Manchester Explosion: UK Has Been Targeted by Terrorists ‘Time and Time Again’

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At least 19 people were killed and at least 50 injured in a suspected suicide bomb explosion Monday night at an arena in Manchester, England, where U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande was performing a concert.

Police said they were treating the explosion just outside the arena as a terror incident until they “know otherwise.”

Robin Simcox, a terrorism and national security expert at The Heritage Foundation, said the United Kingdom has been a target of Islamist terrorists “time and time again.”

“While the perpetrator of this attack is not yet clear, the U.K. has been targeted by Islamist terrorists time and again,” Simcox told The Daily Signal. “Manchester itself was targeted by Islamist terrorists on multiple occasions in the past, including by al-Qaeda.”

“Even though the U.K. has world class security services,” Simcox added, “this is a numbers game—and the amount of terror suspects in the U.K. is so high that it is impossible for authorities to be able to keep track of everyone that is of concern.”

The explosion occurred about 10:35 p.m. local time outside the Manchester Arena as people were exiting after the concert. The arena has the capacity to seat 21,000 people.

Videos shared online shows concertgoers, many of them children, adolescents, or teens, frantically fleeing a chaotic scene.

Some used Twitter to desperately search for loved ones who had attended the concert.

Andy James, an eyewitness who attended the 23-year-old singer’s concert in Manchester, told CNN the boom felt like it “rattled in my chest.” After the explosion, he said, there was “a stampede of people.”

Chris Pawley, another eyewitness, told Fox News the explosion occurred in an area just outside the arena where parents were waiting to pick up their “young children and teenagers.”

European Parliament member Nigel Farage said that if the explosion is confirmed as an act of terror, it will be a “new low” for terrorists.

“The direct attack on children … marks a new low in all forms of terrorism,” Farage said on Fox News.

A publicist for Ariana Grande told The New York Times during the initial confusion that the American singer and actress was “OK.”

TMZ later reported Grande to be “in hysterics” over the carnage, and Sky News reported her world tour had been suspended. Grande tweeted:

Her “Dangerous Woman” tour, which kicked off Feb. 3 in Phoneix, had been scheduled to take the singer to London for concerts Thursday and Friday, followed by cities in Belgium, Poland, and Germany.

The explosion coincided with President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, where on Sunday in Saudi Arabia he urged Arab leaders to step up the fight to “drive out” Islamist terrorists and extremists. Trump was briefed on the explosion in Manchester, according to NBC News.

(For more from the author of “Manchester Explosion: UK Has Been Targeted by Terrorists ‘Time and Time Again'” please click HERE)

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After Sweden Drops Charges, What’s Next for Julian Assange?

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WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, will not quit releasing pertinent information, even after Sweden announced it’s dropping the rape allegations against him. Assange, the biggest enemy of the state, issued a defiant statement after Sweden dropped the charges. He won’t be kowtowing to the political elites, though; in fact, just the opposite.

Julian Assange had previously expressed concern that he could end up being extradited and face the death penalty in the United States because he continues to reveal government “secrets” through his website, WikiLeaks. On Friday afternoon, Assange appeared on a balcony at the Ecuadorian embassy and described the dropped charges as “an important victory.” But he’s not going to stop releasing the information about the government’s wrongdoings, and that has become a thorn in the side of the political elites.

“Today is an important victory for me and the UN human rights system, but by no means erases seven years of detention without charge…while my children grew up. That is not something I can forgive or forget,” Assange told journalists from a balcony at the Ecuadorian embassy where he has lived for the last five years. Marianne Ny, Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, earlier said the investigation was dropped because Sweden had “exhausted the possibilities” for investigating the allegations against Assange. –Newsweek

It is also becoming more clear as to why the Trump administration now loathes Assange as much as the political left does. No one, Assange included, is supposed to release information showing that the government is not the benevolent magical unicorn partisan politics pretends that it is. Adding fuel to the fire of truth in his statement Friday, Assange said he would continue to release even more of US government’s classified information, regardless of the reports last month that said U.S. officials were preparing charges for Assange’s arrest.

The UK has said it will arrest me regardless. Now the U.S. CIA director [Mike] Pompeo and the U.S. attorney general [Jeff Sessions] have said that I and other WikiLeaks staff have no rights and that my arrest and the arrest of other staff is a priority. That is not acceptable … Our publications are proceeding at speed and that speed in relation to [recent high-profile leaks about the CIA] is accelerating.

Basically, Assange is saying that he has no intentions of stopping the flow of information to his website. Instead, he’s going to speed up the rate he releases the damaging information because of governments’ insistence on continuing to threaten him for the crime of publishing their hard-to-swallow truths.

