Or, to quote from an October 15 New Arab report:
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promised on Wednesday that Muslim Americans would serve at “every level” of his administration. In a video message to civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, Biden repeated his pledge to repeal the Trump administration's travel ban on his first day in office. The former vice president added that he would push for legislation to fight a rise in hate crimes in the United States, according to media reports. “As president, I'll work with you to rip the poison of hate from our society, honor your contributions and seek your ideas,” Biden said in the video address. “My administration will look like America, Muslim Americans serving at every level,” he added.
'I Had Read the Koran and My Heart Was Inflamed, So I Killed Him'
The atrocities Muslims committed against Christians during just one month.
5 comments
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This report was first published by the Gatestone Institute.
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of April, 2022:
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Egypt: On Apr. 7, a Muslim man wielding a long knife lunged at and repeatedly stabbed a Coptic Christian priest, killing him. The incident occurred in a crowded street in Alexandria. Fr. Arsenius Wadid, 56, was leading his church’s youth group on a field trip. He was stabbed in the throat three times. Passersby apprehended the assassin and handed him over to police. Although Egyptian media tried to present this tragic incident as an aberration, it is not the first time Muslims slaughter Christian clergymen in Egypt. In one especially notable —because very similar—incident, security camera footage (formerly viewable here) captured a Muslim man with a large butcher knife chasing and stabbing Fr. Samaan Shehata—including in the head, neck, and torso—in the streets of Cairo on October 12, 2017. He then drew a cross on the priest’s forehead with his own blood. Concerning the murderer’s motive, one report said “he had decided to kill any Coptic priest, purchased a dagger, and lay in wait for one to pass by, in a street leading to the local church.” Similarly, in 2013, Coptic priest Mina Cheroubim was shot dead as he left his church in al-Arish.
Also in Egypt, a few days after the slaughter of Fr. Arsenius, three masked men pulled up near the workshop of Rani Ra’fat, a 28-year-old Coptic engineer. Once the Christian appeared, a hail of fire was opened on him; he died on the spot; 22 bullets were found in his body. His killers then fled the scene. Then, on May 13, a man claiming to be the murderer, made a brief video, in which he beams a great smile and congratulates himself for his deed. He identified himself as Faisal Abdul Nasser, said that he did not know his victim, but that he was moved to the act after reading the Koran and because he is “loyal to Allah”:
I am the one who killed that Christian of al-Daba, and—by Allah, by Allah, by Allah—I am delighted that I killed him! I killed him on behalf of Muhammad’s umma [i.e., the Muslim world], because he is a polytheist who associates another [Christ] with Allah, and his own Bible confirms this…. No Christian polytheist, who doesn’t believe in our lord, Muhammad, can just come and profane our women! He is a polytheist and my heart was inflamed. I had read the Koran and my heart was inflamed with fire, so I killed him. He is not permitted to touch someone [a woman] who believes in Muhammad the messenger of Allah… I neither knew him [personally] nor the women he was reportedly involved with. However, when I read the Koran, my heart was set afire. I am zealous over and sacrifice for Islam. I have no problem surrendering myself [to the police]. This is a state issue: It is not permissible for a Christian who associates others with Allah to be involved with a Muslim woman…No one incited me to do this, only my heart—because I am loyal to Allah.
Since last reported, and despite the fact that police have supposedly been “investigating” this case for over three weeks, the confessed murderer has yet to be apprehended.
Syria: On Apr. 6, a Christian priest was found dead inside the St. George Greek Orthodox cathedral in Lattakia. According to a statement from Syria’s Ministry of Interior, Fr. George Rafiq Housh, 65, “had shot himself with his own 7.5 mm pistol due to psychological and social pressures…” Many, however, question this claim that he had committed suicide. One report notes that it was “murder, not a suicide,” as well as a “message of intimidation.” Another report asserts that he was “found sitting in a chair with multiple gunshot wounds,” which would seem impossible for a suicide. Syrian researcher and academic Dr. Samira Moubayed said that “promoting the story of Father George shooting himself is naive and adopting the regime’s lies, which were repeated during the numerous assassinations it carried out… It is linked to a security agency and has a clear goal, which is to intimidate the Christians in the region and displace them or push them to despair and apprehension.”
