Tag Archives: Terrorism

Alan Dershowitz says Gaza is merely an excuse for a much wider agenda: to destroy Israel and destroy America

Colleges-Incubating-Terrorism

Important Takeaways:

  • US Campuses: Incubating Terrorism
  • Some of the signs say “pro-Palestine”, “ceasefire now” and “end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”. But these benign statements hide a far more malignant agenda, the end of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, the end of America as the world’s leading power and the end of democracy and the free market economy. Even if there were a unilateral ceasefire, accompanied by massive humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, many of these protests would continue, because Gaza is merely an excuse for a much wider agenda: to destroy Israel and destroy America.
  • One never sees a sign calling for a two-state solution or for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. These are not the goals. What is demanded is the end of any Jewish presence in the Middle East. “Death to America,” similarly, means the end of America’s influence and Western values.
  • Many of the signs call for “revolution.” These are not directed against Israel, but rather against America, American Jews and all other Western democracies.
  • As in the 1960s, many of these students are being groomed to be the terrorists of the future — in the manner of Kathy Boudin and Bernardine Dohrn back then – and, in the United States, a fifth column, the aim of which is taking down America.
  • That these useful idiots are young does not make them less dangerous. Young students were instrumental in bringing to power tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot and Mao.
  • Where are the armed guards escorting Jewish students to class, as there were escorting the threatened Black youths to integrated school in the 1960s in the South?
  • Universities are failing not only their Jewish students but all their students by refusing to educate them about what behavior is acceptable and what is not.

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Investigation into man driving SUV that plowed into crowd finds 11 cans of gasoline in the back and a suicide note

Terrorism-Car-Crash-Rochester

Important Takeaways:

  • Cops recover suicide note after deranged man drove car packed with explosives into crowd at Rochester concert, killing 2
  • Law enforcement sources initially reported that the crash was being investigated as possible domestic terrorism but said Tuesday there was no terror link.
  • The fiery crash occurred at 12:50 a.m. outside the Kodak Center in Rochester, where roughly 1,000 people were filing out after a New Year’s Eve show by the rock band moe.
  • Rochester officers were helping pedestrians cross the street when Michael Avery, a suspected bipolar man from Syracuse, sped his rented Ford Expedition toward the crowd and smashed into an Uber pulling out of a nearby parking lot, law enforcement sources said.
  • “The force of the collision caused the two vehicles to go through a group of pedestrians that were in the crosswalk and then into two other vehicles,” Police Chief David Smith said at a press conference.
  • The cars exploded into an intense blaze that took the fire department nearly an hour to extinguish.
  • A couple riding in the Uber were killed, while their driver was rushed to the hospital in non-life-threatening condition, sources and police said.
  • Three pedestrians were struck by the flying cars — one of whom was left clinging to life.
  • After the fire was extinguished, investigators found at least a dozen gasoline canisters scattered across the pavement and inside the Expedition, according to Smith.
  • Avery, believed to have been an “emotionally disturbed person,” had rented a hotel room in Rochester, where police conducted a search and recovered a suicide note and journal, according to law enforcement sources.

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The reality is that terrorism has been elevated – FBI Director Warns

FBI-Wray

Important Takeaways:

  • FBI Director Wray warns terror threat to Americans at ‘whole other level’ amid Hamas-Israel conflict
  • FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned
    • “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
    • “We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration, the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray said. “In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West.”
  • Wray warned that the most immediate concern is that individuals or small groups will draw inspiration from the events to attack Americans, including homegrown violent extremists who are inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, or by domestic violent extremists who are targeting Muslim or Jewish targets.

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Iran hits tanker in the gulf of Oman experts say it Proves Iran acts as a global exporter of terrorism

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Iran hit tanker to distract from Georgia assassination plot – Israeli officials
  • The targeted tanker is operated by a Singapore-based company owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer.
  • Israeli officials stressed that the Israeli connection to the tanker is very small. The officials added that the same type of Iranian drone being used by Russia in Ukraine, the Shahed 136, was used in the attack.
  • “This is another event that proves that Iran acts as a global exporter of terrorism. This is another time that Iran is harming global freedom of navigation,” said the officials.

