Never Mind Israel, Iran’s First Target Might Be its Arab Neighbors

From Commentary Magazine:

As Jonathan noted, the New York Times seems determined to downplay Iran’s verbal threats against Israel, first eliminating them from its report on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech last week and then dismissing them as mere “posturing and saber-rattling.” And I can understand why: Israel is the only country to be openly weighing military action against Tehran’s nuclear program. So dismiss the validity of the threat Iran poses to Israel, and you’ve also seemingly dismissed any need for military action.

The only problem with this approach is that far from being the only country seriously threatened by Iran, Israel may well not even be at the top of the list. To understand why this is so, it suffices to recall Saddam Hussein. Saddam also threatened night and day to destroy Israel. Yet the country he actually tried to wipe off the map wasn’t Israel, but Kuwait.


Nor is this surprising: Saddam’s Iraq, like today’s Iran, aspired to dominate the region. And for that purpose, taking over neighboring Kuwait was far more useful than attacking Israel, both to acquire Kuwait’s bountiful oil fields and to undermine another contender for regional dominance, Kuwaiti ally Saudi Arabia.

Because Israel is isolated from the rest of the Middle East, it is completely irrelevant to the internal jockeying for supremacy among the region’s various Muslim powers. Hence, if Iran’s goal is regional hegemony, then attacking Israel would be a sideshow, just as it was for Saddam – who, while launching a full-scale invasion of Kuwait, made do with lobbing a token 40 Scuds at Israel. The most important targets would be Iran’s regional rivals, first and foremost Saudi Arabia and its allies.

That is why, as Wikileaks revealed two years ago, Arab countries have consistently demanded more forceful American action against Iran. Saudi Arabia, for instance, delivered “frequent exhortations to the U.S. to attack Iran,” demanding it “cut off the head of the snake.” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi warned that “[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is Hitler.” King Hamad of Bahrain said Iran’s nuclear program “must be stopped,” because “the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.” Lebanon’s Saad Hariri urged military action by saying, “Iraq was unnecessary. Iran is necessary.” A senior Jordanian official said even though bombing Iran would have “catastrophic” consequences, “he nonetheless thought preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would pay enough dividends to make it worth the risks.”

What all these countries know is that they, rather than Israel, might well be Iran’s first targets – but unlike Israel, they lack the military capability even to credibly threaten to attack Iran themselves. And because these countries include some of the world’s major oil producers, that should be of great concern to the West.

None of this means the Iranian threat to Israel isn’t real: Even if a nuclear Iran never attacked Israel directly, it could still wreak havoc via satellite groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. But Israel is far from being the only country threatened by Iran. And it’s about time Western pundits and policymakers woke up to that fact.

Pics of the day: Done and Gone

U.S. Embassy in Syria Closed, Diplomats Evacuated

Another Obama foreign policy FAIL.

WASHINGTON (ABC) - The United States has whisked its remaining diplomats out of Syria and suspended operations at its embassy in Damascus as violence there continues to increase, U.S. officials told ABC News.

The skeletal staff, including Ambassador Robert Ford, departed quietly despite being denied exit visas by Syrian authorities in some cases, officials said.

The embassy had already pared down its staff over the past several months amid concerns about their security. After the latest round of reductions in January, a core group of 17 staff members remained in the country. Some departed overland to Jordan while others flew out of the airport in the capital.

The shuttering of the embassy follows similar steps by other Western countries in recent weeks. A U.S. official said that talks are ongoing with Poland to serve as the American protecting power in Syria while the U.S. embassy is closed.

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Simpson Dolls Join Barbie on Iran Ban List

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – An Iranian government-affiliated agency has banned dolls of the Simpsons cartoon characters, who join Barbie and others on a toy blacklist, an independent newspaper reported on Monday.

The report said that the Simpsons were banned to avoid the promotion of Western culture. But Superman and Spiderman were allowed, because they helped the "oppressed."

"We do not want to promote this cartoon by importing the toys," Shargh daily quoted Mohammad Hossein Farjoo, secretary of policymaking at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, as saying.

He did not elaborate on what was wrong with the Simpsons specifically. But he noted that any doll on which genitals are distinguishable, as well as dolls of adults, are banned. So were toys with speakers that blare out the voices of Western singers, or toy kitchen sets that include glasses for drinking alcoholic beverages.

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Kuwaiti Islamists depict Russia's Medvedev as Hitler, burn his portrait

Which doesn't make sense, as Islamists always praise Hitler, love his Mein Kampf (it's the second most popular book in the Muslim world after the Koran, with multiple editions).

Kuwaiti newly-elected Islamist MP Waleed Tabtabaee (L) holds a burning portrait of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a protest in front of the Russian embassy in Kuwait City on February 6, 2012. Foreign ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will meet in the Saudi capital later this week to discuss developments in Syria, Oman's foreign minister said after China and Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning a deadly crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime on nearly 11 months of protests. (Getty Images)

Weird, isn't it?

Pic of the day: Police in hazmat suits clear the Occupy DC filthy slum

U.S. park police officers in protective hazmat suits clear the belongings of protesters from the Occupy DC protest movement at the Occupy DC encampment at Freedom Plaza in Washington, February 5, 2012. Police started removed bedding and most tents on Saturday at an "Occupy" protest site just blocks from the White House, enforcing a no-camping rule at a public square that has housed protesters for months. (Reuters Pictures)

Syria: 50 killed by Assad's forces in Homs in "the most violent bombardment in recent days"

This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, purports to show a wounded person outside a hospital in Homs, Syria. Government forces shelled the central Syrian city of Homs on Monday, striking a makeshift medical clinic and residential areas and killing more than a dozen people in the third day of a new assault on the epicenter of the country's uprising, activists said. (AP Photo)

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces bombarded Homs on Monday, killing 50 people in a sustained assault on several districts of the city which has become a centre of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian National Council opposition group said.

The bombardment came a day after the United States promised harsher sanctions against Damascus in response to Russian and Chinese vetoes of a draft U.N. resolution that would have backed an Arab plan urging Assad to step aside.

"The tally that we have received from various activists in Homs since the shelling started at six this morning is 50, mostly civilians," Catherine al-Talli of the Syrian National Council told Reuters.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had the names of 17 people killed so far, adding it expected the death toll to rise. Arab satellite television channels broadcast live footage showing smoke rising from buildings, with explosions echoing in the background.

"This is the most violent bombardment in recent days," said one activist in Syria who was in touch with Homs residents. Another activist said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were using multiple rocket launchers in the attack.

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Cardboard tiger: Iranian regime uses cardboard Khomeini cutout in a bizarre re-enactment of his return from exile

(NYT) To celebrate the 33rd anniversary on Wednesday of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumphant return from exile, Iran re-enacted his arrival at a Tehran airport, using a cardboard cutout to stand in for the late Iranian leader.

Photographs of the ceremony published on Tuesday by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency seemed to lend themselves to parody, with Farsi and English Internet satirists treating them as bizarre authoritarian kitsch.

