter all of them [the Alawites].” He said that he possessed another video of himself “sawing” a member of the pro-regime Shabiha militia with a “saw we use to cut trees”.

Hamad added: “I sawed him in small pieces and large ones.”

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Another Islamic paedophile gang found guilty in the UK

(Oxford) Yet another gang of Islamic males have been found guilty in the UK of grooming children, raping children and trafficking children. If you want to read into the story, you will find them here.

But the act of grown men chasing young girls for their sexual gratification isn't what I wish to discuss. What I want to point out is how over the 8 years this gang preyed on young girls, the authorities (police, Oxford council, hospitals, social services and child protection groups) all failed to act when the victims of these evil men reported the abuse they were suffering to the powers that be.

For example, one of the victims was threatened with arrest for wasting police time after she told officers in 2006 that one of the defendants had assaulted her. She said at the time: “I know they are doing it to little girls as well. Little girls in their school uniform.” One officer told the shocked victim: “You are not the first and you won’t be the last.”

Another victim was subjected to a violent sex attack at the hotel in 2006. She was plied with alcohol and drugs, then she sobbed while she was raped and beaten. Another guest overheard her screams and called police. Photos were taken of the scene and of the 14-year-old girl’s injuries, but the case was dropped.

Tonight on the bBC's Showcase news program Newsnight, the head of Oxford Social services Joanna Simons (who has been in office for 6 years) apologised for not doing enough and for failing these poor girls, but when asked if she would resign for her terrible handling of this case, she said... NO.

But what really has caught my eye over this latest case of Islamic grooming of little white girls is how so many NGOs are trying to tell me this has nothing to do with religion or race, and that actually more white men are jailed for paedophilia in the UK than anybody else. Err, people, the UK is predominately white (around 90%). That means in the scale of all things statistical, whites are going to come top. But hang on, what's this? The grooming gangs in Telford, Oldham, Rochdale, Derby, Rotherham were all men who had a Pakistani background and were Islamic in faith. While Muslims represent 2% of the population, they account for nearly 20% of the prison population, and the left try to tell me this isn't about Islam?

And there lies the crux of the problem. For years, if anybody looked funny at a Muslim, they were deemed to be a racist. Instead of arresting and jailing Muslims guilty of shagging little girls, the authorities blamed the victims. Free in the knowledge that the police wouldn't touch them, Muslims have simply carried out what their unholy Koran tells them to do - murder, rape and lie.

P.S.: If you feel offended by what I have just written, please take note: I was born into an Islamic family, I was taken into care at an early age for being a victim of physical abuse. When the authorities realised that I was not white, they changed my white social worker for an Islamic one. Her first words to me: "You have brought shame on your family" and "our father loves you". Gee, I wonder why I walked out and refused to speak to the Islamic bitch.

UN Rep Poses With Map of ‘Palestine’ In Place Of Israel

(The Blaze) The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) launched a German-funded project in southern Lebanon where the area’s Director of UNRWA Affairs, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map devoid of any trace of the State of Israel, instead presenting it as a map of “Palestine.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) captured the UN representatives’ egregious actions and noted that above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription: “Arab Palestine.” The text at the bottom of the map also reads just “Palestine.”

Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are all identified on the map by name. Only Israel is erased from the U.N. map. What’s more, The Jewish State’s towns in the Negev desert, along with Be’er Sheva, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, and the Dead Sea are allocated to Palestine on the map.

The map was presented at the launch of an UNRWA project to improve the water supply and rehabilitate shelters in the Rashidieh Camp, according to PMW. The map was reportedly a gift from the “Palestinian Women’s Union.”

According to UNRWA’s website, Germany was represented at the ceremony by the Head of Economic Cooperation and Development at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Lebanon.

High ranking Lebanese and Palestinian officials were also reportedly present at the event unveiling the Israel-less map:

Off-Licences in Iraq attacked by gangs armed with silenced weapons...12 murdered

(Baghdad) It never fails to amaze with the hypocrisy Muslims express when it comes to alcohol. We have Islamic taxi drivers refusing to carry the stuff, we have Islamic hotel staff smashing bottles of the stuff, and on the other foot, each and every Islamic restaurant will serve alcohol in the West. And today, another 7 Islamic males have been found guilty of grooming little white girls by piling them with... alcohol.

When I was in the Gulf, I used to see many so called pious Muslims knocking back the hard stuff in hotel bars. (The irony being that we non-Muslims were forbidden by the army to touch alcohol.) In Bosnia, we on the base used to get our alcohol from the local Muslims. In Cyprus, my Turkish workers would ask me to purchase Whiskey for them. When I mentioned that as Muslims they shouldn't be touching the stuff, they would opine that they were modern Muslims.

Well, it seems that the modern Muslims inside Iraq have taken offence at how alcohol can be bought from Off-licences. So, armed with silenced weapons, they packed themselves into 4 vehicles and went for a drive, shooting up Off-licences after first restraining policemen tasked to protect these shops were blown up last year. No doubt these religious bigots will have had a drink of the hard stuff on their return to the local mosque in which to congratulate themselves on another fine job.

Arab Spring yummies: Syrian rebel commander cuts out heart of dead Hezbollah soldier, bites into it

Apparently, Hezbollah tastes like chicken.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A video of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a soldier and biting into is emblematic of a civil war that has rapidly descended into sectarian hatred and revenge killings, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The New York-based group said an amateur video posted on the Internet on Sunday shows Abu Sakkar, a founder of the rebel Farouq Brigade who is well known to journalists as an insurgent from Homs, cutting into the torso of a dead soldier.

The video has caused outrage among both supporters of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition figures.

"I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog," the man says to offscreen cheers of his comrades shouting "Allahu akbar (God is great)". [...]

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said that he had seen an original, unedited copy of the video and that Abu Sakkar's identity had been confirmed by rebel sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers.

"The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," said Bouckaert.

He said that in the unedited version of the film, Abu Sakkar instructs his men to "slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them", before biting into the heart.

