Syrian body count surpassed 162,000

(Damascus) After 3 years of fighting inside Syria, the only organisation set up to log the number of people that have been killed puts the number at over 162,402. The London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights breaks down that figure as so:

• 53,978 civilians, including 8,607 children
• 42,701 members of the armed opposition had been killed
• 61,170 Syrian Government forces, 37,685 of them from the military, and 23,485 members of a pro-regime militia
• 1,224 other non-Syrian pro-regime fighters
• 438 members of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement
• 2,891 unidentified people whose deaths the Observatory has confirmed without being able to record their identities

Following on from Watcher's post last night regarding the total number of people killed in the Levant in over 100 years, around 90K people have died at the hands of Jews. This includes numerous wars. Yet in 3 years, nearly double that number have died in Syria, and the left remain silent on this while they continue to attack... Israel.

Oh look, there's that 'H' word again.

Time headline says Muslims not taught to hate Jews

(Time) Seems I was wrong about Islam all along:

Yup, I truly, as an ex-Muslim, believed that Muslims were taught to hate the Jews. But I stand corrected now that I have been shown the light in this Time article. I quote:

Far from “Jew hatred,” the Qur’an 2:63 repeatedly declares that the Jews shall attain eternal paradise. The Qur’an mentions Prophet Moses by name more than any other prophet—over 150 times— and Islam recognizes the Divine origin of the Torah and the Psalms of David. Prophet Muhammad’s benevolent treatment of Jews attracted their love for him.

The author, Qasim Rashid, then follows the above with this:

“Some people among the Jews kissed the hands and feet of the Prophet.” It is impossible to consider that a man could garner such love from his citizens with force or violence. Following this example, throughout Islamic history the Jews flourished under Muslim rule in parts of North Africa, Jerusalem, Persia, and Spain.

What really surprises me about this article is that Qasim Rashid is an Ahmadi Muslim, a branch of Islam that is only recognised in... non-Islamic countries, including... Israel. But hey, if he wants to believe that the Jews are loved by Muslims, so be it. I just wonder how he would get on if he moved to... Pakistan?

France Formally Investigates Muslim Citizens Suspected of Syria Fighting

French special forces escort a suspected jihadist from a residential building in Strasbourg, May 13. 2014.

(Reuters) Seven men suspected of fighting in Syria have been placed under formal investigation following their arrest in Strasbourg, said a judicial source on Saturday, weeks after France unveiled policies to prevent French Muslims from becoming radicalized.

Confirming a report in Le Monde newspaper, the source said the men aged 23 to 25, who were arrested in the eastern French city on Tuesday, were under investigation for criminal conspiracy in relation with a terrorist undertaking.

They were suspected of traveling to Syria late last year to join the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

European governments calculate several thousand of their citizens have gone to Syria since the war began three years ago and are worried about the security risk posed by youths radicalized by the conflict.

France, which estimates around 285 of its citizens are currently fighting in Syria among the rebels' ranks, last month launched a plan to prevent its citizens joining the civil war and becoming a threat to their home country.

Under the new policies, French nationals who return from Syria could face charges of being part of a terrorist organization, while minors could be prevented from leaving France without parental consent.

It also launched a hotline for parents concerned about their children's behavior.

Sudan: Pregnant Christian woman will be allowed to give birth before being hanged

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim

I hear Islam is the most merciful or something.

(CT) A pregnant Christian woman sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan will be allowed to give birth before being hanged for apostasy.

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, was born to a Muslim father but was raised a Christian by her mother after he walked out on the family when she was just six years old.

She was sentenced to hang for apostasy after marrying a Christian man and was also sentenced to receive 100 lashes for adultery because the court determined that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan was void under Islamic law.

The 27-year-old, who is heavily pregnant, was given three days to recant her faith but refused, after which the court in Khartoum upheld her conviction.

Amnesty International, which is campaigning for her release, said she is due to give birth next month and is currently being detained with her 20-month-old son.

The human rights group said a date had not yet been announced for her execution and that Sudan would not hang Ibrahim while she is pregnant.

US Official: President Obama ‘Blames’ Israel’s ‘Stubbornness’ For Kerry’s Peace Process Failure

Nothing matters to this idiot. Nothing.