The photos showed a band playing welcome music as dozens of men in dress uniforms clutched roses and lined up on a tarmac for the staged arrival of the cardboard Ayatollah Khomeini.

Also on the tarmac, propped up behind the lines of stone-faced celebrants was another cardboard cutout of the former leader, the father of the modern Iranian state who is revered as divine. This one was a black-and-white image from his Feb. 1, 1979, arrival back in Iran.

The Twitter account for the English-language Iranian blog Pedestrian was characteristic of the reaction:

Haven’t laughed this hard in SO long. Iranian blogistan is on comedy fire with the cardboard Imam: baztab.net/fa/news/1787/%… #Iran #Khomeini

— Sidewalk Lyrics (@pedestrian) February 1, 2012

The anonymous creator of Cardboard Khomeini has taken part of one of the photographs, the ayatollah’s oversize likeness being carried by two security officers in sunglasses, and pasted it into a variety of iconic images like the Beatles “Abbey Road” album cover, the moon landing and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 inauguration.

Shortly after the airport arrival, another cardboard cutout made an appearance in southern Tehran at Refah School, which served as Ayatollah Khomeini’s base of operations. There, it was joined by officials, including the education minister, who sat in a large circle with the silent version of the revered leader and awkwardly drank tea.

Other satirists online posted the photos with cartoon bubbles of imagined conversations between the nearest official and the inanimate ayatollah.

Satirists imagined exchanges between the official and the cutout.

As translated by The Times, the caption above reads:

Ayatollah Khomeini:
I’m gonna punch this government in the mouth!
I’m gonna create a new government!
My government will provide free water and electricity!
I am going to accomplish many things!

Official:
Go to sleep, piece of cardboard!

In another, the cardboard Khomeini complains that he was not served a glass of tea. “I’m the Supreme Leader! Where is my tea???”

But in a comment on PBS’s Tehran Bureau blog, the writer Jasmin Ramsey worried that her mocking reaction to the images obscured the historical events they symbolized and discredited the sacrifices of other Iranians during the 1979 revolution.

By laughing at these photos, am I disrespecting the sacrifices of people like my parents who risked everything for their dream of self-determination and sovereignty? By asking that question, am I ignoring the suffering of Iranians who are forced to live with a government they don’t want?

I have made no sacrifices for Iran. I am not one of the thousands of innocent people who were tortured by the Shah’s forces. Unlike hundreds of thousands of Iranians, I have been spared injury and death from the cruel and bloody Iran-Iraq War.

By that same token, I was not raised in Iran as a middle-class woman, educated and full of potential, but constrained by the Islamic Republic’s heavy hand. I have only passing experience of how suffocating daily life in Iran can be for young adults with dreams. Perhaps I don’t have the right to laugh at revolutionary ceremonies or question the meaning of laughing at them.

But I do.

German reporter says he was beaten during imprisonment in Iran

BERLIN (AP) — A German reporter says he was beaten by guards during his nearly five months of imprisonment in Iran and that he heard constant, "horrible cries" of other inmates being tortured.

In the first public comment since being freed a year ago, Marcus Hellwig told the Sunday mass-circulation tabloid Bild am Sonntag he was regularly beaten and constantly interrogated during the first 10 "brutal" days in captivity until a German diplomat intervened.

"Sometimes they claimed that I was a spy, then allegedly a terrorist," he was quoted as saying. "They wanted to unsettle me with their never-ending questioning, wanted to put me under psychological pressure and create an ambiance of fear," he said.

Hellwig and German photographer Jens Koch — both working for Bild am Sonntag — had entered Iran on tourist visas and were detained in October 2010 after interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

Her case had generated widespread international outrage.

The two journalists were freed a year ago after German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran for a rare meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then brought the pair home on his government plane.

Iranian resistance groups later criticized Westerwelle's Tehran visit as a propaganda victory for the Iranian regime.

Hellwig said that prison guards, in an apparent move to frighten him, took him "to a torture cell to show me what they were using there to torture people."

"I was beaten. And there were some other things, but I do not want to talk about them," he said.

Hellwig told the newspaper another torture cell was located near where he and Koch were being held and that they heard its victims throughout the day. "The cries were horrible," the reporter said.

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Egypt to prosecute 44 workers, including 19 Americans, after raids on rights groups

Obama just couldn't help kick Mubarak out and usher Muslim Brotherhood in quickly enough.

CAIRO (Fox News) – The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is among 19 Americans being referred to criminal trial for allegedly receiving foreign funds illegally and being involved in banned activity in Egypt, several news agencies reported Sunday.

In all, Egyptian officials say 44 non-governmental organization workers will be put before the court after investigating judges claimed they had reason to try the democracy and rights workers.

The move is likely to further sour relations between Egypt's military rulers and the United States, the Arab nation's chief western backer for more than 30 years. The decision came just after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Saturday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr on the sidelines of the 48th meeting of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

The State Department on Sunday said they are aware of the reports but still are trying to confirm.

Sam LaHood is head of the Egypt office of the Washington-based International Republican Institute. Two other American NGOs, Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute, along with more than a dozen foreign groups, were raided in late December as part of a move that American officials say is unhelpful as Egypt transitions from an autocratic rule over the past 30 years.

All 19 of the U.S. aid workers sought shelter in the U.S. embassy in Cairo more than a week ago after they were denied the opportunity to leave the country. LaHood said at the time that the group was "expecting the worst."

"If it does go to trial, a trial could last up to one year in a case that's as wide-ranging as this one is. But the penalty for that is six months to five years in jail so these are very serious charges," he told Fox News.

This is the kind of thank you we get from the new, Islamist "democratic" government of Egypt praised and propped by the Obama administration.

The U.S. has aided Egypt with billions in funding over the last 30 years, including $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt for the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. Congress this year has provided $250 million in economic aid and up to $60 million for an "enterprise fund" for Egypt.

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Afghanistan: Suicide car bomber kills 9, wounds 19 in attack on police headquarters in Kandahar

(Telegraph) Seven policemen were among those killed in the blast, which also wounded 19 people wounded, according to a statement from the Afghan president’s office.

Kandahar is the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the birthplace of the Taliban, who have been waging a bloody insurgency since being ousted from power by the US-led invasion in late 2001 that followed the 9/11 attacks.

“At around noon today (0730 GMT), a suicide car bomber detonated his explosive-packed car in district one of Kandahar”, a statement from the interior ministry said.

Blood-splattered items from nearby market stalls lay scattered on the ground after the attack, which destroyed four police cars and damaged nearby buildings, according to an AFP correspondent.

“Targeting areas where there are civilians clearly shows the hostility (of the perpetrators) towards innocent people”, President Hamid Karzai said.

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Roseanne Barr is officially running for president

She should definitely use this as her campaign photo.

(WaPo) Roseanne Barr is officially vying to be president of the United States. And she’s got the paperwork to prove this isn’t a punchline.