Abu Sakkar has been seen in previous videos firing rockets at Lebanese Shi'ite villages on the border and posing with the body of a soldier purportedly from the Lebanese Shi'ite militant Hezbollah group, which is helping Assad's forces.

Photo: Pro-Palestinian rally in NYC demands close Guantanamo and re-open Auschwitz

Link.

Death toll in Syria likely as high as 120,000

Setting new standards in bloodletting.

Two years, and their dead body count is the same or more than 10 years of war in Iraq, and more than 65 years of Arab wars on Israel.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria's two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

The group said that at least 41,000 of those confirmed killed were Alawites, the sect of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory, said that the Alawite death figures were confirmed by eight different Alawite sources in coastal cities and in Homs.

Syria's conflict started as peaceful protests against the four-decade rule of the Assad family but turned into civil war, pitting the Sunni majority against minorities, in particular the Alawites, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

"We believe the real figure of those killed from both sides is above 120,000 because both sides are being discreet on their casualties," Abdulrahman said.

The United Nations’ Hezbollah Protection Force

(FPM) The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1701 in August 2006, which brought about an end to the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The resolution called on the Lebanese government to “secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel” and authorized the peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (‘UNIFIL”) to assist the government of Lebanon to accomplish this objective “at its request.”

Resolution 1701 also required “disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon” except for “the Lebanese State.” The disarmament was intended to include Hezbollah.

In addition, UNIFIL was mandated to “assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment, between the Blue Line [the UN published border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel] and the Litani river, of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.” UNIFIL was authorized to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind.

On its website, UNIFIL declared that “UNIFIL deals with all parties even-handedly and does not ignore any violations.”

UNIFIL is anything but even-handed. It has become instead the UN Hezbollah Protection Force. It focuses on alleged Israeli violations of Resolution 1701. However, it looks the other way as Hezbollah has built up, under UNIFIL’s nose in civilian areas within areas of UNIFIL’s deployment of its forces, a stockpile of many thousands of rockets supplied illegally by Iran and Syria.

Just last week, for example, UNIFIL condemned Israeli overflights in Lebanese airspace. It said that ” in the course of the past week, it has observed a higher number of Israeli air violations over Lebanese airspace. Israeli overflights are in violation of Lebanese sovereignty and of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006). We are aware of the concerns raised by the Lebanese Government in this regard. The UN Interim Force has lodged firm protests with the Israeli Defense Forces on this matter, asking them to cease the overflights.”

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Report: Syria blames "murderer and executioner" Erdogan for bombings; Turkey steps back from Syrian war

(Reuters) Syria's information minister has blamed Turkey's government for deadly car bombings near the Syrian border and branded Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a "murderer", state-run Russian TV company RT reported on Monday.

The bombings took place as prospects appeared to improve for diplomacy to try to end the war in Syria, after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference as soon as possible.

"All responsibility for what has happened lies with the Turkish government and Erdogan personally," RT quoted Omran Zubi as saying in an interview with its Arabic-language channel.

"I demand his resignation as a murderer and an executioner. He has no right to build a political career on the blood of the Turkish and Syrian people," RT quoted Zubi as saying.

It said he repeated a denial of Syrian involvement in car bombings that killed 46 people on Saturday in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. Turkey has accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out the attacks.

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(Ynet) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey will not fall for a "dirty scenario" and be dragged into the conflict with Syria.

Erdogan was speaking a day after twin car bombs ripped through the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, killing 46 people – an attack that Turkish officials blamed on fighters with links to Assad's administration.

The Turkish prime minister added "we have to maintain our extreme cool-bloodedness in the face of efforts and provocations to drag us into the bloody quagmire in Syria."

"Those who attack Turkey will be held to account sooner or later," he added.

According to officials, nine Turkish citizens believed to be linked to the Syrian intelligence agency, have been detained in connection with the bombings.

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Five Suicide Bombers Dead in Failed Attacks in Northern Mali

We need more news like this; not of more terrorist attacks but of more dead terrorists.

BAMAKO (Reuters) - At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali on Friday in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on their targets, a spokesman for Mali's army said.

One of the towns hit was Gossi, the furthest south al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels have struck in a guerrilla war launched against Malian and regional forces since the rebels were driven from their former strongholds in a French-led offensive this year.

The attacks have had limited success so far but threaten to undermine international calls for elections to be held across Mali in July although security is not yet fully restored to a zone that was occupied by Islamists last year.

The suicide raids took place nearly simultaneously between 4 and 5 a.m. in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao.

"The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the (military) camp, but the soldiers ... destroyed the vehicle, which exploded," Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Maiga told Reuters.

"At the same time in Gossi, three suicide bombers on foot attacked a checkpoint. Again the soldiers ... shot them. The three bombers were killed," he said.

As the men exchanged fire with soldiers, a fourth member of the group entered a nearby military camp and blew himself up, slightly wounding two soldiers, a second military source said.

A bus driver passing through Gossi, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Gao, told Reuters he saw dismembered body parts strewn along the road, which links Gao and the capital Bamako.

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Dispatch from Cairo: The frighteningly uncertain future of Christians in Egypt

(The Week) Coptic Easter has come and gone. For arcane reasons, Copts, the Christian sect indigenous to Egypt, celebrate the holiday on a different date than western Christians, and last Sunday they did so in the typical Egyptian fashion. Coptic youth set off fusillades of fireworks around churches and Coptic and Muslim families shopped and ate late into the night.

Despite the revelry, this is a particularly uncertain time for Copts and other religious minorities living in Egypt.

The country has recently seen numerous deadly sectarian clashes between Copts and Muslims, including a particularly galling incident in April in which police and Muslim youth attempted to storm the main Coptic Cathedral in Cairo with guns and tear gas, eventually killing at least two Copts.

Amidst this growing violence, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, which unofficially controls the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, issued a religious edict banning Muslims from wishing their Egyptian neighbors a happy Easter.