(JPU) For the first time since the talks halted, U.S. President Barack Obama has directly blamed Israel for the failure of negotiations, the NY Times reported Friday. According to a White House official, “Each time we arrived at a crossroads, another new settlement construction announcement was made. It was like putting a stick on the wheels.”

The official also said Obama still believes that another round of talks is possible during his term, but that for the time being the president prefers to sit back and let the sides ask themselves for an American mediation.

The NY Times writes that non-other than President Obama may be the unnamed source quoted in a lengthy interview to Yediot Ahronot’s Nahum Barnea on May 2nd, a week after peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians fell apart, in which Israel was blamed for building in settlements.

In the interview, the unnamed source (now believed to be Obama himself) said, “The Jewish people are supposed to be smart; it is true that they’re also considered a stubborn nation. You’re supposed to know how to read the map: In the 21st century, the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation. The occupation threatens Israel’s status in the world and threatens Israel as a Jewish state.”

A senior administration official told the NY Times the White House cleared the interview and the critical remarks faithfully reflect the president’s own views.

Nonetheless, almost 5 out of 10 Americans agree with Israel’s claim that they are not primarily to blame for the failure of the Middle East peace process than those who agree with the Palestinian claim that moving toward a unity government with Hamas is a step toward peace, according to a new poll conducted by The Israel Project.

48 percent of U.S. voters believe that the Palestinians are to blame for the suspension of the peace talks, in light of the Fatah-Hamas pact. Only 20 percent agreed with the Palestinian position.

The real root of the problem in the Middle East

Israeli Attack Dogs Tear Terrorists To Shreds

(Jewish News) IBF – Israel’s Best Friend is an NGO (Non Goverment Organization) and NPO (Non Profit Organization) that has been training protection dogs and dog handlers for the explicit purpose of supplying canine protection for Jewish settlements and outposts in Judea and Samaria. Muslim Terrorists, who consider dogs unclean, fear our Malinois and Dobermans more than they fear firearms and airstrikes.

South Korea to upgrade all of its F-16s

(Seoul) Last week, BAEs Systems received a $750 million firm-fixed-price contract, covering the upgrades of South Korea's 134 KF-16 aircraft.

The upgrades will consist of:

• New radars to replace the existing APG-68v5/v7 systems
• Modern avionics and computers
• Upgrades of the planes’ cabling and databuses to the latest standard

The most interesting bit for me will be the replacement of the old mechanical radar for the latest digital one.

Active Electronically Scanned Array radars offer dramatic increases in fighter performance, and an equally dramatic drop in maintenance costs, thanks to their large array of independently excitable and steerable transmit/receive modules. Advantages over mechanical phased array radars like the KF-16s’ APG-68 include 2x-3x range or performance, simultaneous ground and air scans, and near-zero maintenance over the fighter’s lifetime. More advanced functions like high speed communications, and even focused electronic disruption of enemy radars, also become possible.

Combined with the upgrade in cabling and modern computers, the South Korean upgrade will make them a force to be reckoned with for a good number of years into the future. If they follow suit with an upgrade for their F-15Ks, then they will be the primary air power in their region.

Heavily armed gunmen storm Libyan parliament

(Tripoli) Heavily armed gunmen have stormed into Libya's parliament after first attacking the building with anti-aircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Details of the armed group were unclear but a spokesman for retired Libyan general Khalifa Haftar said his irregular forces had carried out the assault as part of his campaign against Islamist militants. Mohamed al-Hejazi, spokesman for the group, has said:

"These are members of the Libyan National Army,"

Heavy smoke has been seen coming from the parliament building and gunmen have closed the streets. There are reports that gunmen had kidnapped two people from the congress.

Lawmaker Omar Bushah has reported that gunmen stormed into the General National Congress, raiding lawmakers' offices and setting the building on fire. There are also reports of heavy fighting outside the parliament.

Haftar, a former rebel in the war against Gaddafi, sent his fighters into Benghazi on Friday against Islamist militias based in the city after, saying Libya's government had failed to halt violence there.

Eye on Gaza 18/05/14

(Gaza City) 65-year-old Hijaziyya al-Louh was beaten to death during a brawl between her family and her neighbours, the al-Yaziji family, on Saturday evening.

(Gaza City) A man was found stabbed to death in an apartment in Wadi al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City Sunday morning.

(Gaza City) A 28-year-old prisoner died of heart failure while serving time inside a Hamas prison on Friday. This death comes days after a 34-year-old prisoner of Hamas also died of heart failure.