The comedienne registered with the Federal Election Commission in late January to run for the Green Party nomination, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“Both the Democratic and Republican parties are bought and paid for by corporate America and cater to the needs of the highest bidder as opposed to the people they claim to represent,” Barr said in a statement on Green Party Watch. She adds that she’s been “a tireless advocate of Occupy Wall Street” since its beginning.

Barr announced her presidential bid (for the second time) on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in August.

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Assad's forces kill at least 217 Syrians in Homs in just one day

As Russia and China veto the UNSC resolution against Syria, over at Huffington Post, the craziness ensues with comments like this: "Thank you Russia and China for forcing the warmongeri­ng americans to mind their own business."

BEIRUT (JPost) - More than 200 people were killed in shelling by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, activists said on Saturday, as the UN Security Council prepared to vote on a draft resolution backing an Arab call for President Bashar Assad to give up power.

The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights cited witnesses as saying that hundreds were wounded in the latest outburst of fighting in Syria's 11-month uprising against Assad.

"The death toll is now at least 217 people killed in Homs, 138 of them killed in the Khalidiya district," Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based group, told Reuters, citing witnesses.

"Syrian forces are shelling the district with mortars from several locations, some buildings are on fire. There are also buildings which got destroyed."

It is not possible to verify activist or state media reports as Syria restricts access for independent media.

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Video: Debunking the Palestine Lie: A Century of Palestinian Rejectionism and Jew Hatred

(Encounter Books) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has launched an international campaign to achieve recognition by the United Nations for an independent Palestinian state. Abbas and his international supporters claim that only Israel (with the United States) stands in the way of this act of historical justice, which would finally bring about peace in the Middle East.

In this eye-opening Broadside, Sol Stern debunks the Palestinians’ claim and shows that Abbas has been lying about the origins and history of the conflict. Palestinian leaders have rejected partition plans that would have given them much more land for their independent state than the Jews were offered for theirs. Rather than being the innocent victims of a “dispossession” at the hands of the Israelis, the Palestinians rejected reasonable compromises and instead pursued their aim of getting rid of the only Jewish state in the world.

Video: The Grand Jihad

(Encounter Books) The real threat to the United States is not terrorism. The real threat is the sophisticated forces of Islamism, which have collaborated with the American Left not only to undermine U.S. national security but to shred the fabric of American constitutional democracy—freedom and individual liberty. In The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy provides a harrowing account of how the global Islamist movement’s jihad involves far more than terrorist attacks, and how it has found the ideal partner in President Barack Obama, whose Islamist sympathies run deep.

McCarthy is the former federal prosecutor who convicted the notorious “Blind Sheikh” and other jihadists for waging a terrorist war that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In his national bestseller, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter 2008), he explored government’s conscious avoidance of the terrorist threat, which made the nation vulnerable to mass-murder attacks. In The Grand Jihad he exposes a more insidious peril: government’s active suppression of the Islamist ideology that unabashedly vows to “conquer America.” With the help of witting and unwitting accomplices in and out of government, Islamism doesn’t merely fuel terrorism but spawns America-hating Islamic enclaves in our midst and gradually foists Islam’s repressive law, sharia, on American life. The revolutionary doctrine has made common cause with an ascendant Left that also seeks radical transformation of our constitutional order. The prognosis for liberty could not be more dire.

Turkish jails filling up with journalists

(JPost) Aziz Tekin, a correspondent for the Kurdish-language newspaper Azadiya Welat, had the misfortune of becoming a news item himself over the weekend when he became the 105th journalist in Turkey to be put behind bars.

That places Turkey – a country usually hailed as an exemplar of democracy and Islam – ahead of such repressive regimes as Iran and China with the largest number jailed journalists in the world according to the Platform of Solidarity with Imprisoned Journalists.

Others take issue with exactly how many of the detainees are being held purely for doing their jobs, but they don’t deny that scores of media professionals are being detained and face laws and a judicial system that makes it easy to put and keep them behind bars.

“The press is quite pluralistic and rather free, but it remains dangerous for a journalist who writes a critical article against the government, especially on the Kurdish issue or criticizing the judiciary. The risk of getting arrested is really high,” Johann Bihr, head of the Europe desk at the international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, told The Media Line.

The number of detentions has increased “exponentially” in recent months, he said. Turkey fell 10 places on Reporters’ International Press Freedom Index to 148 among 179 countries.

In December, some 30 journalists were rounded up in raids across the country targeting the Kurdish separatist movement. A day before Tekin was hauled in, a court in Istanbul refused to release 13 journalists including Ahmet Sık and Nedim Sener of the Oda TV news portal.

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Israel: "This time, the war is going to last for as long as it takes to destroy Hezbollah"

(Vancouver Sun) It is the front line of Israel's deepening conflict with Iran, and beneath the snow-capped peaks of Mount Hermon the final preparations are taking shape for a conflict that promises to change the landscape of the modern Middle East.

On one side, amid the foot-hills of southern Lebanon, is Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia that is busily stockpiling thousands of missiles in readiness for the next round of hostilities against its sworn enemy, Israel.

On the other side stand the men and women of Israel's armed forces, the defenders of the Jewish state who are working on their own plans to defeat the Tehran-controlled militia that is committed to Israel's destruction.

The last time these two combatants clashed was in the summer of 2006, when Israel launched a full-scale onslaught against Hezbollah after it kid-napped two Israeli soldiers as they were patrolling the south Lebanon border. The Second Lebanon War, as it is known in Israel, lasted for 33 days and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,200 people. But the war ended inconclusively with Hezbollah largely intact and Ehud Olmert, the hawkish Israeli prime minister who ordered the offensive, was hounded from office over his handling of the conflict.

Today, though, there is a steely determination within Israel's high command to finish the job once and for all and eradicate the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel's security.

At Bravo 30, the Israeli defensive position where Hezbollah staged its audacious ambush back in 2006, I found pieces of twisted metal marking the spot where the Israeli soldiers' jeep was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Hezbollah militants concealed on a nearby hill. Not far from where I stood, the black flag of Hezbollah was clearly visible on the roof of a house in a Shiite village on the other side of the border. At points, the distance between these indomitable foes is so close that from an Israeli army position it is possible to hear Hezbollah fighters calling to each other.

For the moment, an uneasy truce is observed under the watchful presence of the 13,000-strong UN force that was deployed to southern Lebanon to keep the peace after the 2006 conflict. But the calm would immediately be shattered if, as seems increasingly likely, Israel becomes involved in a military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program.

All week, senior Israeli military and intelligence officials attending the annual Herziliya Conference on global security in Tel Aviv have been fending off questions from foreign journalists trying to discover whether Israel is about to launch unilateral air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

The most convincing answer I heard - from a senior officer serving with the Israeli Defence Force - was that, while all the preparations for an Israeli strike have been completed, the final decision on whether to attack has yet to be taken by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister.

Their decision rests predominantly on how Iran responds to the latest round of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the EU. If Iran agrees to freeze its nuclear program, military action may be averted. But no one in Israel appears prepared to allow Iran to continue building an atom bomb - despite some senior U.S. and Israeli officials admitting they have no direct evidence that a bomb is Tehran's goal (Iran insists it is not). But the western consensus is that Iran's nuclear pro-gram is sophisticated enough that it could easily be used to make weapons.