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In first for Europe, Iran envoy sentenced to 20-year prison term over bomb plot

By Clement Rossignol and Robin Emmott

ANTWERP, Belgium (Reuters) – An Iranian diplomat accused of planning to bomb a meeting of an exiled opposition group was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday in the first trial of an Iranian official for suspected terrorism in Europe since Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Assadolah Assadi was found guilty of attempted terrorism after a foiled plot to bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) near Paris in June 2018, Belgian prosecution lawyers and civil parties to the prosecution said.

The third counsellor at Iran’s embassy in Vienna, he was arrested in Germany before being transferred to Belgium for trial. French officials said he was running an Iranian state intelligence network and was acting on orders from Tehran.

Assadi did not attend his hearings, which were held behind closed doors under high security, and neither he nor his lawyer have commented.

In March, Assadi warned authorities of possible retaliation by unidentified groups if he was found guilty, according to a police document obtained by Reuters. The courtroom was heavily guarded, with armored vehicles outside and police helicopters overhead.

In a statement carried by Iranian state television, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said: “Unfortunately, Belgium and some European countries, under the influence of the hostile atmosphere of a terrorist group, have taken such an illegal and unjustifiable action.

“Therefore,” he said, “they must be held accountable for the gross violation of the rights of our country’s diplomats.”

Prosecution lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier said outside the court in Antwerp: “The ruling shows two things: A diplomat doesn’t have immunity for criminal acts…and the responsibility of the Iranian state in what could have been carnage.”

COMMERCIAL FLIGHT

Investigators assessed that Assadi brought the explosives for the plot with him on a commercial flight to Austria from Iran, according to Belgium’s federal prosecutor.

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave the keynote address at the rally, which was attended by diplomats from many countries.

The ruling came at a sensitive time for Western relations with Iran. New U.S. President Joe Biden is considering whether to lift economic sanctions on Iran re-imposed by Trump and rejoin fellow world powers in the historic 2015 accord with the Islamic Republic aimed at containing its nuclear program.

While the European Union has imposed human rights sanctions on Iranian individuals, Brussels has sought closer diplomatic and business ties with Tehran.

But it says it cannot turn a blind eye to terrorism, including the two killings in the Netherlands and a failed assassination attempt in Denmark, blamed on Iran.

“This case is not an aberration but rather is part of a pattern of the Islamic Republic’s terrorism in Europe and around the world,” said Toby Dershowitz at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think-tank in Washington D.C.

Three other Iranians were sentenced in the trial for their role as accomplices, with 15-, 17- and 18-year sentences handed down respectively by three judges who did not comment on Thursday. One of their lawyers said he would recommend an appeal, although it was not clear if Assadi would do so.

In an interview with Reuters, NCRI chief Maryam Rajavi called the ruling a turning point as it proved Iran was carrying out state-sponsored terrorism. She said the EU could not stand by without reacting even if some in the 27-nation bloc were pushing for more dialogue with Tehran.

“Silence and inaction would be the worst policy and embolden the regime in its behavior,” she said, speaking through an interpreter, calling for EU sanctions on key officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who heads up nuclear diplomacy with the major powers.

“The European Union and governments must hold the regime accountable,” Rajavi said.

The EU declined to comment. French officials did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly dismissed the charges, calling the attack allegations a “false flag” stunt by the NCRI, which it considers a terrorist group.

(Reporting by Clement Rossignol in Antwerp and Robin Emmott in Brussels with additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Editing by Marine Strauss, Philippa Fletcher and Mark Heinrich)

Trump returns Cuba to U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Monday announced it was returning Cuba to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Cuba was being blacklisted for “repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism” by harboring U.S. fugitives as well as Colombian rebel leaders.