(Gaza City) A court in Gaza City on Saturday sentenced a man to death by hanging after he was found guilty of the premeditated murder of Gaza a police officer Sami Suleiman al-Rawwagh in 2008.

(Gaza) Israeli troops shoot and wound two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. A 16-year-old youth was shot near the border with Israel in Khan Yunis. Separately, a 36-year-old fisherman was shot while he was aboard his boat in the Mediterranean off Gaza City.

(Gaza) 3 Hamas security personnel have been jailed for 2 weeks after a fact-finding commission determined that they had  assaulted protesters and journalists with clubs during a rally marking the Nakba on Thursday.

(Gaza) Aid convoy “Miles of Smiles 27/Ansar 5” is scheduled to arrive in the besieged Gaza Strip Sunday via Egypt’s Rafah crossing.

(Gaza) The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt will be opened for 3 days in which to allow pilgrims to pass through on route to Mecca.

Syrian Government attack on city caught on film

(Nawa) With the Syrian Government gaining the upper-hand in its internecine bun fight with the natives, it has started moving into rebel held areas in which to retake them. One such area is the area adjacent to the Golan Heights, which for security reasons the Israeli government closed off the other day.

Well, an artillery attack by the Government on the city of Nawa has been caught on film.

Is Iran paying Afghans to fight and die in Syria?

(Kabul) Allegations have been made that Iran has been paying Afghan refugees inside Iran to go and fight the good fight in Syria in which to help prop up the mad mullahs' puppet president Assad.

If they take the mullahs' shilling, the Afghan refugees are granted Iranian residency, $500 a month, school registration for their children and charity card.

Several Afghan refugees have reportedly been killed in Syria conflict, with reports of funeral for the Afghan recruits emerging in November last year. A video, which was circulated over the internet earlier last year, showed the dead bodies of several foreign fighters in Syria, including Afghan nationals. Syrian armed opposition forces claimed in the video that the dead bodies belong to Iran, however, an Afghan identity card could also be seen with one of the victim. The deceased has been recognized as Safar Mohammad who came from the northern Balkh province of Afghanistan.

By using Afghans, Iran saves itself any embarrassment in having any of its nationals paraded in public and thus opening up the regime to criticism. Not that that had bothered the mullahs before. However, this tactic appears to have backfired. The Afghan government has ordered an investigation into the above, with Afghan senate house speaker, Fazal Hadi Muslimyar, asking the Afghan government to seek clarification from Iran in this regard. Well, good luck with that then.

Black taxi driver suspended in New York for being a... Nazi

(The Bronx) 26-year-old Dominican taxi driver Gabriel Diaz has been suspended for driving his cab around New York while wearing a Nazi armband. When interviewed by the local media, this man idiot illuminated perfectly why some people should be put down at birth. Love the part where his single brain cell goes into overload when told that real National Socialists wouldn't care for him at all.

Update: The family of Gabriel Diaz, 27, say the cabbie isn't a racist, he's just 'not right in the head.' His father says he has since burned the armband, and Diaz's mother promises they will get him 'the help he needs.'

School bus in Israel firebombed by Arabs

(Hevron) A school trip for a bunch of  sixth-grade schoolgirls to the Cave of Machpela near Hevron turned into a horror trip when the bus was ambushed by a group of young lads who fire-bombed the it.

A parent on the bus said that the ambush had been well planned. She described moments of horror when the firebombs exploded, one after the other, on the bus's windows, east of the Halhoul bridge, as the bus made its way back from Hevron.

"This was a bat mitzva trip that had been approved by the Ministry of Education, which included a visit to Rachel's Tomb. The buses were bulletproofed and had an armed guard,”

Thankfully, as mentioned above, the bus was fortified and the driver, instead of stopping, put his foot down (as you are supposed to when ambushed).

But the thing that really caught my eye is: why are Israeli school buses bulletproofed, come with an armed guard, and why is nobody in the Western world noticing this?

Jaw-dropping dove illusions

West African leaders vow to wage 'total war' on Boko Haram

Obama is expected to chastise them for this.

PARIS (Reuters) - West African leaders on Saturday agreed to work together to wage "total war" on Boko Haram saying the Nigerian Islamist group had become a regional al Qaeda that threatened all of them.