The consensus at Herziliya is that Israel will attack Iran before the year is out. At that point, all hell will break loose along Israel's northern border, as Iran retaliates by ordering Hezbollah to bombard Israeli towns and cities.

During the 2006 conflict, Hezbollah had about 10,000 Iranian-made rockets, most of them short-range missiles that threatened only residential areas in northern Israel.

But Israel estimates that Hezbollah now has more than 40,000 missiles, many with a range of up to 300 km - enough for an attack on Tel Aviv.

In addition, the Israelis have seen a marked change in Hezbollah's tactics.

"In the past, Hezbollah fighters always wore uniforms, so they were easy to identify," an Israeli infantry officer told me. "But now they dress as civilians so it is far harder for us to tell them apart. The next war will be an urban war."

While Hezbollah's primary objective will be to inflict as much damage as possible on Israel's main population centres, the Israelis make no secret of their desire to eradicate Hezbollah's military infrastructure, something they failed to do in 2006.

During the last conflict, Israel was forced to agree to a cease-fire because of the international outcry over its air raids against Lebanese targets, such as Beirut airport. Next time, the Israelis are determined not to end the conflict until Hezbollah is destroyed as a fighting force.

"This time, the war is going to last for as long as it takes to destroy Hezbollah," said an Israeli officer. "We will not make the same mistake of allowing them to escape."

The only problem with this uncompromising Israeli approach, however, is the effect it will have on the rest of the region. The new Islamic government in Egypt, for example, is unlikely to stay on the side-lines while Israel tries to pummel Muslims into submission. Nor will the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, an ally of Hezbollah, stand idly by as it did in 2006. Going to war with Israel is certainly one way for Assad to end anti-government protests in that it would rally the country behind him.

Consequently, any conflict that began as a border skirmish between Israel and Hezbollah could become an all-out war between Israel and its Arab neighbours, with all the catastrophic implications that would have for both the region's Jews and Arabs.

Report: Talk of potential Israeli attack on Iran heats up

Combat footage: Firefight, 2000-lb bomb and Kiowa choppers in Afghanistan

Kenya says hits al Shabaab convoy with helicopter gunships, killing more than 100

Feel-good story of the day.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's military has struck al Shabaab targets in one of the most devastating attacks against the al Qaeda-linked insurgents since it launched an operation in Somalia to crush the rebels last October, a Kenyan army officer said on Saturday.

Colonel Cyrus Oguna said two helicopter gunships hit a convoy of al Shabaab in Dalayat village in southern Somalia on Friday evening, following intelligence that the fighters were planning to attack Kenyan forces in nearby Bhadhadhe.

"This is one of the best attacks yet ever because we got them in their vehicles before they could disembark. Several al Shabaab were killed and many more injured," Oguna told a news conference.

Military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said the force estimated that more than 100 al Shabaab fighters were killed in the attack.

Oguna said nine vehicles mounted with weapons, known locally as "Technicals," and nine lorries were destroyed in the attack. There were no Kenyan casualties, he said.

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Israel, U.S. Divided Over Timing of Potential Military Strike Against Iran, Obama Insists on "More Diplomacy"

Clueless idiot.

(Bloomberg) The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran’s disputed nuclear facilities, as that nation’s leader said it won’t back down.

The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.

“There’s a growing concern -- more than a concern -- that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” he said in an interview.

The differing views were underscored by public comments this week by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday that Israel must consider conducting “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.

‘Nearing Readiness’

“The world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an immunity zone,” Barak said in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center campus north of Tel Aviv. “If the sanctions don’t achieve their goal of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, there will arise the need of weighing an operation,” Barak said.

The U.S. holds the view that “there is still time and space to pursue diplomacy” with Iran over its nuclear program, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said today in Washington. He added that the U.S. “is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”

In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today that his nation won’t abandon its nuclear efforts and warned that a strike against the nuclear program would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East “10 times over,” according to the Associated Press. He said, without providing details, that he would disclose a letter that he said President Barack Obama sent Iran’s leaders.

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Police de-camp Occupy DC parasites

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police removed bedding and most tents on Saturday at an "Occupy" protest site just blocks from the White House, enforcing a no-camping rule at a public square that has housed protesters for months.

Dozens of officers sealed off McPherson Square and moved in before dawn to enforce the no-camping regulation. Demonstrators have been in the square since early October to target the growing income gap, corporate greed and what they see as an unfair tax structure favoring the richest Americans.

By midday, police said there had been six arrests, but little to no violence. The National Park Service had repeatedly warned protesters that it would start enforcing a ban against camping in McPherson Square and at Freedom Plaza, both a few blocks from the White House.

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Report: Iranian threat against Jewish targets in US and Canada on the rise

Guarded and "soft" sites, such as synagogues, schools and community centers, are under increasing threat by Iran, letter obtained by ABC says; US, Canada heighten security around Jewish centers.

(JPost) The threat against Israeli and Jewish targets in North America by Iran is on the rise, ABC news reported Friday, after the Iranian regime vocalized again its intention to aid in the fight against the "Zionist regime" in the face of Western sanctions.

Guarded and "soft sites," such as synagogues, community centers and schools, are the primary targets by Iran, a letter circulated by the Consul General for Mid-Atlantic States and obtained by ABC news claimed.

"We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase," the letter stated.

Police and intelligence officials have stepped up monitoring Israeli government buildings and Jewish centers in cities across the US and Canada, telling local officials to remain wary of the potential threat from Iran, such as the bombing of an Argentine community center in 1984 that killed 85 people.

This development has been ongoing for a number of weeks, ABC reported.

The report came after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei said on Friday he had "no fear of saying that we will back and help any nation or group that wants to confront and fight against the Zionist regime (Israel)."

He also stated that the Islamic Republic would not yield to international pressure to abandon its nuclear course, threatening retaliation for sanctions aimed at Iran's oil exports.

His comments came a day after Israel’s top political and military leadership issued a series of warnings to the Islamic Republic in some of the most candid comments on the nuclear threat in years.

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Russia and China block anti-Assad resolution at UN amid Syria bloodshed

This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012, purports to show a wounded man being treated at a field hospital in Homs, Syria. Syrian forces unleashed a barrage of mortars and artillery on the battered city of Homs for hours before dawn on Saturday, sending terrified residents fleeing into basements and killing scores of people in what appeared to be the bloodiest episode in the nearly 11-month-old uprising, activists said. (AP Photo)

(Fox News) Russia and China vetoed a United Nations resolution Saturday calling on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, despite fresh appeals by President Obama and other world leaders following the deadly assault by Syrian forces on the city of Homs.

Activists say Syrian forces killed more than 200 people in what may be the bloodiest confrontation of the uprising against Assad's regime. Leading up to the U.N. Security Council meeting, Obama condemned the "unspeakable assault" and called on other nations to support the Arab League-backed resolution.