The Brotherhood leader who issued this edict, Fatwa Abdel Rahman al-Barr, said that saying happy Easter "comes at the expense" of Islam and instead suggested offering generic greetings equivalent to saying "have a good year."

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The IRS targeted Jewish and pro-Israel groups in addition to Tea Party and Conservative groups

(WJD) The IRS may have unfairly targeted Jewish and pro-Israel groups because of their support for the Jewish state, the Jewish Press revealed on Saturday.

In a scandal just emerging in the U.S. media, the IRS apologized for subjecting Tea Party and other conservative organizations to unjustified inquiries that could have damaged the viability of these groups.

Now, it appears that groups concerned with domestic issues were not the only targets. The Jewish Press writes that the right-wing pro-Israel group Z Street was targeted due to the IRS' believe that "the organization was 'connected to Israel,'" and "the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies."

The IRS went so far as to claim

that because Israel is a country “where terrorism happens,” the service was justified in taking additional time to determine whether Z STREET was involved with funding terrorism.

It is unknown whether the IRS had any evidence to support such suspicions.

Z Street sued the IRS in 2010, claiming "viewpoint discrimination and a violation of its constitutionally protected right of free speech." The case has only now reached the point of a public hearing, having been stonewalled by the IRS for three years.

There are also indications that the IRS also targeted a Jewish group that did not deal with Israel-related issues. The Press describes the unnamed group as "purely religious" and "not focused on Israel."

The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”

Should these reports prove accurate, they would represent an extremely disturbing development, indicating not only politically motivated corruption but also religious and racial prejudice on the part of an extremely powerful government agency.

Palestinians in Syria Killed, Injured, Displaced

Strangely enough, nobody calls it a nakba.

"It is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle."

(Gatestone Institute) More than 55,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Syria to Lebanon and Jordan over the past two years, according to figures released by the United Nations Work and Relief Agency [UNRWA].

According to Palestinian sources, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in Syria, most in recent months, by both the rebels and the Syrian army.

Most of the Palestinians who fled Syria have found shelter in neighboring Lebanon, where more than 500,000 Palestinians live in several refugee camps in different parts of the country.

It is worth noting that Palestinians in Lebanon are subjected to apartheid laws that deny them work, social and health benefits, and freedom of movement.

UNRWA now estimates that approximately 235,000 Palestinians have been displaced inside Syria since the beginning of the conflict two years ago.

Just two weeks ago, some 6,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in Ein al-Tal, a refugee camp near Aleppo in northern Syria.

This was not the only UNRWA-run refugee camp in Syria to be targeted by both the opposition and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

"Ein al-Tal is the latest manifestation of a cycle of catastrophic violence in which the conduct of all parties has transformed refugee camps into theaters of conflict in which heavy weapons are used, resulting in severe suffering for Palestinian civilians," UNRWA said in a statement. "Palestinian refugees in Syria are being killed, injured and displaced in greater numbers than even before."

And what have the Palestinians' two governments – Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – done to help the displaced Palestinians? Almost nothing, according to the displaced families.

What have the Arab countries done to help the Palestinians fleeing Syria? Almost nothing.

Neither the Palestinian governments nor the Arab countries has even asked for an emergency UN Security Council session to discuss the new Palestinian tragedy.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is too busy touring the world and fighting with his prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

The Hamas government is too busy inciting Palestinians and preparing for the next wave of terror attacks against Israel.

As for the Arab countries, why should they care about Palestinians when hundreds of Syrians are being killed every day and no one in the Arab world seems to care?

It is no secret that most of the Arab governments despise the Palestinians and continue to treat them as third-class residents and a potential threat to Arabs' national security.

The Arab League foreign ministers who recently met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington did not even bother to raise the issue of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in Syria.

For these ministers and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, construction in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank is more urgent than the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.

But it is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle.

Turkey: 43 Dead in Car Bombings Near Syria

(AP) In one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey in recent years, two car bombs exploded near the border with Syria on Saturday, killing 43 and wounding 140 others. Turkish officials blamed the attack on a group linked to Syria, and one called the neighboring country's intelligence service and military "the usual suspects."

The blasts, which were 15 minutes apart and hit the town of Reyhanli's busiest street, raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria's brutal civil war.

Turkey already hosts Syria's political opposition and rebel commanders, has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and in the past retaliated against Syrian shells that landed in Turkey.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the assailants were from Turkey, but were linked to Syria's intelligence service.

"We have to a great extent completed our work toward identifying the assailants," he told reporters. "We have established that the organization and assailants have links to the pro-regime mukhabarat (intelligence) organization."

More...

Complete spire installed on WTC tower

One World Trade Center gets spire, bringing it to its full, symbolic 1,776-foot height.

Full story here.

Report: Muslim cleric invited by Obama administration to pray over fallen SEALs damns them during service

(WT) The families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 shoot-down of a helicopter in Afghanistan spoke at a press conference Thursday morning, citing a number of grievances, including an allegation that the Pentagon invited a Muslim cleric who “disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen.”

In addition to blasting the Obama administration for the mission and for an official investigation they deemed a cover-up, the families complained that “military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah.”

During the news conference, attorney Larry Klayman who is representing the grieving parents showed a video with audio of the prayer and a translation that scrolled over the screen.

Bomb squad detonates suicide west found at a thrift store in Clifton, NJ

Years ago, yours truly used to work in Clifton.

CLIFTON (WABC) -- A suspicious device found in a New Jersey thrift shop was detonated by authorities after a scare that closed a four-block radius and shut down a major highway.

Renee Dimitros, who owns the New 4 U Thrift and Vintage Shop on Lakeview Avenue in Clifton with her husband, found the device inside a storage locker she bought at an auction.

She said she bought 11 storage units at the auction in Paterson in the hopes of selling some of the contents in the store, which the couple has only owned for two months.

When she opened one of the units, she found a harness or a vest with electronics on the front. She also found a pouch with cylinders, wiring and a red button.