Nigeria's neighbors Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, and Western officials, met in Paris to flesh out a plan enabling them for the first time to share intelligence, coordinate action and monitor borders.

Although Boko Haram has been fighting for five years, carrying out bombings and attacks on civilians and the security forces, the kidnapping last month of more than 200 girls from a school in the northeast has focused world attention on them.

"Boko Haram is no longer a local terrorist group, it is operating clearly as an al Qaeda operation, it is an al Qaeda of West Africa," Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told a news conference in Paris following the meeting.

"We have shown our commitment for a regional approach. Without West African countries coming together we will not be able to crush these terrorists," he said.

More...

Libyan militias get tough with Islamists

(Benghazi) Since the fall of Libyan President for life (not) Muammar Gaddafi, the country has resembled something of the old wild west, where guns and thugs rule. This has resulted in numerous killings simply due to the fact that the armed goons felt secure in the fact that Libya is still trying to find its feet, that it is a huge country and that the people in power used to be their ideological comrades.

Well, one such group, the Libyan National Army, led by retired General Khalifa Haftar, has decided in the fashion of the Sparks' song "This town isn't big enough for the both of us", and so at death o'clock Friday morning they launched a preemptive strike on their fellow thugs in Benghazi.

Using helicopters to draw first blood, the LNA targeted Ansar al-Sharia militants, but also destroyed the local headquarters of the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, which is funded by the defence ministry. Initial reports presumed that the Government was showing the goons just who wore the trousers in Libya. However, it soon became apparent that the Government was caught with its pants down, and while dismissing the actions as an unlawful act, the fact remains that the LNA is comprised of forces from the country's nascent army. In reply to the Government's communique that the LNA does not represent them,  Mohamed Al-Hejazi, a spokesman for Haftar's forces, replied:

"We're telling them we have the legitimacy from the civilians who suffer on a daily basis from the killings targeting the police and military," he said. "We are fighting militias who threaten stability."

The city was calmer in the evening after the clashes in the morning, when witnesses said at least one regular army helicopter had been used in the assaults on the Islamist bases. At least 79 people were killed and almost 141 injured in the fighting, medical sources at local hospitals reported.

3 Muslims found guilty of machine murder in Scotland

(Edinburgh) 3 weeks after appearing in court on drug charges, 25-year-old Mohammed Abdi was gunned down by 3 idiots using a sub machine gun and a pistol. Today in court, 30-year-old Mohamud Mohamud, 23-year-old Cadil Huseen, and 26-year-old Hussein Ali were found guilty of murder.

Hussein Ali and Mohamud Mohamud 

On the night of the killing, witnesses spoke of hearing cars chasing each other, a car crashing into the fence of a nearby tennis court and then the sound of gunfire. One man described it as a "rat-a-tat" sound and the noise was heard in the background of one of the many 999 calls made to the police. Another witness, taxi driver Mohammed Irfan, 34, from Edinburgh, said: "I never thought it would be happening here. It was like something you hear in the movies - I couldn't believe it would be shots. I heard three loud bangs, which I found out the next day were shots."

Mohammed Abdi 

Police say the murder followed a dispute between rival factions of a London-based organised crime group operating in Scotland. The three men and their victim, who at the time of his death was facing a drugs charge, had been friendly, but there was a falling-out over the tenancy of a flat that was lost, for which Hussein was blamed.

It appears the old adage of if you can't take Mohammed to the mountain, you bring the mountain to Mohammed rings true. However, in this case, replace Mohammed with drug running killers to Scotland.

13 killed in Syria after rocket attack

(Aleppo) The death toll continues to rise in Syria after news emerges that insurgents/rebels/terrorists (call them what you will) took umbrage with the Aleppo district of Ashrafiyeh and launched a rocket attack on it. As per usual, when insurgents/rebels/terrorists launch an attack, they tend to miss their target, and instead killed 13 civilians.

10 killed in Kenya as bombs detonated in Nairobi market

(Kenya) 2 explosions in Kenya's capital city have killed at least 10 people and injured 70 others. The first blast was inside a Matatu (public minibus) and the second detonated inside Gikomba market a day after the British government issued a warning of a terrorist attack in Kenya. Twitter users have been quick to post pictures of the area minutes after the blasts transpired. While nobody has claimed responsibility, everybody will be looking at the al-Shabab terrorist Islamist group from neighbouring Somalia.