In the meantime, Ecuador is offering Assange asylum. Guillaume Long, Ecuador’s foreign minister, pledged to help Assange Friday. “Given that the European arrest warrant no longer holds, Ecuador will now be intensifying its diplomatic efforts with the UK so Julian Assange gains safe passage [to] Ecuador,” said Long.

Julian Assange, and other whistleblowers, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, are the only chance we have at regaining a little bit of the truth the governments of the world insist on hiding from us. Some of the information is hard to hear, but wouldn’t you rather know the truth about the government, or do you prefer to be coddled with the lies the political elite think you’re too stupid to understand?

The insistence that Assange is bad and Manning is a traitor resonate only in the minds of those so entrenched in their worship of the government that there is nothing the ruling elites could do to them to warrant a change of heart. The fact remains, that Assange is releasing relevant information proving that the government is the largest corporate gang of criminal masterminds on Earth. And, unfortunately, that truth is just too hard to hear for most voters. (For more from the author of “After Sweden Drops Charges, What’s Next for Julian Assange?” please click HERE)

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Iran Re-Elects Rouhani as President

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a second term in office on Friday, securing about 57 percent of the votes cast in Iran’s carefully vetted and stage-managed presidential election.

Rouhani, a pragmatic hardliner often mistakenly described as a “moderate” by western media, outpolled a field of rival candidates that included Ebrahim Raisi, an ultra-hardline protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The election will change little in Iran. In Iran’s theocratic political system, elections advance the interests of mullahcracy, not democracy.

Iran’s clerical rulers claim legitimacy by purporting to be carrying out the will of God, not the will of the people.

Unlike in the U.S., Iran’s president is a political figurehead with very limited powers and responsibilities.

Iran’s Supreme leader is the ultimate arbiter of the important issues, particularly those the United States is most concerned about: Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile force, its export of terrorism, and its efforts to export its revolution to Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other places.

As the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the Supreme Leader controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?the cutting edge of the regime?which suppresses political opposition, protects the regime at home and abroad, controls Iran’s ballistic missile force as well as covert nuclear efforts, and orchestrates Iran’s support for terrorist groups.

Iran’s theocratic dictatorship has constructed a façade of democracy to mask the fact that real power always has been wielded by unelected clerical leaders. It is the ayatollahs, after all, who approve which candidates are allowed to run for president.

This year, more than 1,600 male candidates announced plans to run for the presidency (women cannot run), but only six were approved by the Guardian Council, an Orwellian body that certifies that candidates reliably support the radical goals of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

The political process amounts to more of a selection than an election. The political campaign provides something of a barometer for measuring popular opinion, but it is still a small, self-perpetuating clerical elite that makes the critical decisions.

This year’s campaign focused primarily on economic issues. Many Iranians were disappointed when the lifting of economic sanctions as part of the 2015 nuclear deal did not trickle down to improve their lives—something Rouhani had promised.

This didn’t happen, in part was because Iran’s biggest trade deals were designed to benefit state-controlled industries and firms affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, who control a large chunk of the Iranian economy.

Moreover, low oil prices have depressed Iran’s oil export revenues, which are the backbone of its economy.

The regime has exacerbated the situation by funneling many of the economic dividends provided by sanctions relief into a military buildup and an increasingly costly military intervention in Syria to prop up the brutal Assad regime.

Rouhani has little control over those decisions, which are made by Ayatollah Khamenei.

In reality, Iran’s election on Friday was a charade. All it did was re-select Rouhani as president—a president in name only.

Under Iran’s revolutionary political system, Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the revolution, greatly outranks the leader of the Iranian state.

Khamenei, who has ruled Iran since 1989, reportedly has suffered from prostate cancer in recent years. The selection of his successor will have a greater impact on Iran’s future than the selection of any president. (For more from the author of “Iran Re-Elects Rouhani as President” please click HERE)

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US Officials Criticize Turkey After Erdogan’s Security Forces’ Violent Attack on DC Protesters

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U.S. officials strongly criticized the Turkish government after video appeared to show its president’s security forces pushing past police and violently breaking up a protest outside their diplomatic residence in Washington.

Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.

The clash happened at the Turkish ambassador’s residence Tuesday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump. Video shows people pushing past police to confront a small group of protesters across the street in Sheridan Circle. (For more from the author of “US Officials Criticize Turkey After Erdogan’s Security Forces’ Violent Attack on DC Protesters” please click HERE)

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Trump Admin: No State Has Sovereignty Over the City of Jerusalem

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After days of noncommittal statements about the status of Israel’s capital city, the Trump administration has finally come clean about its position on Jerusalem. An administration official told Conservative Review Wednesday that the Trump-led government rejects Israel’s claims to sovereignty over the entirety of its historic capital of Jerusalem.