The other 13 members, including the U.S., France and Britain, supported the resolution. But Russia and China, which both have veto power, blocked the measure. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had said the resolution made too few demands of anti-government armed groups, and that Moscow remains concerned that it could prejudge the outcome of a national dialogue among political forces in Syria.

The vote forces diplomats at the U.N. to try to work out what could be a more watered-down version, despite the new wave of violence in Syria.

The Homs assault sparked fierce international outcry ahead of Saturday's meeting. Obama, in perhaps his most forceful statement to date about the unrest in Syria, accused the Assad regime of having "murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children" in Homs. He called on Assad to step down, describing the violence as a sign of the regime's "inevitable collapse."

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Protesters across Europe and Middle East storm 5 of Syrian embassies

People inspect damages outside the Syrian embassy in Cairo on February 4, 2012 after dozens of Syrian dissidents stormed their country's embassy in the Egyptian capital, ransacking the mission and setting fire to its ground floor. (Getty Images)

LONDON (AP) — Demonstrators have stormed five Syrian embassies in Europe and the Middle East after Syrian forces reportedly killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs.

British police used batons to beat back protesters attempting to storm the Syrian Embassy in London for a second time after successfully breaking in early Saturday. The crowd broke several of the embassy's windows during the melee.

Police said six people were arrested in the initial assault on the building, while another six were arrested hours later when demonstrators chanting "We want to close the embassy" kicked down barriers and rushed the building.

A similar scene played out in Athens before dawn, where police said 13 people — 12 Syrians and one Iraqi national — were detained after forcing their way into the Syrian Embassy before dawn.

In Germany, 20 people forced their way into Syria's Embassy in Berlin on Friday and damaged offices there, police said.

Syrian protesters in Cairo set part of the embassy on fire Friday night, while protesters in Kuwait broke windows at the embassy and hoisted the opposition flag. The Kuwait news agency said a number of security personnel were hurt in scuffles.

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Islamic paradise of Mali: Thousands flee as Tuareg-led rebels aim to capture military camps

KIDAL, Mali (Reuters) - Sporadic heavy weapons fire rang out in the northern Malian town of Kidal overnight and on Saturday, in a sign that a Tuareg-led rebellion was nearing its most significant target to date after two weeks of fighting.

Rebels combining veteran Tuareg insurgents and returnees from Libya's war last year are fighting to create an independent state in north Mali. They have gained ground in a three-pronged advance, scattering thousands across Mali's desert north and beyond its borders, but Kidal is the most significant town yet to be threatened.

Hama Ag Sid'Ahmed, a Europe-based spokesman for the rebels, said the attack had already begun. "We will take the two military camps and occupy the town."

However military sources in Kidal and the capital, Bamako, said the sound of gunfire came from army units warding off a rebel attack following rumors that the MNLA would strike at some stage on Saturday.

A Reuters journalist in the town confirmed hearing heavy weapons fire overnight but was unable to say who was firing.

Civilians fearing an attack have been fleeing Kidal by bus in recent days. Some Tuareg say many of their community have also fled Bamako, in the south, fearing reprisals after violent demonstrations this week.

About 3,500 people had crossed westwards into Mauritania, said a Mauritanian official, who asked not to be named.

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Egypt: Street battle rages near Interior Ministry

Never a dull moment.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Rock-throwing protesters fought riot police through clouds of tear gas near Egypt's Interior Ministry on a second day of clashes triggered by the deaths in Port Said of 74 people - the country's worst soccer disaster.

A demonstrator and an army officer were reported dead in Cairo and in the city of Suez two people were killed on Friday as police used live rounds to hold back crowds trying to break into a police station and fought in front of the state security headquarters, witnesses and the ambulance service said.

Hundreds of protesters blocked roads near state security headquarters in Egypt's second-largest city Alexandria.

Most of those killed in the Port Said football stadium on Wednesday night were crushed in a stampede and the government declared three days of mourning. Protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible.

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Hackers claim to have intercepted call between FBI and Scotland Yard

Somebody's gotta go to jail, for a long time.

(Fox News) A sensitive conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard was recorded and released online by the hackers in Anonymous, the group claimed Friday.

The group released a roughly 15-minute-long recording of what appears to be a Jan. 17 conference call devoted to tracking and prosecuting members of the loose-knit hacking group and its spinoff group LulzSec. There was no classified information on the call, FBI sources tell Fox News, noting that unsecure phones are not used for sensitive information.

"The information was intended for law enforcement," the source said, and those responsible will be held accountable.

The authenticity of the recording could not be immediately verified and it's unclear how the hacking group obtained it. Names of some of the suspects being discussed were apparently edited from the recording.

"The information was illegally obtained and a criminal investigation is underway," FBI spokesman Tim Flannelly told FoxNews.com. He did not provide any additional details.

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Pakistani Taliban kill 7 soldiers, abduct 4, get up to 18 of their own killed in the attack

PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) – Islamist militants attacked a Pakistani army checkpoint near the Afghan border Friday, killing seven paramilitary soldiers and abducting four, a government official and a Taliban spokesman said.

Jamil Khan, a local official, said around 40 militants armed with rockets, grenades and automatic weapons attacked the army post in the Kurram region, sparking a gunbattle that killed up to 18 militants.

The ambush was the latest in a series of attacks over the past week in Kurram, one of the seven Pakistani border regions where the military has battled militants for several years.

It was not possible to independently confirm the information because the border region is effectively off-limits to reporters. Militants have in the past disputed army accounts of casualties, and human rights groups say civilians often die in military actions.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to reporters. He did not mention any insurgent casualties.

Also Friday, a car bomb exploded outside the residence of a tribal elder in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing four people and wounding three, senior police officer Fazal Wahid said.

The blast appeared to target the elder, Haji Astana Gul, who was not hurt in the attack, Wahid said.

California's Occupy Oakland chapter overwhelmingly votes to support Israel boycott

California branch of economic equality movement, the one with its very own "Little Palestine" district, endorses proposal in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

And now you know the rest of the story.

(JTA) The Oakland, Calif., chapter of the US Occupy movement overwhelmingly endorsed a proposal in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

According to Twitter accounts by pro-Palestinian activists pushing the proposal, the statement won nearly unanimous backing in a vote Wednesday following a brief discussion. A lengthy statement on the Occupy Oakland website attacked US aid to Israel and suggested that Israel had "prodded" the United States into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Oakland branch of the Occupy movement, which focuses on what it sees as economic discrepancies in the United States, has become increasingly visible for its refusal to repudiate violent action and clashes with the police. Last month, members of the movement broke into the Oakland City Hall and set fire to public property, including an American flag. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the branch's actions have caused a schism within the movement.

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The Obama-Pelosi ugh pic of the day

US President Barack Obama kisses House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, on February 2, 2012. (Getty Images)

And who can forget this related grossness.