Nigeria: Muslim Fulani terrorists continued their jihad on Christian communities throughout April; some of the accounts of slaughter follow:
Apr. 10: The Muslim terrorists raided about ten Christian-majority villages throughout Central Plateau State; 142 people were slaughtered, about 70—mostly women and girls—were abducted, and three thousand displaced. Responding to these attacks, a local Christian said, “The government has turned a blind eye to these atrocities.”
Apr. 26: The Fulani terrorists slaughtered 21 Christians in four different villages of Kaduna State. They also torched a church and at least 92 Christian homes.
Apr. 11: The Muslim terrorists attacked Tior-Tyu in Benue State; they butchered at least 17 Christians. A local said:
This attack was not envisaged at all because we live as a peaceful Christian community and have never expected any attack from anyone most especially from the Fulanis. We were not prepared for such at all. Many people ran leaving their farms and means of livelihood…Women and children were also brutally killed and a fast a [sic] burial arrangement was made for them because of how gory it was.
Apr. 11: The Muslims raided the central Nigerian village of Semaka; they killed 5 Christians.
Apr. 1: The Fulani attacked Christian villages in Plateau State; they killed at least two, displaced over a thousand, and torched their churches and at least 90 homes.
Apr. 4: The Muslim terrorists attacked Christian villages in Miango District; they killed three and torched 65 properties, including the community church, which was burned to the ground.
Apr. 15: On Good Friday, Fulani kidnapped eight Christians. Four were released after paying a hefty ransom. One of the women released said that she was “raped several times by two leaders of the Fulani Militants.” Moreover, a “militant told us, after receiving the ransom money, that they got money to kill more Christians.”
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
France: On Friday, Apr. 8, an unknown man entered the Saint-Etienne Cathedral in Toulouse during the 8 am mass, shortly after communion, and left a package near the altar. He also shouted something at the church worshippers, which they could not understand. Police and explosive experts were quickly deployed to the cathedral. The package turned out to be a homemade explosive device that contained acid. The suspect, a Muslim man from North Africa, was eventually found and arrested. According to the French language news report, his “motive remains unknown.”
Greece: During Holy Week, “an unprecedented event took place” in a church in Athens during liturgy, says an Apr. 20 report: “A foreigner of Arab descent broke into the church, turned to the microphone, and started shouting Quranic verses in front of a shocked congregation. In seconds, two men in the choir ran towards him and dragged him out of the Church. By the time police arrived, the man had disappeared from the scene.”
Sudan: On Apr. 10, a church “long harassed by Islamic extremists,” was attacked. According to the report, three Muslim men barged into it during worship. One of the Muslims, “punched the pastor, tore his shirt and assaulted two women… The other two assailants tore Bibles and broke chairs.” One of the women suffered cuts to her mouth, and the other sustained hand injuries. Both required medical treatment. One of them, aged over 50, was also pushed onto her back and continues to suffer from back pain. When the pastor, Stephanou Adil Kujo, later went to police, they responded by charging him with “disturbing the peace and [being a] public disturbance.” “It is surprisingly strange that the pastor is accused and charged,” responded his lawyer. Then, on Apr. 25, a Muslim judge actually sentenced the pastor to a month imprisonment for “disturbing the peace,” as well as Ibrahim Kodi, the leader of the three Muslims who assaulted the church. According to one report,
The jailed Christian leader’s church has long been harassed by Muslim extremists. Leaders of the church were detained and questioned in February after Muslim extremists upset about the presence of their worship building locked it shut on Feb. 21…. [T]he Muslims accused church members of hostility toward Islam by holding gatherings on Fridays, the Muslim day of mosque prayer.
Holiday Related Attacks on Christians: Easter and Ramadan
Spain: On Sunday, Apr. 10, Muslims physically tried to block an Easter procession in Tarragona (video here). When police arrived to intervene and allow passage for the procession, the Muslims began to riot, prompting police to call for reinforcements. In the end, two men of North African background were arrested, and an investigation was opened concerning the rest.