Conservative Review reached out to the State Department after U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a high-ranking administration official, called for the administration to move its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“I believe that the capital should be Jerusalem and the embassy should be moved to Jerusalem because if you look at all their government is in Jerusalem,” Haley told CBN Tuesday.

Although her comments were received as encouraging by the pro-Israel community, Haley appeared to contradict statements made Tuesday by national security adviser H.R. McMaster and press secretary Sean Spicer. Both officials refused to answer whether the Western Wall (a Jewish holy site that is in Jerusalem and claimed by Israel) is part of Israel. Spicer, for his part, stated that the Western Wall “is in Jerusalem.”

A U.S. official clarified to Conservative Review that the official Trump administration position on Jerusalem is the same as the Obama administration’s. Israel’s claims over Jerusalem are not recognized and should be solved through negotiations with the Palestinians, the official explained.

“The Western Wall is located in Jerusalem. While we certainly recognize the strong connection between the Jewish people and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, our position on Jerusalem is unchanged,” the administration official tells Conservative Review.

“Since 1948, every administration has taken the official position that no state has sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” the official added.

By proclaiming that “no state has sovereignty” over Jerusalem, the Trump administration finds itself in a position that is wholly rejected by a bipartisan consensus of congressional leaders.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which was originally passed in 1995 by an almost unanimous consensus in Congress, calls for the United States to move its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Past presidents have put off moving the embassy or even recognizing Israel’s capital, for fear that doing so would incite Muslim nations throughout the region.

Conservative leaders such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C., both released statements yesterday supporting Israel’s claims to Jerusalem. Even Democrat Senator Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called the refusal to include the Western Wall as part of Israel “shocking and offensive.”

On the campaign trail, President Trump pledged to move the “American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.” Since becoming president, his advisers have dramatically walked back that position. Some reports indicate that the president is now using the Jerusalem sovereignty issue as a bargaining chip with an eye toward Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians.

President Trump will arrive in Israel on May 22 and will visit the Western Wall. (For more from the author of “Trump Admin: No State Has Sovereignty Over the City of Jerusalem” please click HERE)

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Officials: US Strike Hits Pro-Assad Forces in Syria

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U.S. officials say an American airstrike has hit pro-Syrian government forces in southern Syria as they were setting up fighting positions in a protected area.

The officials say the strike near Tanf hit a tank and a bulldozer and forces there, but it was not clear if they were Syrian army troops or other pro-government allies.

One official says the pro-regime forces had entered a so-called “de-confliction” zone without authorization and were perceived as a threat to U.S.-allied troops there. The officials say the strike was a defensive move to protect the U.S. allies. It wasn’t clear if U.S. forces were there. (Read more from “Officials: US Strike Hits Pro-Assad Forces in Syria” HERE)

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Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning

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An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province has sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further undermining the country’s moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.

The court, whose sentencing Wednesday coincided with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each be subjected to 85 lashes for having sexual relations. One of the men wept as his sentence was read out and pleaded for leniency.

The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan starts about May 25. (Read more from “Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning” HERE)

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President Trump, Vice President Pence Raise Pastor Brunson’s Case Three Times With Turkey’s President

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I just received a call from the Vice President’s office. President Trump and Vice President Pence raised the case of American Pastor Andrew Brunson three times today with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

This is exactly what we asked the President to do and is a major sign of significant progress toward bringing Pastor Andrew home.

Pastor Andrew – a U.S. citizen – has been wrongfully imprisoned in Turkey for more than seven months because of his Christian faith. Today, Turkish President Erdogan met with President Trump at the White House. Last week, I urged the President and the Vice President when I met with them in the White House to raise Pastor Andrew’s case with Turkish leaders. Today, they did just that, raising his plight directly to President Erdogan. (Read more from “President Trump, Vice President Pence Raise Pastor Brunson’s Case Three Times With Turkey’s President” HERE)

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Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack

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A Danish court on Tuesday convicted a teenage girl of attempted terrorism for planning bomb attacks against two schools.

Holbaek District Court judge Peder Christensen says the 17-year-old, who wasn’t identified, was also convicted of assaulting an employee in the juvenile incarceration facility where she had been held during the trial.

Christensen said the girl had converted to Islam and intended to carry out attacks, including one on a Jewish school, when she was 15. He said she possessed chemicals to make the explosive known as TATP. It also appeared she had online contacts with radical militants. (Read more from “Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack” HERE)

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Expert Who Beat Cyberattack Says He’s No Hero

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A young British computer expert credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.”

In his first face-to-face interview, Marcus Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, said Monday that hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries.

“I’m definitely not a hero,” he said. “I’m just someone doing my bit to stop botnets.” (Read more from “Expert Who Beat Cyberattack Says He’s No Hero” HERE)

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