Her husband, Mike Hamadat, apparently started fiddling with the device, believing it to be a prop.

"But when he started picking it up, and I noticed that it looked like a vest," Dimitros said. "And I seen lights flashing, and I could see that it had these four cylinders in the front. I said 'Mike, that's a bomb. That is a bomb. Put it down! Put it down! Put it down!"

Hamadat had flipped a yellow switch next to the red button, which apparently started flashing, and the couple immediately called 911.

Responding officers blocked off the four-block area as the investigated. Nearby Route 46, which runs near the store, was temporarily closed in both directions.

After examining the device, officials from the Passaic County Bomb Squad detonated it a large explosion.

Hamadat said he was just concerned about the residents living above the store.

Authorities say the device certainly looked like a bomb, but they have not yet confirmed exactly what it was.

Cousin of Accused Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev Probed as Source of Radicalization

There goes, again, the lone wolf theory.

(ABC) Investigators have widened their search into possible contacts between one of the alleged Boston bombers and extremist militants in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region. This time, they are looking into whether the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was influenced by a distant cousin who is said to have ties to extremist Islamist groups in Dagestan.

The cousin, Magomed Kartashov, is said to be the founder and leader of a group called The Union of the Just, which reportedly promotes the application of Islamic Sharia law and has protested against the United States.

A lawyer for Kartashov confirms that Russian security agents recently interviewed her client about his links to Tsarnaev.

The possible ties were first reported by TIME Magazine, which noted that while The Union of the Just publicly renounces violence, several of its members have ties to militants

The lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva, confirmed to ABC News that her client met with Tsarnaev last year, but denied that Kartashov was an extremist. Instead she says it was Tsarnaev whose views were extreme. She said the two met several times because they are family, but denied claims by Tsarnaev's mother to TIME that the two had a close relationship.

Kartashov is currently in jail on charges of resisting police in an unrelated matter. His lawyer expects he will remain there for at least two more months.

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Tunisian Muslim Ahmed Abassi arrested and charged in NY in terror cell plot

NEW YORK (AP) — A Tunisian man has been arrested in New York and accused of trying to stay in the U.S. illegally to build a terrorism cell.

Authorities say Ahmed Abassi came to the United States from Canada in mid-March, meeting regularly with an undercover FBI agent. They say he also met with another Tunisian citizen who was later arrested in Canada in a terrorist plot to derail a train.

The federal indictment against Abassi was unsealed Thursday. Law enforcement authorities say he was arrested on April 22. He was arraigned a week ago on visa fraud charges.

Authorities say Abassi was seeking to remain in the U.S. to commit acts of terrorism and to develop a network of terrorists.

A lawyer for Abassi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boko Haram attack Nigerian town, kill 55 people

(Bama) Islam is a religion based around the phases of the moon, and in honour of the New Moon, over 200 armed, friendly Nigerian terrorists from Boko Haram decided to hit the town and stain it red, which is what they did by burning down the police station, military barracks and a number government buildings. They also attacked the local prison, murdering all the staff whilst in the process of releasing all the prisoners. In total, they succeeded in murdering 55 people for their moon god. No doubt they all uttered 'Allah Ackba' while they killed so many people.

Explosions heard in Tehran, Government say's nothing to worry about.

(Tehran) Not sure if this is the real McCoy or just the Twitterverse playing tricks. But bBC reporters based in Tehran report on hearing of a number of explosions at a site known to house missiles. No doubt as time goes by, this story will either develop or disappear. I've checked bBC Persian (Twitter and the main site) and nothing to be found there.

Ah, the Iranian government have offered an explanation to the above 3 explosions. Apparently they had been pre-planned detonations of old explosions By whom, he didn't say But I suppose that covers that conspiracy theory.  So move along now,nothing to see here.

Sometimes even I can't defend Israel from itself

(Jerusalem) As a non-Jew, I have no problem defending Israel and the Jews over how they conduct their business. If anything, I admire Israel for how it takes no crap from the neighbours. Yet once in a while something happens which even I can't condone, and how Israel complained to the UN about how 2 mortar shells had landed inside the Golan Heights which had been launched from Syria, is one of them. Any other time I would have backed Israel, but after 2 airstrikes within 2 days, killing over 42 Republican Guard soldiers, taking out a couple of missile shipments and making the sky light up over Damascus, and I think that the Jews are taking the piss here.

P.S.: Good work on the airstrikes thou.

UN soldiers kidnapped in Golan Heights

(Levant) In what is the second such abduction in as many months, UN peacekeepers who patrol the border between Syria and Israel have found themselves being kidnapped by those nice people who go around chopping peoples heads off while uttering 'Allah Akba'. But don't worry, apparently so concerned were these jihad loving followers of Islam for the safety of UN soldiers during a set-too between themselves and the Syrian Army that they bundled them away to safety. In fact, so concerned were the Yarmuk Martyrs Brigade that they even posted a picture of these kidnapped rescued soldiers on their Facebook page so the UN knew just where their soldiers were.

Study: 62% of Turkish Men Support Wife Beating

(FPM) In entirely unrelated news, Turkey’s murder rate for women increased 1400% as the Islamist AKP party solidified its group on the formerly secular nation.

Islam has a notoriously progressive attitude toward women with Mohammed declaring that most of those in hell are women. And as Turkey has drifted closer to Islam, the treatment of women has grown uglier.

A survey of 3500 Turkish men conducted by the University of Kirikkale and the organisation “Happy Children” prove what is anyway a truism in Turkey: of course most Turkish men consider violence against women to be completely normal, sensible and practical.

28 per cent of those polled thought violence against spouses to be indispensable: it was needed to discipline them. 34 per cent were more moderate and thought violence against spouses was only “necessary” “occasionally”.

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Report: Radical Islamic files found on Boston bomber's wife's computer

(NY Post) Radical Islamic materials and an al Qaeda magazine were found on the computer of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow — and there was explosive residue throughout their house, it was revealed yesterday.