Similarly, on Apr. 14, during another Easter procession in Granada, a large number of objects began to rain down on the Christians. They came from the Bermúdez de Castro refugee center. Discussing the violent Muslim migrants, the leader of Vox Granada, Onofre Miralles, said, “They are against our culture and against our tradition. I demand measures from the Junta de Andalucía.”
Italy: On Apr. 18, Muslim migrants beat and kicked two Coptic Christian brothers, aged 62 and 71, for wearing crosses and because one of them was smoking during Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast. The incident took place in an open street in Turin. The Christian brothers had been living in Italy for over 40 years. According to the 23-year-old daughter of one of the brothers, who was born and raised in Italy, “It is not the first time that we ourselves have been attacked in Italy because we are Christians.” She suggested that the main reason they were attacked is because “Both wear quite obvious Christian crosses.” After noting that Coptic Christians are persecuted in their Egyptian homeland, she said, “It makes me angry to think that this discrimination also exists here”:
We have had problems before. It happened to me in the city centre when I was out with my friends and we were approached by a man with a small child who started calling us unclean and said we were dressed like prostitutes because we were wearing western clothes. This always happened during Ramadan. The husband of one of my mother’s friends was attacked because he ate during the fasting month, which he obviously does not comply with because he belongs to a different religion [Christianity].
Another Coptic businessman in Turin who has been similarly harassed by Muslim migrants, said, “They want to apply Sharia law because they consider us inferior and want to rule us.”
Egypt: In late April, a Muslim man berated and beat a Coptic Christian woman because she entered his establishment with her head uncovered during Ramadan. Nevin Sobhi, a 30-year-old married mother, went to her local drugstore to pick up some medication for her young son, who accompanied her. On entering, she noticed that the head pharmacist, Dr. Ali Abu Sa‘da, was giving her “the evil eye.” He eventually launched into a loud and “hate-filled tirade” against her for daring to enter his store during Ramadan without any head covering and while wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Ali was aware that Nevin was Christian and, therefore, not obligated to observe Ramadan’s rules. When the Copt told him as much, he responded with a violent slap to her face. When the startled woman responded with shock and anger, he slapped her again—all while her scared, young son cried. She ran out “in a state of collapse, crying and incapable of absorbing the shock.” She contacted her family, and they went to the local police station to report the incident. There, Nevin received what she called her “third slap.” According to the Christian woman:
Inside the police station, I was surprised by attempts and pressure to conciliate. The perpetrator’s lawyer steered the writing of the report [in a manner] that contradicted reality, and they forced me to sign the report which contained statements from the pharmacist’s lawyer without taking my statements. […] We were especially shocked to see the report said that ‘the pharmacist is a friend of the family, who was just bantering and joking around with Mrs. Nevin, because he is close to the family.’
Continued the woman: “I was so shocked; it was as a third slap to me—that such a radical character could emerge victorious, even as I lose my rights as an Egyptian woman!”
Turkey: In the days leading to Easter as well as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (Apr. 24), the front gate of an Armenian Christian school in Istanbul was vandalized with a swastika. According to the Apr. 14 report,
The same school in Istanbul faced anti-Armenian persecution in November 2016 when graffiti was written on the walls stating ‘One night, we suddenly will be in Karabagh.’ Also in 2016, walls of Uskudar Surp Khach Seminary and Uskudar Kalfayan School were vandalized with anti-Armenian graffiti. The graffiti read ‘May the Turkish race live!’ and ‘Torment Armenians.’
Armenian Christians and churches have faced vandalism and discrimination in Turkey annually around the time of the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide anniversary. Recently this included the acquittal of those who danced on the gate of an Armenian church in 2021.
The Muslim Abduction of Christian Women
Burkina Faso: On Apr. 5, masked militants abducted an 83-year-old nun living at a parish. Originally from New Orleans, Marianite Sister Suellen Tennyson had been stationed there, helping the sick and needy, since 2014. “There were about 10 men who came during the night while the sisters were sleeping,” Marianite Sister Ann Lacour, congregational leader, said. “They destroyed almost everything in the house, shot holes in the new truck and tried to burn it. The house itself is OK, but its contents are ruined.” They seized Sister Suellen from her bed in her nightclothes, with “no glasses, shoes, phone, medicine, etc.” She has not been heard from since.