Iran threatens to cut ties with Samsung after an Israeli ad featuring Israelis using Samsung's Galaxy tablet to destroy Iranian nuke site

(Ynet) Iran is mulling a plan to boycott Samsung after the South Korean electronics giant's tablet computer was featured in a humorous Israeli commercial, the Iranian state-owned channel Press TV reported Thursday.

The offending television ad depicts the cast of a popular Israeli show, Asfur, traveling to the Islamic Republic and destroying a nuclear facility. The commercial promotes a HOT Telecommunications cable deal that grants subscribers Samsung tablets.

According to the report, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's Energy Committee, Arsalan Fat'hipour, said Thursday that Tehran is considering a bill that would impose a complete ban on all Samsung products – a measure that "would make the company regret making the insulting teaser."

The Iranian lawmaker accused Samsung of producing an ad that portrays Iran as a primitive country and implies that Israel is strong enough to obliterate the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites.

He further claimed that Samsung made the clip "to curry favor with Israel," and said an apology would not be enough. The company must be held accountable, he said.

The commercial was released weeks after the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. The report attributed the killing to the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.

Samsung's Dubai headquarters issued a statement denouncing the Israeli clip. A spokesperson for the companyin Tehran denied having any ties to the ad, stressing that it was produced by the Israeli cable provider, HOT.

Religion of Peace Issues Calls to Behead Indonesian Atheist

"And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."
~ Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009

Jakarta. A defiant declaration of atheism by an Indonesian civil servant has inflamed passions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, pitting non-believers and believers against each other.

The trouble began when civil servant Alexander Aan posted a message on the Facebook page of Atheist Minang, a group of Indonesians with godless beliefs. It read: “God doesn’t exist.”

The post so enraged residents in Aan’s hometown of Pulau Punjung in West Sumatra province that an angry mob of dozens stormed his office and beat up the 30-year-old.

To add insult to injury, police then arrested him and now want to press blasphemy charges that could see him locked up for five years.

Muslim extremists have called for Aan to be beheaded but fellow atheists have rallied round, and urged him to stand by his convictions despite the pressure.

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Violence Erupts In Cairo After Soccer Riot Deaths

(Sky News) Gunshots have reportedly been heard and tear gas fired in Cairo as protesters took to the streets following the deaths of at least 74 people at an Egyptian football match.

At least 120 people have been injured as the demonstrators, chanting slogans against the country's ruling military council and the police, tried to force their way to the interior ministry building.

"This was not a sports accident, this was a military massacre!" they shouted.

The security services have been criticised for failing to stop the violence that erupted after an Egyptian league match in the coastal city of Port Said.

After Port Said's Al Masry won 3-1, supporters armed with knives, sticks and stones swarmed onto the pitch. Fans and players from Cairo's Al Ahly club were forced to flee for their lives, running towards the exits and up the stands to escape.

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Report: Panetta believes Israel will attack Iran this spring

(JPost) United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed.

Ignatius does not quote Panetta in the article but he is currently traveling with the secretary of defense in Brussels.

According to the article, Israel might decide to strike before Iran completes the fortification since afterward only America will be capable of stopping Iran militarily.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action,” Ignatius wrote. According to the report, Israel’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities could last five days which would be followed by a United Nations-brokered ceasefire.

Palestinians throw shoes, stones at U.N. convoy, Ban Ki-moon thanks them for the "warm welcome", gets laughed at

A shoe thrown by Palestinian protestors flies towards a vehicle in the convoy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as it arrives at the Erez checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip on February 2, 2012. Protesters threw shoes, sand and small stones at his convoy, which was briefly held up before continuing on to Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Reuters Pictures)

GAZA (Reuters) - Dozens of Palestinians threw shoes, sticks and stones at U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's convoy as it crossed into the Gaza Strip Thursday, protesting against what they saw as a slight against Palestinians jailed in Israel.

No one was injured during the hostile welcome and the vehicles, which crossed into the Hamas-ruled territory from southern Israel, pushed through the crowd and sped away.

Ban is visiting the region to try to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"I thank the people of Gaza for the warm welcome," he told a news conference, provoking laughter among local journalists. "I met many people who were waiting for me at the entrance."

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Obama's Economic Approval Just 36 Percent

From Washington Examiner:

In another indication of the difficulty President Obama's reelection campaign faces, only 36 percent of likely voters grade the administration's handling of the economy at good or excellent, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

In a national survey of 1,000 likely voters January 31-February 1, a whopping 62 percent grade the president at fair to poor, with poor collecting the largest number: 45 percent.
Still, Democratic officials say that they see a positive trend built on slightly better unemployment and housing numbers that could end up helping Obama in his reelection.

"We just need six more months," said a top Democratic official.

The polling data, however, shows big problems with men, middle-age and senior voters and Independents.

Just consider those likely voters who grade the president poor on his handling of the economy. Majorities in the Rasmussen poll include men (53 percent), voters aged 40-49 (55 percent), seniors (53 percent), whites (50 percent), non-black minorities (57 percent).

Independents and others not affiliated with the GOP or Democratic Party are also down on the president with 45 percent giving him a poor grade on the economy.

White Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) Verbally Assaults Allen West About His Blackness, Compares Him to African Hyena

(Breitbart TV) Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) went on MSNBC's "dog whistle" expert Martin Bashir's show and unleashed an assault on freshman Rep. Allen West (R-FL) that focused exclusively on the unrelated subject of Congressman West's African American heritage. Not only does he refer to the black congressman in terms of the African animal, the hyena, he ties the animal to its depiction in the "Lion King". Both the movie and the play portrayed the hyenas as "jive-talking" (NPR) "gangstas" (Newsweek). If that wasn't enough - yet unnoticed by Bashir who tried to falsely connect Andrew Breitbart to racism in an interview last year - Moran doubled and tripled down on his racist tirade - even challenging the black congressman's black authenticity.

Will the Caucasian representative be held to the same standard of racial insensitivity by MSNBC's team of racial hysterics led by Rev. Al Sharpton, Toure and a whole host of other progressive liberals who seek to stifle dissent by reflexively discovering racism in all political disagreement coming from the right?

Philippines: 3 most-wanted al-Qaeda-linked terror leaders are among 15 killed in airstrike

Feel-good story of the day.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine military said it killed Southeast Asia's most-wanted terrorist and two other senior militants Thursday in a U.S.-backed air strike that would mark one of the region's biggest anti-terror successes in recent years.

Philippine troops did not immediately recover bodies from the dawn strike targeting a militant stronghold on a southern Philippine island, but military spokesman Col. Marcelo Burgos said the dead included Malaysian Zulkifi bin Hir, also known as Marwan, a top leader of the regional, al Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror network.

Also killed in the strike were the leader of the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf militants, Umbra Jumdail, and a Singaporean leader in Jemaah Islamiyah, Abdullah Ali, who used the guerrilla name Muawiyah, Burgos said.

Forensic investigators could not immediately approach the heavily-forested mountain camp hit in the strike because the area remains under the control of another rebel group, Moro National Liberation Front, which signed a peace pact with the government in 1996, said regional military commander Maj. Gen. Noel Coballes.