The files found on Katherine Russell’s hard drive are part of an investigation into whether the woman — who claimed to be in the dark on her husband’s terrorist activities — was aware of his plan to set off the two bombs, The Washington Post reported.

It wasn’t clear whether the files belonged to Russell, 24, or her husband, 26.

The explosive residue was found on the kitchen sink and table and in the bathtub at their home in Cambridge, Mass., a source told CNN.

The surviving bomber, Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar, told investigators they built the bombs in Tamerlan’s basement.

Officials said female DNA and fingerprints on a piece of pressure cooker found in the explosive debris did not match Russell’s.

Authorities yesterday were also searching a wooded area of Dartmouth, Mass., as part of the investigation, while Tsarnaev family members made burial arrangements for Tamerlan.

His death certificate lists “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and “blunt trauma to head and torso” as the cause of death, according to Peter Stefan, owner of the funeral home in Worcester that has Tamerlan’s body.

Stefan said he doesn’t have an issue with burying the bombing suspect.

“Go back to the time when Lee Harvey Oswald died. Somebody buried him,” he told CBS Boston.

“Timothy McVeigh, somebody handled that. Jeffery Dahmer, somebody handled that. Ted Bundy, somebody handled that. I mean, we bury the dead.

“Can I control what the circumstances around their death? No. Can I pick and choose? No.”

Also yesterday, posters in support of Dzhokhar sprung up on walls in Chechnya, the BBC reported.

The posters declare the terror suspect “not guilty” and ask for donations to pay his medical and legal bills. Pro-Tsarnaev leaflets have also spotted in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek.

Syria: Anti-Assad forces occupy parts of northern air base, base commander killed

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels occupied Sunday parts of a military air base in northern Syria after days of fighting with government troops who have been defending the sprawling position for months, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels moved deep inside Mannagh air base, near the border with Turkey, despite fire from government warplanes. The Aleppo Media Center says rebels captured a tank unit inside the base and that the base commander, Brig. Gen. Ali Salim Mahmoud, was killed.

The fighting came hours after Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

The attack, the second in three days and the third this year, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's civil war. Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near Damascus and caused casualties.

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A closer look at the so called target of these Israeli airstrikes

Israel has now made 3 airstrikes inside Syria against so called convoys heading Hezb-allah's way containing Fateh-110 surface to surface missiles. So just what is it about the Fateh-110 that Israel doesn't like?

About
The Fateh-110, or "Conqueror" in Farsi, is a short-range ballistic missile developed by Iran and first put into service in 2002. The Islamic Republic unveiled an upgraded version last year that improved the weapon's accuracy and increased its range to 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Statistics
The missile is 8.86 m long, 0.61 m in diameter, and weighs 3,450 kg. It uses a single-stage solid propellant engine and has a range of 210 km (130 miles). The missile might be as accurate as 100 m CEP using a combination of inertial guidance and a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system, though some sources suggest that the accuracy is much lower, as they do not think that the missile is capable of much inflight maneuvering or correction. It can carry a payload of some 500 kg and is most likely intended to deliver a high explosive, chemical, or sub-munitions warhead. The possibility remains, however, that Iran could deploy the Fateh A-110 with biological or nuclear warheads.

History
The first test flight of the Fateh A-110 took place in May 2001, with a second in September of 2002. A third test was recorded in February 2003. A fourth test was successfully completed during the second Holy Prophet military exercise in November 2006. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard successfully tested the Fateh in January of 2007 during an annual war game. A fifth successful test was completed in September 2007 alongside the Qadr-1 and the Shahab-3. Additionally, unconfirmed reports suggest that at least five more tests have occurred since 2008. During its tests, the Fateh A-110 was fired from a fixed launcher similar to the one used by the Russian S-75 Guideline surface-to-air missile. However, it is more likely that Iran has designed a launch vehicle to make Fateh A-110 road mobile. The launch vehicles are probably converted Scud launchers, trucks, or Zelzal-2 launch vehicles. Reports indicate that the Fateh A-110′s tactical use is similar to that of a Scud system. Although Iran has improved the missile’s overall ability, its accuracy makes the Fateh A-110 ineffective against moving military targets. However, the missile is capable of hitting most large military targets such as bases and airfields.

Why Israel is taking out these missiles:
Israel worries that these missiles could be transferred to Lebanon's Hezbollah, providing a major boost to the Shiite terrorist group's arsenal. The Fateh-110 is more accurate than anything Hezbollah is currently known to possess.The missile would put almost all of Israel in range, and its precision guidance system poses a threat to Israeli infrastructure and military installations.

Photos

Video

Hezb-allah TV airs video of aftermath of IDF airstrike

(Syria) With the news that the IDF have struck inside Syria for a second time in 2 days, Hezb-allah, that Iranian funded terrorist org, has been the first to air daylight footage of the strike zone. Flat as a pancake kind of springs to mind. Funny enough, while Hezb-allah TV promotes the view that this was just a simple factory that bred cows and chickens and was surrounded by nothing more than farms, they spend an inordinate amount of time filming munition that just happens to be lying around, like, say, thrown out from the seat of an explosion. I can only presume that the animals bred on this farm situated on the Syrian-Lebanese border were fed a diet of high explosives. Also, can somebody explain how the military men all sport designer beards (as worn by jihad loving terrorist scum), unlike the vast majority of Syrian soldiers who appear clean shaven? Could they be 'Hezb-allah' troops? If so, what are they doing inside... Syria?

Venezuela replaces one fruitbat of a leader with another

(Caracas) Hugo Chavez won't be remembered for how he ruined the economy of Venezuela (power cuts, water shortages, food shortages, a very high murder rate) but rather for his half baked protestations of how he was a victim of nearly everybody in the world, bar Muslims of course.

There wasn't a week which went by when Hugo didn't come out with allegations of a threat against his life, be it from the media, the unions, the Jews, America, or even tiny little Columbia which is actually the next door neighbour.