Egypt: On Apr.5, a married Coptic Christian mother of three and her one-year-old daughter disappeared off the streets of Beni-Sweif, where she worked as a teacher at the American College. Mary Wahib Joseph, 36, had left home to take her toddler daughter to a nearby clinic. Her husband immediately contacted police and anyone else who could help recover her. One week later, on Apr. 12, Mary appeared in a video, wrapped under a hijab, and saying that she had willingly and without any coercion converted to Islam; that her name was now Mary Ahmed Muhammad; and that her husband, children, and parents should stop looking for her, because this is her choice. While making these claims Mary’s baby daughter can be heard crying in the background. Responding to this video, her husband said that he knows his wife’s mannerisms and could clearly tell that she was frightened and speaking under duress. He also pointed out that, if she had really run away to convert to Islam and abandon him and their two other young children, why did she not take any of her belongings—no clothes, suitcases, etc.—with her. Instead, she was in the midst of preparing their home for Easter festivities, so “are these the actions of a woman intending to escape?” he asked. The disappearance of Christian women, who then reappear in a video dressed in hijab and say that they had run off and freely embraced Islam, only for the truth to later emerge—that they were abducted and forced to make such videos—is common in Egypt. A virtually identical case from 2020 is documented here.
Similarly, on April 11, Simone Adel Isaac, a 15-year-old Coptic Christian girl, disappeared. Her parents immediately carried out an extensive investigation and discovered that the elder brother of one of her Muslim schoolmates was behind the girl’s disappearance. The parents provided police with the Muslim man’s name, home address, and phone number, and anxiously awaited the return of their daughter. To their dismay, police did nothing. The distraught parents responded by sharing their experiences in a video. Being so abandoned by police, the mother, in tears, appealed to anyone and everyone, including the Egyptian president, al-Sisi, and Coptic pope, to intervene: “Any person with a merciful heart who can return her to me, please do so, because my girl is a minor, my girl doesn’t understand anything, she was deceived by that guy, his sister, and even his mother.” As the girl’s father added, “The government knows exactly where the [Muslim] fellow is. They should be the ones to go and get him, not us.” Both Mary Joseph and Simone Adel were eventually found and returned home.
Muslim Attacks on Freedom: Apostates and Evangelists
Uganda: On Apr. 2, Muslim relatives poisoned and nearly killed a Muslim convert to Christianity. A few days earlier, on Mar. 27, Hiire Sadiki, 56, formerly an Islamic sheikh and teacher, had put his faith in Christ after several months of debating with a Christian pastor. On noticing that he was no longer observing Ramadan, his wife closely followed him and noticed that he was praying in the name of Christ. “She questioned me because of the mode of my praying,” said Sadiki. “I told her that I had believed in Issa [Jesus].” His wife, who “knew verses about punishment for apostasy,” left the room and made a few calls to Islamic leaders; she then returned and started to prepare dinner. “After 30 minutes,” continues Sadiki, “a lady who is a neighbor arrived and went to the kitchen, and after a short while, she left.” After the unsuspecting former Muslim had his meal, he began to vomit and convulse violently. He phoned his pastor friend who quickly came and transported him to a local hospital. According to that pastor, “As we arrived at the hospital, his conditioned [sic] worsened. He started having diarrhea with blood, nausea, vomiting and severe abdominal pain.” Tests revealed that his food was laced with a poison used to kill rats and vermin. His pastor friend continues:
He had lost some amount of blood. I then rang his wife. As I began asking about the sheikh and introducing myself, she was so annoyed and started abusing me for converting her husband. She said she did not want to be identified with him because he had become an infidel, and that she was leaving him and going back to her people, that her husband deserved death for forsaking Islam, and that she didn’t want to relate with an infidel.