He said that no one was captured following Thursday's airstrike and that some militants escaped and then returned to retrieve the bodies of those who died. It is unclear if they also recovered the bodies of the three leaders, he said.

About 30 militants were in the camp near Parang town on Jolo Island, the stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf and their allies from the mostly Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah, when it was bombarded by two OV10 aircraft at 3 a.m., Coballes said.

"Our report is there were at least 15 killed, including their three leadership," he said. "This is a deliberate, fully planned attack coming from our forces."

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Bribery, compromised officials leave indicted financial-crime suspects free from prosecution under Holder’s DOJ

Well know...

I bet Holder's defense will be to play the race card, again.

(The Daily Caller) A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

That source said that until the summer of 2011, the two compromised prosecutors were part of a team of more than 25 federal prosecutors pursuing a financial crime ring, and at least five other prosecutors tasked to the case were also compromised by the criminal suspects they were investigating, without being bribed.

TheDC is withholding the name of the source, a knowledgeable government official who served on the Justice Department’s arrest team and was involved in the investigation, in order to prevent career retaliation from political figures in the Obama administration.

A former high-level elected official vouches for the government source’s veracity. “[The source] was trustworthy … and you could tell [the source] information or [the source] could hear information and [the source] would keep things close to [the source’s] chest,” that former official told TheDC. “You could trust [the source] with your life.”

The identities of the prosecutors who accepted bribes and others who were compromised have not yet been made public, and TheDC has not yet independently confirmed their identities. The prosecutors themselves are now cooperating with Justice Department investigators.

More than 70 dead, hundreds wounded in Egypt's worst soccer riots

(Reuters) Seventy-four people were killed and at least 1,000 injured on Wednesday when Egyptian soccer fans staged a pitch invasion in the city of Port Said, the deadliest incident since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak from power.

Angry politicians decried a lack of security at the match between Port Said team al-Masry and Cairo's Al Ahli, Egypt's most successful club, and blamed the nation's leaders for allowing - or even causing - the tragedy.

"Down with military rule," thousands of Egyptians chanted at the main train station in Cairo where they awaited the return of fans, quickly turning the biggest disaster in the nation's soccer history into a political demonstration against army rule.

"The people want the execution of the field marshal," they shouted, turning on the ruler of the military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who tried to assuage anger by vowing to find the culprits in a phone call to a TV channel.

The post-match pitch invasion provoked panic among the crowd as rival fans fought, with most of the deaths among people who were trampled in the crush of the panicking crowd or who fell or were thrown from terraces, witnesses and health workers said.

"I saw people holding machetes and knives. Some were hit with these weapons, other victims were flung from their seats, while the invasion happened," Usama El Tafahni, a journalist in Port Said who attended the match, told Reuters. [...]

Many fans died in a subsequent stampede, while some were flung off their seats onto the pitch and were killed by the fall. At the height of the disturbances, rioting fans fired flares straight into the stands.

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18-year-old Muslim girl attacked by her own family for kissing a white boy in England

(Basingstoke) 18-year-old Shamima Akhtar comes from an Islamic family in England and they controlled everything she did. She wasn't allowed to smoke or consume alcohol, but most importantly, she wasn't allowed to have any contact with males of a different culture.

Well, last April, as it was her birthday, her work colleges held a party for her. But first, Shamima had to ask permission from her family if she could go to her own birthday party. They agreed on one condition that no males were present and that she had to be home by 10:30. During the meal, the family bombarded her with phone-calls and text messages, asking her what she was doing and when she was coming home.

When it was time for her to leave, she went outside with a young lad she liked and kissed him good night. Unfortunately for the two of them, that was when her family raced into the carpark in which to take her home. Big brother, 24-year-old  Kayum Mohammed-Abdul, jumped out and attacked the young lad she had kissed good night to. Meanwhile, her older sisters, 25-year-old Nadiya Akhtar and 29-year-old Nazira Akhtar, attacked  Shamima and threw her into the back of the car and raced off home.

When they got home, the young (and by now terrified young lady) was dragged into the house and in a mini inquisition was physically attacked while being branded  a whore and a prostitute. Then, in which to ensure that the message struck home, they cut her waist length hair off. Just to make sure that she got the message, her brother gave her a good kick to the back of the head. He then went away and came back with two knives and a hammer and told his sister to pick one for her and one for her lover-boy.

They took her phone off of her, but unbeknown to her loving, caring family, she had another and later she rang the boy she had kissed, told him what had happened and for him to call the police. He didn't, and it took till the next day when the young lady managed to find the space to call the police.

Today, these religious bigots are having a day in court. Of course you can expect them to:
1) Require an interpretor
2) Deny all the charges
3) Play the victim

Hopefully, the real victim, Shamima, will leave her family behind. I also hope she leaves the spineless git of a boy she liked.

UK Islamists admit London Stock Exchange bomb plot

Multiculturalism FAIL.

LONDON (Reuters) - Four radical Islamists admitted in court Wednesday plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange as part of a campaign of al Qaeda-inspired attacks across the British capital in the run-up to Christmas 2010.

The conspiracy included plans to post bombs to the United States Embassy and the home of London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Police foiled the plot at an early stage before firm dates were agreed or explosive devices assembled.

The plan was to cause "terror, economic harm and disruption" rather than injury, prosecutor Andrew Edis told London's Woolwich Crown Court.

However, "their chosen method meant there was a risk people would be maimed or killed," he said.

The four, with five other men, admitted a range of terrorism offences after changing their pleas shortly before their trial had been due to begin, the Press Association reported.

The defendants, all British nationals with Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds, had been inspired by al Qaeda and the late radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Edis said.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen linked to al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, was killed last year in a CIA drone strike.

Undercover officers had followed two of the conspirators in November 2010 as they made observations of London landmarks including the Big Ben clocktower, parliament, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye ferris wheel.

The two men, Mohammed Chowdhury, 21, and Shah Rahman, 28, both from east London, admitted preparing for acts of terrorism by planning to plant an improvised bomb in the toilets of the London Stock Exchange.

Brothers Gurukanth Desai, 30, and Abdul Miah, 25, both from Cardiff in Wales also pleaded guilty to the same charge.

Some of the defendants had also discussed leaving home-made bombs in the toilets of pubs in Stoke, in the English midlands.

The judge told Chowdhury he could expect to receive 18-1/2 years and Rahman 17 years, although the actual time spent in jail would be shorter, around six years, taking account of time already served and parole.

The five other men, one from Cardiff and four from Stoke, admitted lesser terrorism offences including attending operational meetings and fundraising.

All will be sentenced next week.

Issa threatens contempt proceeding against Holder if Justice fails to comply with Fast and Furious subpoenas

Will Holder go to jail for that? Probably not. He'll play the race card as a get-out-of-jail-free card. You know, white racism and all.

(Fox News) The head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is threatening to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress if he fails to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents.

Holder has until Feb. 9 to comply.