Pompeo also cited Communist-ruled Cuba’s security support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which he said had allowed the socialist leader to create “a permissive environment for international terrorists to live and thrive within Venezuela.”

“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The terrorism list decision followed months of legal review, with some administration experts questioning whether it was justified, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Trump has clamped down on Cuba since coming to power in 2017, tightening restrictions on U.S. travel and remittances to Cuba, and imposing sanctions on shipments of Venezuelan oil to the island.

Trump’s hardline Cuba policy was popular among the large Cuban-American population in South Florida.

Syria, Iran and North Korea are other countries on the list.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washinton and Sarah Marsh in Havana; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

Man admits killing three in UK stabbing spree: BBC

LONDON (Reuters) – A man has admitted killing three people during a stabbing spree in the southern English town of Reading in June, the BBC reported on Wednesday, an attack police declared a terrorism incident.

Khairi Saadallah, 26, was accused of murdering the men and stabbing three others with a five-inch knife during the attack in a park in the town on the evening of June 20.

The BBC said Saadallah, who a security source told Reuters at the time of the incident was a Libyan national, had admitted murder and attempted murder at a hearing at London’s Old Bailey Central Criminal Court.

However, while the prosecution said the attack was a pre-meditated terrorism attack, his defense team did not accept that and said his mental health needed to be taken into account, the BBC reported.

Saadallah had targeted a group of seven friends, stabbing three fatally – James Furlong, 36, and David Wails, 49, from Britain and U.S. national Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39.

Another of the group required 28 stitches to a head wound. Two other men who were sitting with friends nearby were also stabbed, one in the back while the other suffered a cut to his cheek.

An off-duty police officer who was at the scene followed the attacker from the park and he was arrested nearby.

Earlier this month, the terrorism threat level in Britain was raised to “severe,” meaning an attack is seen as highly likely, after recent incidents in France and Austria, although the government said there was no specific threat.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

Terrorism threat level in Britain raised to ‘severe’

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s terrorism threat level has been raised to ‘severe’ as a precaution following attacks in France and Austria, interior minister Priti Patel said on Tuesday.

The change, which means an attack is now seen as highly likely, comes the day after a gunman in Vienna identified as a convicted jihadist killed four people in a rampage overnight. France has also suffered three attacks in recent weeks.

“This is a precautionary measure following the terrible instances that we’ve seen in France last week, and the events that we saw in Austria last night,” Patel said in a televised statement

She said the public should not be alarmed and that the change in threat level was not based on any specific threat.

The new threat level means an attack is highly likely, according to the government’s classification system. The previous ‘substantial’ level meant an attack was likely.

Britain’s threat level is assessed by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is accountable to the domestic intelligence agency MI5 and made up of representatives from 16 government departments and agencies.

(Reporting by William James and David Milliken; editing by Stephen Addison)

Spain sentences Salvadoran ex-officer to 133 years in jail over priests’ massacre

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s High Court sentenced a former army colonel from El Salvador on Friday to 133 years in prison for the murder of five Spanish Jesuit priests in 1989 during the Central American country’s civil war.

Inocente Orlando Montano Morales, 77, was also found responsible by the judges for the murders of the priests’ housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter, as well as a local Jesuit priest. The court could not convict him of these crimes because his extradition to Spain did not cover these cases.

The massacre was one of the most notorious acts of a decade-long civil war during which 75,000 people were killed and 8,000 went missing.

The judges said they found Montano Morales guilty of five counts of “murder of terrorist nature,” adding that the killings were committed by the state apparatus, making them what “is commonly known as terrorism implemented by the state”.

They added that the total maximum prison term is 30 years.

Montano Morales has been in custody since 2011 when he was arrested in the United States on immigration fraud charges. He was deported to Spain in 2017.

The Spanish government has indicted 20 former Salvadoran army officers for the killings of the priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. One of the priests, Father Ignacio Ellacuria, was a prominent critic of the U.S.-backed right-wing government.