She then slammed the phone in his face. The pastor called Sadiki’s sister-in-law, who responded in a similar manner. Since then, his wife took their three children, 6, 10, and 16, and left him.
Also in Uganda, on Easter Sunday, a Muslim man stabbed his wife on learning that she had converted to Christianity. Two weeks earlier, Zaina Gimbo, 26, had put her faith in Christ from her hospital bed. Then, on Sunday, Apr. 17, while her husband was away on a fishing trip, she attended a local church for Easter worship: “It was a wonderful celebration,” Gimbo said. “At about 1 p.m., I went home not knowing that he had come back. I came back with a lot of joy, singing Christian songs that I had learned in the church.” On reaching her home, “immediately the door opened, and there and then my husband came out very furious.” He grabbed and began interrogating her about her newfound faith: “My husband beat and cut me with a long knife. I made an alarm that brought many people who came and disarmed him. I fell down bleeding seriously and lost my conscious[ness].” Christian friends took her to a local hospital, where she was treated for deep wounds to her face, head, and back, and bruises on her hand.
Finally in Uganda, Muslims attacked, burned, and then fired the head of an Islamic private school, after learning of his recent conversion to Christianity. On Apr. 1, Yusufu awoke at 3 am to pray in Christ’s name; unbeknownst to him, a Muslim colleague and neighbor secretly recorded the entire prayer and shared it with other school workers. On the following day, he performed the same early morning prayers, but this time, several of his Muslim colleagues had surrounded his house to eavesdrop. According to Yusufu,
As I finished the prayers at 4:45 a.m. and began preparing to go to the mosque to pray, I heard a knock at the door. As I opened the door, there were people outside my door. They began shouting, ‘Allah akbar [the jihadist slogan, ‘God is greater’]! Allah akbar! Allah akbar! This is a kafir [infidel], this is kafir…They grabbed me and took me inside the mosque and started beating me badly and accusing me of heading a Muslim school yet I had converted to Christianity. Others shouted, ‘A liar, a liar, a liar…He deserves the death penalty.
During his beating, two Muslim staffers “brought two old jerry cans and lit it with fire and started burning me with it. It was too painful. I fainted.” Before long, an elderly teacher intervened, saying to leave him to Allah, who “would kill him.” Some of his Christian friends found and took him to a hospital, where he was treated for second and third degree burns. He was then fired, and not even allowed to return to collect his belongings.
Austria: On Apr. 12, a Muslim man chased and kicked a man who was distributing Bibles in the streets of Vienna-Meidling. The Christian tried to defend himself but was overwhelmed and fled. According to eyewitnesses, the Muslim man “was angry about the Bible distributor’s sweater, which said ‘Christ is God’ in Arabic script. Obviously, this provoked the rabid man in such a way that he completely lost his composure and literally chased him. And that’s exactly what outraged a colleague of the victim: in his opinion, the attack had a radically religious background.”
FBI says it thwarted Iranian cyberattack on Boston Children’s Hospital
Bureau’s director says agents learned of planned digital strike from unspecified intelligence partner, got medical center the info needed to block it
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI thwarted a planned cyberattack on a children’s hospital in Boston that was to have been carried out by hackers sponsored by the Iranian government, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday.
Wray told a Boston College cybersecurity conference that his agents learned of the planned digital attack from an unspecified intelligence partner and got Boston Children’s Hospital the information it needed last summer to block what would have been “one of the most despicable cyberattacks I’ve seen.”
“And quick actions by everyone involved, especially at the hospital, protected both the network and the sick kids who depended on it,” Wray said.
The FBI chief recounted that anecdote in a broader speech about ongoing cyber threats from Russia, China and Iran and the need for partnerships between the US government and the private sector.
He said the bureau and Boston Children’s Hospital had worked closely together after a hacktivist attacked the hospital’s computer network in 2014. Martin Gottesfeld launched a cyberattack at the hospital to protest the care of a teenager at the center of a high-profile custody battle and later was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The attack against the hospital and a treatment home cost the facilities tens of thousands of dollars and disrupted operations for days.
“Children’s and our Boston office already knew each other well — before the attack from Iran — and that made a difference,” Wray said.