In a four-page letter to Holder, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., claims the Department of Justice has "misrepresented facts and misled Congress," which began its investigation of Operation Fast and Furious one year ago.

Issa wrote that Holder's "actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up" because it refuses to comply with previous subpoenas.

"If the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress," Issa warned in the letter.

Issa claims the Justice Department has stonewalled the congressional investigation of the gun-running scandal that sent some 2,000 weapons to the Mexican cartels with the assistance of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

In December, Holder testified to the House Judiciary Committee that he understands Congress wants answers, and Justice Department employees were working "tirelessly to identify, locate and provide relevant information" to lawmakers "all while preserving the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions."

He added that documents provided to congressional investigators show that department personnel relied on information provided by supervisors in Arizona thought to be in the best position to relay those facts, but some of that information was later found to be "inaccurate.”

"The documents produced to date also belie the remarkable notion that this operation was conceived by department leaders, as some have claimed," Holder said. "It is my understanding that department leaders were not informed about the inappropriate tactics employed in this operation until those tactics were made public and, as is customary, turned to those with supervisory responsibility over the operation in an effort to learn the facts."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Issa's Senate counterpart in the inquiry, said Tuesday that the documents sent to Congress are not even 10 percent of those received at the inspector general's office, which Holder requested investigate the case last year. Grassley said Congress has only received 6,000 pages of documents while the department's inspector general has 80,000 documents in hand.

The department has yet to explain why it is "withholding each of those 74,000 pages," Grassley said in a statement that also addressed a Democratic minority report out of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday that concluded Justice Department officials were not responsible for gunwalking.

Nothing coming from the Justice Department should be taken at face value, Grassley suggested, especially since Holder initially denied "gunwalking" had occurred but has since admitted to the operation.

"Documents turned over late Friday night indicate (Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer) was still discussing plans to let guns cross the border with Mexican officials on the same day the department denied to me in writing that ATF would ever let guns walk," Grassley said.

"He stood mute as this administration fought tooth and nail to keep any of this information from coming out for a year. It will take a lot more than a knee-jerk defense from their political allies in Congress to restore public trust in the leadership of the Justice Department. The American people want to see those who failed to act be held accountable," he said.

Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss

From Washington Examiner:

Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers yesterday, and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried. If President Obama carries only those states where he had a net positive approval rating in 2011 (e.g. Michigan where he is up 48 percent to 44 percent), Obama would lose the 2012 election to the Republican nominee 323 electoral votes to 215.

Gallup ads:

Overall, Obama averaged 44% job approval in his third year in office, down from 47% in his second year. His approval rating declined from 2010 to 2011 in most states, with Wyoming, Connecticut, and Maine showing a marginal increase, and Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, Arizona, West Virginia, Michigan, and Georgia showing declines of less than a full percentage point. The greatest declines were in Hawaii, South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

Global Warming™ update: Death toll rises tops 80 in European cold snap; Japan Snowstorm Kills 52, Crushes Steel Bridge

Ice engulfs a boat as the Black Sea is frozen near the shore in Constanta, Romania, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012. The death toll from Eastern Europe's severe cold spell has risen to 79. Temperatures have dropped as low as minus 32.5 C (minus 26.5 F) in some regions, causing power outages, traffic chaos and the closure of schools and nurseries. The weather is so cold that some areas of the Black Sea have frozen near the Romanian coastline. (AP Photo)

(The Courier-Mail) EUROPE continued to endure some of the coldest temperatures in decades as the cold snap's death toll topped 80.

At least 28 people froze to death overnight in eastern and central Europe, while countries further west and south began to feel the effects of a cold front spreading from Siberia.

Snow hit Italy, which struggled to clear motorways and railways after heavy falls, and the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

In Ukraine, officials said 13 people had died of hypothermia over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall toll there to 43 over the past six days.

Most were homeless people who froze to death on the streets, but seven died in their homes and more than 800 sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia as temperatures plunged to minus 30 degrees in some regions.

Poland reported five people found dead overnight, bringing the overall toll to 20 since temperatures plummeted there on Friday. The victims, most of whom had been homeless, were four men aged 29 to 61 and an 83-year-old woman.

Most of the victims had been homeless, or individuals who got drunk and fell asleep outdoors, police said, as officials reported temperatures diving to minus 30 degrees in some parts of the country.

In Slovakia, two people died as temperatures hit minus 24 degrees, the daily newspaper SME reported.

And in the neighbouring Czech Republic a 47-year-old homeless man was found frozen to death in the eastern city of Karvina, where the mercury has dropped to minus 29 degrees.

In Romania, six people died over the past 24 hours, bringing the toll to 14 over the past six days, the health ministry announced.

These included a baby who died in an unheated house in the northeastern town of Iasi, a ministry spokesman said.

Some 346 people, homeless or suffering from hypothermia, have been taken to hospital or rescue centres over the past 24 hours as temperatures fell to minus 32.5C in the centre of the country, officials said.

In Bulgaria, two people died in the coldest weather in a century in some parts of the country, bringing the overall toll to 10, weather officials said yesterday.

The temperature sank to minus 29.4C in the northeastern city of Knezha and minus 31.4C in the northern town of Sevlievo.

Guntars Grauss, director of Latvia's state medical centre, told the Delfi news portal that five men and two women had died in the final week of January when temperatures were at their lowest.

More...

Now off to Japan:

(ABC) Heavy snowfall has crippled much of Japan’s western coast, killing more than 50 people and injuring nearly 600. The worst snowstorm in six years has dumped more than 10 feet of snow in the hardest-hit regions, causing at least one bridge to collapse and forcing school closures across the region.

An avalanche today buried three people for more than an hour near a hot springs in Akita Prefecture in northwest Japan. The women were later found unconscious but survived.

Western Japan has been battered by one snowstorm after another since the beginning of the year, overwhelming cash-strapped cities struggling to keep up with cleanup efforts. In the Niigata Prefecture, officials said nearly half of their 30 cities had run out of funds set aside snow removal. Further north in the Aomori Prefecture, the government had already applied for additional funds from Tokyo, after draining its budget.

Residents, frustrated by the slow response, have taken it upon themselves to clean up the winter mess, resulting in deadly consequences. Nearly all the storm-related deaths have been a direct result of snow removal.

Meanwhile, in Nagano, the weight of all the snow proved to be too much for a 310-foot steel bridge. It collapsed early this week, although no one was injured.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasts more snowfall in the next 24 hours.

Another Obama foreign policy success: Taliban "poised to retake Afghanistan" after NATO pullout

Obama should give a nice speech with lots of "me" and "I", claiming credit. He should also make it the focal point of his campaign, along with his wildly successful economic policies.

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.

Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the existence of the document, reported on Wednesday by Britain's Times newspaper and the BBC.

But he said it was not a strategic study.

"The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions," he said. "It's not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis."

Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, dragging into its 11th year and aimed at blocking a Taliban return to power.

It could also be seen as an admission of defeat and could reinforce the view of Taliban hardliners that they should not negotiate with the United States and President Hamid Karzai's unpopular government while in a position of strength.

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