Well, poor old Hugo is pushing up daisies, and you'd think that with a new man in office, that some sort of common sense would return to the President's office. Nah, who am I kidding? It appears that President Nicolas Maduro is as much a fruit loop as his predecessor. Which is why he has gone public with the revelation that the former President of Columbia (Alvaro Uribe) is out to kill him. I quote:

"Uribe is behind a plan to assassinate me. Uribe is an assassin. I have sufficient elements that he is conspiring, there are sectors of the Venezuelan right in communication with him for that,"

In response, Mr Uribe simply replied with:

"To the immature accusation by the dictatorship crazed by fraud and violence, only one response: that the elections be repeated.

What is it about the leaders of Venezuela and acute paranoia?

Mad mullahs blame Jewish sorcery for Iran's bad image

(Tehran) You know what, so many people are of this opinion that the world has nothing to fret about Iran's nuclear program and that actually we have more to fear from a combined US and Israeli attack on peaceful Iran than the other way round.

The thing is, the above assessment is based on treating the mullahs who rule Iran as being rational in thought. Which is where this premise that Iran is a peaceful nation runs into a huge roadblock.

You see, influential religious cleric Mehdi Taeb, who is very close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated that all the bad press that Iran is getting is down to... the Jewish sorcery. Yup, he claims that the Jews, used their magic to try to interfere in the 2009 presidential elections in which they attempted to oust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (gee, and there I was thinking he didn't get voted in), and that the measures that have been brought against the Islamic Republic (UN sanctions), the Jews made the US (that is a tool in their hands) impose the strict economic sanctions on Iran.

Anybody else wonder if there is something behind the rise of people claiming to be Jedi Knights?

Birmingham in the UK now the terror capital of the Western world

(England) Birmingham in the English Midlands has earned itself the name of the terror capital of the world. Years of political indoctrination by the left has resulted in the followers of Islam remaking the city into a suburb of any Pakistani city where religious intolerance in rife, where non-Muslims are attacked and where impressionable young Islamic males are brainwashed into killing for Allah. This is why Birmingham was home to an alleged Saudi financier of the 9/11 attacks, the birthplace of Britain's first suicide bomber and the centre of the country's first Al Qaida terror plot.

Not enough evidence you say?

Then how about how last week saw the convictions of nearly 20 young Muslim men from the city, who had planned to carry out a bombing campaign in the country of their birth?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about the Islamic idiots who wanted to kidnap a British soldier and behead him for the YouTube generation?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about the Islamic idiot who turned his house into a bomb making factory?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about how mosques in Birmingham openly preach hatred for non-Muslims?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about how British soldiers being treated for injuries sustained abroad face abuse from Muslims while in the hospital?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about how a gang of Islamic men raped girls for Eid (Islamic Christmas) and then laughed as they were sentenced in court?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about those 3 idiots who returned from Guantánamo Bay to a heroes welcome from the left?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about how a couple where shot dead inside their own home because they refused to allow their daughters to marry their first cousins?

Not enough evidence you say?
 
How about how a father (and his brother) murdered his own daughter for falling in love.


Not enough evidence you say?

CAIR enraged over talking Muslim terrorist doll greeting card

(Opposing Views) A greeting card picturing a talking Muslim terrorist doll on the front with the message “Hope Your Birthday Is a Blow Out” is causing controversy in Chicago.

The Chicago Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wrote an official letter to the greeting card maker, NobleWorks Inc., over the card. The doll pictured on the cover wears a traditional headscarf, a Hijab, and messages on her box read “The Talking Doll, Pull string for message, if you dare,” and “She’ll Love You To Death! She’ll Blow Your Brains Out!”

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Egyptian mob lynches teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader

AFP - An angry Egyptian mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, accusing him of killing a man over Facebook comments critical of the Islamist movement, security sources said Saturday.

The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticised the influential Brotherhood on the Internet, the sources said.

His action sparked fury in Qattawiya, a village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, where Yussef's father, Rabie Abdessalam is an official at the local branch of the Justice and Freedom Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohamed Morsi.

An angry mob surrounded the Abdessalam house seeking revenge, but the family refused to give Yussef up and hurled stones from inside the residence at the protesters.

A man outside the house was fatally wounded.

Police tried in vain to contain the violence and attempted to evacuate the Abdessalam family but the mob set fire to the house and in the confusion grabbed Yussef and lynched him.

The mob beat him up "and dragged him across 500 metres (yards) to his death," the Freedom and Justice Party said on its Facebook page.

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Your typical day in a Muslim neighborhood.

Why the British Government is out of touch with the people

(London) On Thursday, a number of councils in the UK went to the polls and - surprise, surprise - the ruling 3 political parties all lost out to the right of centre United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The reason for this swing to the right is all down to how the political elites for the past 16 years have refused to listen to the people who put them in power and instead they do as they please and claim that we the little people don't know what we are on about. This is why for years anybody who wished to discuss Islam in the UK, was instantly re-badged as a racist and thus silenced. Anybody who discussed immigration was re-badged as a racist and thus silenced. Anybody who discussed pulling out of the European Union was re-badged as a racist and thus silenced. Anybody who discussed black crime (since 9/11, more young black men have been killed by black men in London than have British soldiers in Afghanistan) is re-badged as a racist and thus is silenced. And so it goes... and the government wondered why British people who were denied a voice voted for UKIP.

And it seems the Tories still haven't learnt their lesson with the news that the Home Secretary (William Hague) is going to petition the US to send home to England the last remaining British citizen held in Guantánamo Bay.

But here's the Crux - Shaker Aamer isn't a British citizen, no, he's a Saudi Arabian terrorist who married a British woman and then buggered off to Afghanistan in which to help Al-Qaeda strut their stuff. If he is going to be returned anywhere it should be to Saudi Arabia. But no, the British Government who have spent 11 years trying to send to the Middle East another f-ing Islamic terrorist (but refuse to because of his human rights) are now going to import another of the religious bigots who despise everything (except the benefits) which the UK can offer.