He did not ascribe a particular motive to the planned attack on the hospital, but he noted that Iran and other countries have been hiring cyber mercenaries to conduct attacks on their behalf.
When it comes to Russia, he said, the FBI is “racing” to warn potential targets about preparatory actions that hackers are taking toward destructive attacks. In March, for instance, the FBI warned that it was seeing increased interest by hackers in energy companies since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Hackers from China, meanwhile, have stolen more corporate and personal data from Americans than all other nations combined as part of a broader geopolitical goal to “lie, cheat and steal,” Wray said.
The speech took place as the FBI continues to combat ransomware attacks from criminal gangs, an ongoing concern for US officials despite the absence of crippling intrusions in recent months.
Wray emphasized the need for private companies to work with the FBI to thwart ransomware gangs and nation-state hackers, adding that building those relationships is a key to success.
“What these partnerships let us do is hit our adversaries at every point — from the victims’ networks, back all the way to the hackers’ own computers,” Wray said.
The FBI and other federal agencies have been working to assure hacking victims that it is in their best interest to report intrusions and cyber crimes. Many companies attacked by ransomware gangs often don’t go to the FBI for a variety of reasons.
US Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio and the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, issued a report earlier this year critical of the FBI’s response to some ransomware victims. In two cases, the FBI “prioritized its investigative and prosecutorial efforts to disrupt attacker operations over victims’ need to protect data and mitigate damage,” the report said.
One unnamed Fortune 500 company told committee staff that the FBI did not offer any “helpful assistance” when responding to a ransomware attack.
“For example, the FBI offered their hostage negotiator who appeared to have little expertise in responding to ransomware attacks,” the report said.
Wray, though, touted the FBI’s capacity to get a technically trained agent to any victimized company in an hour — “and we use it a lot.”
MUSLIM NEO-FASCISM IN AMERICA - WILL THE MUSLIMS DO TO AMERICA WHAT THEY’RE DOING TO EUROPE?
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-muslim-hate-monger-in-congress.html
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) blasted Omar in June after the congresswoman equated the U.S. and Israel to Hamas terrorists and the Taliban, claiming she was unfit to serve in Congress.
“Omar is an antisemite who hates America and hates American troops,” he said. “She has no place serving in Congress.”
MUSLIM NEO-FASCISM IN AMERICA
Ilhan and Imran's Incredible Islamophobia Intimacy
A shared campaign to destroy the freedom of speech.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-muslim-threat-to-america-ilhan-and.html
It’s Muslim Roulette. Even the most “moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims can, out of the blue, commit the most obscene acts of violence, but with no prior warning signs. These Muslims may not act outwardly any different than they have before, but internally, they began to take Islam seriously. And the more serious a Muslim takes Islam, the more potentially dangerous he or she is. Here’s what I mean by Muslim Roulette:
A is A. Islam is Islam. There is no such thing as “Good” Islam or “Bad” Islam. Islam is a totalitarian religion, while Muslims are individual human beings who may or may not practice Islam faithfully. There are active Muslims and passive Muslims, the faithful and the unfaithful, the submitted and the un-submitted in Islam, but there is no obvious way to tell the difference between them, which has its benefits for Muslims who are committed to spreading Islam by any means necessary. Mohammad said “War is deceit” and practiced this, and Muslims have followed their leader in using deception against non-Muslims from the first days of Islam to today. When Islam, the very antithesis of peace, is sold to us by Muslims and their useful idiots as being the very definition of peace, and actually gains traction, that would have made Goebbels blush.
Biden: 'So Many Muslims Are Targeted With Violence' and 'Oppressed for Their Religious Beliefs'
Complaining about fake violence against Muslims while ignoring real violence by Muslims.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/sociopath-lawyer-joe-biden-up-muslims.html
Iran’s World of Woe
It hasn't been a good month for the Mullahs.
It hasn’t been a good month for Iran.