The massacre occurred on Nov. 16, 1989, when a group of soldiers from the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion entered the campus of the Central American University where Ellacuria was rector.

Ellacuria had advocated a negotiated settlement to the military-led junta government’s war against the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). International revulsion at the murders of the priests helped to push through such a solution, with the war ending in 1992.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen and Andrei Khalip; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Frances Kerry)

Factbox: What China’s tougher national security regime could mean for Hong Kong

By Greg Torode and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s parliament has approved a decision to go forward with national security legislation on Hong Kong to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in a city roiled by anti-government protests.

The move is seen as a turning point, as leaders of the ruling Communist Party tighten control over China’s freest international city, undermining its reputation as a financial hub with substantial autonomy and an independent legal system.

U.S. reaction was swift, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling Congress that Hong Kong no longer qualified for special status under U.S. law, potentially dealing a crushing blow to its status as a global financial center.

WHAT DOES CHINA WANT?

Greater control and a sense of security. For several years, Chinese officials have expressed increasing frustration and anger over what they see as a weak national security regime in the city.

Last year’s large and sometimes violent anti-government protests have sharpened that frustration, with China determined to thwart what it calls threats of terrorism, independence, subversion of state power, and interference by foreign forces.

SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

Having been approved by parliament, the legislation will be grafted into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution without any local legislative scrutiny, as has been past practice.

Details of the law are expected to be drawn up in coming weeks. It is expected to be enacted before September.

China says Hong Kong has failed to implement national security laws on its own as stipulated in the city’s mini-constitution under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain.

WHAT REMAINS UNCLEAR?

Hong Kong lawyers are puzzled over how the imposed provisions will work in practice.

Questions include whether all protections already in the Basic Law apply and whether locally based mainland agents have enforcement power.

Another issue is whether the standing committee of the National People’s Congress has extra powers to ultimately interpret Hong Kong court rulings on national security.

“There are suddenly a lot more questions than answers and it is not even clear whether anyone in the Hong Kong government is standing up internally against these changes,” one legal scholar said.

China also said its intelligence agencies would have the right to set up offices in Hong Kong to “safeguard national security”. It is not clear, however, whether they will carry out enforcement activities, a critical concern.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING NOW?

The issue sits at the heart of the “one country, two systems” formula under which China agreed to protect Hong Kong’s extensive freedoms, its high degree of autonomy and its independent legal system until 2047.

Those freedoms are protected by the Basic Law, which guides the relationship between Hong Kong and Beijing.

But Article 23 of the document also says Hong Kong must “on its own” enact laws against treason, secession, sedition, subversion and the theft of state secrets. It also seeks to outlaw ties between local and foreign political groups.

The Hong Kong government proposed such local legislation in 2003 but encountered vast opposition, with more than 500,000 people marching peacefully against it.

However, the Basic Law also gives Beijing the power to annex national laws into the document – which the Hong Kong government must then legislate for or effectively impose by executive fiat.

Hong Kong lawyers and politicians sometimes call this the “nuclear option”, but some scholars have questioned whether this power of promulgation applies to Article 23.

DO ANY SUCH LAWS ALREADY EXIST?

Yes. Britain left behind a raft of old laws covering most of the elements of Article 23, aside from subversion and secession – the act of formally withdrawing from a state.

Most are decades old and lawyers say they would be hard to deploy, given more recent protections on freedoms of speech, assembly and association written into the city’s Bill of Rights and the Basic Law itself.

IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?

Highly. Given Hong Kong’s protest movements and polarised politics, a fresh push even for local legislation would be tough.

Many fear that new national security legislation would prove a “dead hand” on the city’s large and pugnacious press and rich artistic traditions, while curbing its broad political debates.

Any step by Beijing to impose its own version via promulgation risks panic and chaos, many observers believe, potentially sparking a flight of people and capital and denting Hong Kong’s international financial role.

(Editing by Stephen Coates)