Well, the day the UK government allow in this f-ing Islamic terrorist is the day I stop voting for the present government and vote UKIP.

The British Government - traitors to the British people.

Israeli officials: Airstrike on Syria targeted advanced missiles shipment bound for Hezbollah

BEIRUT (AP) — With a second airstrike against Syria in four months, Israel enforced its own red line of not allowing game-changing weapons to reach Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a heavily armed foe of the Jewish state and an ally of President Bashar Assad’s regime, Israeli officials said Saturday.

But the strike, which one official said targeted a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles, also raised new concerns that the region’s most powerful military could be dragged into Syria’s civil war and spark a wider conflagration.

The missiles were believed to be m600s, a Syrian version of Iran’s Fatah 110 missile, an extremely accurate guided missile capable of traveling roughly 300 kilometers (190 miles) with a half-ton warhead, an Israeli official said.

Fighting has repeatedly spilled across Syria’s borders into Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights during more than two years of conflict, while more than 1 million Syrians have sought refuge in neighboring countries.

The airstrike, which was carried out early Friday and was confirmed by U.S. officials, comes as Washington considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a “red line,” and the administration is weighing its options — including possible military action.

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Funeral director: No cemetery will take Tsarnaev

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The Massachusetts funeral director who is trying to find a cemetery to accept Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body says an autopsy shows the suspected Boston Marathon bomber died of bullet wounds suffered during a shootout with police and blunt-force injuries when he was run over by a car driven by his fleeing brother, according to media reports Saturday.

The official report of the autopsy on Tsarnaev, 26, of Cambridge, Mass., hasn’t been released, but the death certificate listed those causes, media reports said, quoting Peter Stefan, the Worchester, Mass., funeral director who is handling arrangements for Tsarnaev’s family. Stefan said he has looked without luck for burial plots in cemeteries in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, according to media reports.

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Another Obamacare surprise

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people with serious medical problems are in danger of losing coverage under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul because of cost overruns, state officials say. [...]

"We are concerned about what will become of our high risk members' access to this decent and affordable coverage," wrote Michael Keough, chairman of the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. States and local nonprofits administer the program in 27 states, and the federal government runs the remaining plans.

"We fear...catastrophic disruption of coverage for these vulnerable individuals," added Keough, who runs North Carolina's program. He warned of "large-scale enrollee terminations at this critical transition time."

The crisis is surfacing at a politically awkward time for the Obama administration, which is trying to persuade states to embrace a major expansion of Medicaid under the health care law. One of the main arguments proponents of the expansion are making is that Washington is a reliable financial partner.

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The Hungarian Nazi party holds its much beloved extra chromosome day parade

Another massacre in Syria and the liberal world remains silent

(Damascus) Have you noted that whenever Israel retaliates against those who launch terrorist attacks against it, the world's media always makes out that Israel is the aggressor and that the peace loving terrorists can only be victims? The thing is, I keep on getting told that Israel is committing mass genocide against the Palestinians, yet, contrary to basic mathematics, the population of Gaza and the West Bank continues to outgrow those of the Jews of Israel. The same warped logic applies when the most heavily armed military in the region decides to invade the tiny, densely populated area to the west (Gaza), while the left and Islamic world opine about how the world should do something about this latest outrage, the fact remains that the evil, child hating Jews can't shoot for toffee and after around 2 weeks of operations only mange to kill around 1,000 people each time. Surely that can't be right?

However, in Syria, genocide is a reality. The latest such mass killing having transpired in the Syrian city of Banias where over 60 bodies have been documented. Where are the outraged protesters on the streets of the world's capitals? Where are the protests outside the Syrian embassies? Where are the aid convoys to Syria (never mind the human shields)? Nope, nothing. Over 70,000 people have died in Syria since the anti-Assad upraising, and for some strange reason nobody seems to care. Yet when Israel takes out 1 terrorist, the shit hits the fan.

Mohammed born with no limbs, abandoned by his parents in Gaza, treated by the Jews

(Gaza) The left-wing media has no problem bringing you story after story about how the nasty Jews can only target children inside Gaza. Well, here's a story they don't want you to know. 3 and 1/2 year old Mohammed al-Farra was born with a rare genetic disease and thus, at a very early age he had his hands and feet amputated. His mother was forced to abandon Mohammed at the hospital as his father, ashamed at having a disabled son, simply stated "Me or the child", she picked the husband and thus, poor Mohammed has been brought up by his maternal grandparents ever since.

Mohammed with his Grandfather

Mohammed still requires medical treatment due to the genetic disorder he picked up by having both parents coming from the same gene pool. The government of Gaza refuses to fund his treatment at an Israeli hospital, so the doctors and nurses there fundraise in which to pay for his treatment.

Which brings me to what Golda Meir had to say about the Arabs in 1957:

Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.

Looks like peace is a long way off then.

Father shoots dead daughter after going to the Taliban for advice

(Afghanistan) In the West, we tend to sort out our own problems, be it infidelity, money problems, or even medical issues, we tend to resort to our own judgement and resolve our own issues. Some in the Western world want all the world to know about their problems and go onto a national TV in which to publicly humiliate themselves (think Jerry Springer).

However, what do you do if you live in the third world and need to sort out a problem which you want all the world to know about?

Why, you go to the Taliban and ask for their advice. Which is what one father did when his daughter, who had run off with the man she loved, was dragged back after 10 days of short freedom by her father, and as he felt that after people in his one goat village laughed at him he decided to write a letter to "Ask the Taliban" in which to get people to stop sniggering at him. The mullah's answer was simply take your daughter into the middle of a town, make her kneel down and shoot her to death from behind with an AK-47. Guess what, folks, he did. And people keep on telling me Islam is a religion of peace.

Peaceful Muslims attack Christian funeral procession: 39 people killed

(Nigeria) Muslims in the town of Wukari took umbrage when Christians who were marching to attend a funeral decided to help a few more Christians on their way with guns and machetes, resulting in: 39 dead, 30 injured, 30 homes burnt down and 40 people arrested. Damn, Muslims really go well out of their way in which to live up to their name of belonging to a religion of peace.