In Lebanon, Iran’s chief ally, Hezbollah, lost seats in the Lebanese Parliament. The majority coalition it previously headed is now in the minority. The anti-Hezbollah forces now constitute the majority. The Free Patriotic Movement, the party of Hezbollah’s main Christian collaborator, President Michel Aoun, has lost seats to the Lebanese Forces, the party of his arch-rival, the anti-Hezbollah Samir Geagea, who has now replaced Aoun as the main leader of the Christians. Hasan Nasrallah has put a brave face on the loss, claiming it will “change nothing.” Few in Lebanon believe him.
The Iranian economy continues to crater. Now more than half the population lives below the poverty line. The crippling U.S. sanctions are still in effect. Iran had assumed that well before now a deal would have been reached in Vienna, so that the sanctions would be lifted. It hasn’t happened, and won’t, as long as Tehran insists on making its non-negotiable demands on the Americans. Biden has proven surprisingly stubborn in refusing Iran’s demand to remove the terrorist designation from the IRGC. Iran has been desperate for outside economic assistance. Iran has even ended its criticism of the UAE for joining the Abraham Accords, in order to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from the Emirates.
The people in Iran have this May started their street protests against the regime, shouting “death to Khamenei” and “death to Raisi.” These protests have spread to a dozen cities across Iran, and have been put down with extreme violence, only to erupt again. The protests in 2019 were triggered by the removal of subsidies on gasoline. The latest protests – the largest since 2019 — began when the government removed $9 billion in subsidies for food and medicine, and soon morphed from demands that the subsidies be put back into a more general protest against the despotic rulers who through mismanagement and corruption have helped drive Iran’s economy ever downward. And the harsher the repression by the army and police, the more the anger grows.
In Abadan on May 23, a building collapsed, with at least 80 believed to be dead and many others injured. The 10-story building held a combination of commercial and residential tenants. Angry residents reportedly stormed the municipality, blaming faulty construction for the collapse. Locals also say that authorities first sent anti-riot police to the area, leaving those locals angry that instead of ambulances, the authorities first sought to control the people’s anger. The Iranian people know that the shoddy buildings that have been thrown up since 1979 – and have been prone to collapse — are a result of the country’s massive corruption; builders, especially if well connected, can bribe government officials and building inspectors to approve their projects.
The latest bad news for the regime of the ayatollahs is one more feat of derring-do by Mossad agents, who over the years have done so much to slow down Iran’s nuclear program, by cyberwarfare, sabotage, and assassination. Iran has been unable to prevent the Mossad running circles around it. In 2010, Israel infected Iranian computers that regulated centrifuges at Natanz with a computer worm, that caused the centrifuges to speed up so fast they destroyed themselves. Between 2010 and 2012, the Mossad assassinated four of Iran’s most important nuclear scientists. In 2018, Israel managed to steal Iran’s entire nuclear archive. In 2020, Mossad saboteurs caused a fire destroying part of the centrifuge plant in Natanz. In 2021, merely by cutting electric power to the centrifuge plant at Natanz, the Mossad again managed to destroy thousands of the centrifuges. Israel has also engaged in a campaign of blowing up chemical and electrical plants around the country, unsettling the ayatollahs, who never know what Mossad’s next target will be. Of course, the Iranians keep uttering bloodcurdling threats against the Jewish state; the Mossad shrugs these off, as Iran has not managed to carry out any of these threats. Not a single Israeli weapons scientist has been assassinated by Iran, not a single Israeli weapons plant or storehouse of weapons has been damaged. Still, the Iranians keep insisting that they will soon wreak a terrible vengeance on the Jewish state.
Now comes the glad news of another Israeli feat. The IRGC commander in charge of carrying out attacks against Israelis in foreign countries was just assassinated in broad daylight, while sitting in his car right outside his house, demonstrating the boldness of the Mossad agents, and the Islamic Republic’s inability to protect its highest officials. The Biden Administration reportedly had told Israel to stop acting in ways that could derail the nuclear attacks. The Israelis complied, deciding that instead of going after Iran’s nuclear scientists, they would go after other Iranians deemed to be particular threats to the Jewish state. Khodayari was high on the list. He is alleged to have smuggled weapons to Syria, and planned kidnappings and attacks against Jews around the world. He also commanded the Quds Force’s Unit 840, a relatively secret unit that builds terrorist infrastructure and plans attacks against Western targets and opposition groups outside Iran. For Israel, it was his being in charge of attacks on Israelis around the world that sealed his fate.
A report on this latest assassination is here: “Assassination of IRGC official shows Israel has shifted gears – analysis,” by Anna Ahronheim, Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2022:
We will not stop. The message could not be clearer, as Hassan Sayad Khodayari was killed outside his home in central Tehran.
A senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Khodayari was killed in his car by five bullets fired by two alleged Israeli assassins on a motorcycle.
Khodayari is not the first Iranian to have been killed in attacks blamed on the Jewish state. But his assassination marks a change in targets in Israel’s war-between-the-wars campaign (Hebrew acronym: Mabam)….
In April, Mansour Rasouli, a purported member of the IRGC who operated under Khodayari’s command in Unit 840, admitted to Mossad agents in his home that he was sent to target an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general in Germany and a journalist in France.
Rasouli was later released by the Israelis and denied his earlier confession. It is hard to imagine that the information he revealed did not somehow contribute to the Unit 840 chief’s assassination.
The killing of Khodayari means Israel has expanded its war-between-the-wars campaign, and it has begun targeting IRGC officials on their home turf.…
The assassination of Khodayari – in an alleyway outside his home in broad daylight in Iran’s capital – is a message: Our abilities are incomparable. We will get to you if we need to.”
As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, this has not been a good month for Iran.
Turkey’s President Erdogan Threatens to Invade Syria (Again)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday threatened to launch another military incursion into Syria, without warning, if he deems it necessary to neutralize Kurdish militia groups classified by Turkey as terrorists.
“We are fighting against terrorists in northern Syria and we will continue it until they will be eradicated,” Erdogan said during a commemoration of the 569th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul.
Erdogan is, to put it mildly, an Ottoman nostalgist, so his choice of that particular venue to announce a possible new invasion of Syria was significant.
“The conquest of Istanbul took place as a result of genius plans, tremendous efforts, masterful preparations, unprecedented sacrifices, and an unwavering perseverance and determination,” Erdogan gushed during his tribute to Turkey’s imperial history.
Erdogan told reporters aboard his plane on Saturday that a new attack on Kurdish forces in Syria would come without further warning.
“Like I always say, we’ll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must,” he said.
The Kurdish militias Erdogan is targeting are part of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurdish force that was allied with the Western world during its war against the Islamic State.
Erdogan considers the YPG to be indistinguishable from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist group that has been fighting an insurgent campaign against Turkey for decades. On Saturday, he repeated his long-standing complaints about the U.S. and Europe supporting YPG units against ISIS.
“All coalition forces, leading with the U.S., have provided these terror groups a serious amount of weapons, vehicles, tools, ammunition and they continue to do so. The U.S. has given them thousands of trucks,” he said.
“Just as we are conducting operations in northern Iraq against the PKK and PKK’s offspring, the same situation applies even more to Syria and is much more important,” he said. Turkey launched a new air and ground offensive against Iraqi Kurdish fighters in April.
“If the U.S. is not fulfilling its duty in combating terror, what will we do? We will take care of ourselves,” he warned.
Turkey’s fourth incursion into Syria, dubbed “Operation Peace Spring,” was launched in 2019 and never truly ended, as Turkey still occupies positions on Syrian territory. Turkey was roundly condemned for invading Syria and attacking the YPG, including stern criticism from Turkey’s nominal allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In return, Erdogan has been threatening to block Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. On Saturday, the Turkish president repeated his accusations that both of those countries “support terrorism” because they are allegedly harboring PKK militants.
Erdogan claims his goal in Syria is to create a “safe zone” or “buffer” along the Turkish border that would prevent Kurdish militants from threatening Turkey. The Jerusalem Post last week accused Erdogan of plotting another invasion to pump up his poll numbers, and denounced Turkey’s campaign as “ethnic cleansing,” noting it has pushed a tidal wave of 200,000 Kurdish refugees deeper into Syria.
No comments:
Post a Comment