Dead marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had ties to two slain jihadis

William Plotnikov, right, is said to have had contact with the
accused, and now dead, bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

(Boston Herald) A notorious Canadian jihadi gave Russian authorities Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name under interrogation, an official told the Herald today, for the first time confirming a crucial link between a slain militant and the dead Marathon bombing mastermind.

U.S. Rep William Keating (D-Bourne), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, was briefed by his staff on the link between Tsarnaev and William Plotnikov, after his team traveled to Russia to meet with nongovernmental sources this week.

“That’s when the Russian government started looking at Tamerlan and he showed up on a jihadist web site,” Keating said. “That’s when they contacted the U.S.” The interrogation prompted Russian authorities to ask the FBI to investigate Tsarnaev in 2011.

Keating said Tamerlan also had contact with another suspected extremist, Mansur Mukhamed Nidal. Both Nidal and Plotnikov were killed in police raids last summer, and Tsarnaev fled back to the United States shortly thereafter, leaving behind the new Russian passport that apparently was a reason for his trip.

Plotnikov, 23, was an ethnic Russian who lived in Toronto, converted to Islam in 2009, joined the insurgency and made jihadist videos, officials said. After he vanished in Russia, Plotnikov’s family had contacted Russian officials asking for help in locating him, Keating said.

When Russian authorities did, they grilled him until he named other extremists, one of whom he identified as Tsarnaev, Keating said, and the Russians then asked the U.S. to probe Tsarnaev.

“They were trying to get information themselves,” Keating said. “It wasn’t simply a warning to the U.S. They wanted information.”

The developments raise more questions about exactly what information the Russian government initially shared with FBI officials. Despite being told that Tsarnaev “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer” who planned to travel to Russia and join underground groups, the FBI has said it found no evidence of terrorism activity, and that it didn’t receive any more specific information from Russia despite requests.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was added to a terror watch list, both by the FBI and later in 2011 by the CIA, who received the same information from Russia. But he was still allowed to travel in January 2012 to Chechnya and Dagestan, where he stayed with his parents for six months before abruptly leaving that July.

Keating noted that there is nothing to suggest that Tsarnaev had joined the “violent insurgency” to which the two men belonged, and he said it’s still unclear if Tamerlan had learned any specific skills during his trip, including bomb-making.

But the information stands in contrast to claims by Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar, who has told investigators the two self-radicalized before allegedly carrying out the deadly Patriots Day bombings that left three dead and more than 260 injured.

“Tamerlan at least had contact with the violent insurgency,” Keating said, adding of his radicalization: “That did not occur in a vacuum.”

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How many lone wolves make a pack?

(Boston Herald) Throw the book at them!

Please, no more talk about how they’re “only” 19 years old and they don’t understand the customs of the Western world. Deportation is way too easy. Two weeks ago, if they call 911 after they get the infamous “lol” text from Junior Terrorist, Sean Collier is alive today.

Obstruction of justice, misprision of a felony — call it whatever you want, these punks are responsible for one death and the near-death of T cop Richard Donohue.

Of course, we’re still supposed to believe this was a “lone-wolf” operation. A lone wolf here, a lone wolf there, three more lone wolves brought into court on Wednesday. How many lone wolves, as somebody asked, does it take to make a wolf pack?

Borat No. 1’s mouthpiece said his client “feels horrible and was shocked.”

Borat No. 2’s lawyer said his client is “shocked and horrified.”

Needless to say, nobody knew from nothing that their pal was a bomber, even though he’d been bragging to them about his bomb-making prowess. What could they possibly know about infernal devices? Well, they understood enough to get the Vaseline the hell out of Junior Terrorist’s dorm room.

And that’s another thing. After they got back to their apartment in New Bedford, the Borats and their faithful Cantabrigian companion “freaked out” when they saw their comrade on CNN.

Yet they again neglected to call 911. Instead, they return to UMass Dartmouth to scrub the incriminating evidence out of Junior’s room.

OK, so these guys weren’t the brightest bulbs. One of them actually flunked out of UMass Dartmouth. Who knew that was even possible?

Like the Tsarnaevs, they had a fancy imported German vehicle. Tamerlan, aka Speedbump, favored a Mercedes. It was all he could afford, being on welfare. The Borats preferred a black BMW, complete with that “Terrorista #1” novelty 
license plate.

As one of their fathers back in Boratastan said of the plate, “It was a joke.”

A botched joke, as John Kerry would put it.

And now the campaign to turn the Borats into harmless, lovable waifs begins. Why, it was just a prank, like rush week on Fraternity Row. I can see the campaign unfolding now, sob story by sob story, in the pages of the Globe, where Speedbump is fondly recalled as a “stay-at-home dad.”

You might say the PR cover-up has already begun. The most damning part of the complaint is their non-response to Junior’s “lol” when they ask him if he’s a terrorist. The Globe did manage to mention “lol” — in the 22nd paragraph. That’s not burying the lead, that’s cremating it.

Turkish Airlines implements Sharia law on its staff

(Ankara) Liberals and Muslims love to bring out Turkey as an example of what an Islamic state should look like. Problem is, they keep on omitting just how polarized Turkey is becoming. The latest such example is how Turkish Airlines has banned its air hostesses from wearing lipstick. (Well, you know how under Islamic mythology, women can only lead men astray.) This follows hot on the heels of how the airline has stopped serving alcohol on its flights.

Report on Islamic terrorism inside the US during 2012

Charles Kurzman, working out of the University of North Carolina, knocked out a report in February this year regarding the state of affairs of Islamic terrorism inside the US during 2012. He reports that Islamic terrorism inside the US is on the wane and that in 2012 only 14 Muslims were indicted (as opposed to 21 in 2011), and that the number of terrorist plots also fell from 18 in 2011 to 9 in 2012. (Must be because most of the Muslim terrorists acts are now classified simply as workplace violence.)

Read the report here.