Benjamin Netanyahu Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tuesday that “in Europe and elsewhere, Jews are once again being targeted just for being Jews.”

Netanyahu’s statement came Tuesday on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. He emphasized that “the memory of the Holocaust is more important today than ever.”

“Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is more important today than ever for in this period of resurgent and sometimes violent anti-Semitism,” Netanyahu wrote, “it is commemorations like this that remind us all where the oldest and most enduring hatred can lead.”

“Unfortunately, in Europe and elsewhere, Jews are once again being targeted just for being Jews. Around the world, Jewish communities are increasingly living in fear,” Netanyahu continued. “We see anti-Semitism directed against individual Jews, and we also see this hatred directed against the collective Jew, against the Jewish state. Israel is targeted with the same slurs and the same libels that were leveled against the Jewish people since time immemorial.

“Islamic extremists incorporate the most outrageous anti-Semitism into their murderous doctrines. We see this in Gaza; we see it in Raqqa; we see it in Tehran. And it’s not just Islamic extremists in the Middle East and Europe,” Netanyahu argued. “Even respected Western opinion leaders have become afflicted with hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state.” (Read more from “Benjamin Netanyahu Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day” HERE)

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ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says

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By Brian Ross, Michele McPhee and Lee Ferran. The terror group ISIS has created a whole “industry” out of the production of fake passports, a high-level French official said today.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that through ISIS’s operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the group has acquired blank passports and has now set up a “real fake document industry.” Cazeneuve made the statement following a meeting with top European officials where he proposed setting up a new task force to help nab people attempting to come into the European Union with fake papers.

Last month ABC News reported that U.S. intelligence suspected ISIS had acquired thousands of blank Syrian passports and at least one passport printing machine after taking over government offices in Syria. Officials from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in a 17-page report that the terror group has likely been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since at least last summer – and raised the possibility that people using the forged documents have snuck into America.

“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS-controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the HSI report says. (Read more from “ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says” HERE)

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Islamic State Plans Attacks From Camps in Europe, Europol Says

By James G. Neuger. Islamic State has set up a special operations command to mastermind more terrorist attacks on “soft targets” in Europe, drawing on training camps on European soil and with France as the most at-risk country, the European Union’s crime-fighting agency said.

The model is the simultaneous shootings at several locations in Paris in November which killed 130, with most of the bloodshed at a concert hall in eastern Paris, said the agency, known as Europol.

It is possible that similar operations “are currently being planned and prepared,” Europol said in a report released on Monday during a meeting of EU interior ministers in Amsterdam. “The wide range of possible targets in combination with an opportunistic approach of locally based groups creates a huge variety of possible scenarios for future terrorist events.” (Read more from “Islamic State Plans Attacks From Camps in Europe, Europol Says” HERE)

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Palestinian Authority Official Praises Hitler as ‘Daring’ for Annihilating Jews

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“Let us talk logically. Hitler was not morally corrupt. He was daring,” Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi tells host of Palestinian television show, who cuts him off saying that “it would be a pity to be put in jail because of this interview.”

A Palestinian Authority official praised Adolf Hitler as “daring” in a recent television interview, Palestinian Media Watch reported on Wednesday.

Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi also told the host of a Palestinian television show on Saturday that the genocidal Nazi leader “was not morally corrupt” for the killing of six million Jews.

The host of the program cut Tirawi off immediately, saying he preferred not “to be put in jail” over the interview . . .

In 2014, Tirawi called on Palestinians to embark on a violent uprising in the West Bank and resume their “armed resistance.” (Read more from “Palestinian Authority Official Praises Hitler as ‘Daring’ for Annihilating Jews” HERE)

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ISIS Releases New Video Showing Paris Attackers Committing Previous Atrocities

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By Associated Press. New video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday shows the extremists who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris committing atrocities in IS-controlled territory while plotting the slaughter in the French capital that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured. The group also threatened to attack Britain.

The 17-minute video shows the extent of the planning that went into the multiple attacks in Paris, which French authorities have said from the beginning was planned in Syria. The video was provided online by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites.

All nine militants seen in the video died in the Paris attacks or their aftermath. Seven of the attackers — four from Belgium and three from France — spoke fluent French. The two others — identified by their noms de guerre as Iraqis — spoke in Arabic. (Read more from “ISIS Releases New Video Showing Paris Attackers Committing Previous Atrocities” HERE)

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Shocking Martyrdom Video Emerges of ISIS Paris Attackers Carrying out Beheadings as They Threaten Massacres in the West

By Tom Wyke. A threat is made against the UK with video using footage of the House of Commons vote in favour of strikes in Syria.

The message reads: ‘Whoever stands in the ranks of Kufr will be a target for our swords and will fall in humiliation’ and appears while David Cameron addresses the house.

The beginning of the video footage is carefully intermixed with a range of media footage from the harrowing attacks on Friday 13 November.

[WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT:]

Each of the fighters give a short speech, laden with curses against the West and calling for Muslims to wage jihad in their home countries.

Abbaoud is the first fighter to give a speech, in which he declares ISIS are ‘masters not slaves’ before pledging to carry out terror attacks. (Read more from “Shocking Martyrdom Video Emerges of ISIS Paris Attackers Carrying out Beheadings as They Threaten Massacres in the West” HERE)

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Former Spy Killed After Claiming Putin Is a Pedophile, Russian President Likely ‘Approved It’

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By BBC. The murder of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in the UK was “probably” approved by President Vladimir Putin, an inquiry has found.

Mr Putin is likely to have signed off the poisoning of Mr Litvinenko with polonium-210 in part due to personal “antagonism” between the pair, it said.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the murder was a “blatant and unacceptable” breach of international law.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry said the public inquiry was “politicised”.

It said: “We regret that the purely criminal case was politicised and overshadowed the general atmosphere of bilateral relations.” (Read more from “Former Spy Killed After Claiming Putin Is a Pedophile, Russian President Likely ‘Approved It'” HERE)

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How Ex-KGB Spy Was Killed With Tea After Accusing Putin of Pedophilia

By Laura Italiano. The radioactive poison that killed Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was delivered under the most civilized of circumstances — at tea time, as he sipped green tea with lemon and honey with two former spy colleagues at a posh London hotel.

It was Nov. 1, 2006, and Litvinenko was joined by former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun in the pine-paneled barroom of the Millennium in the city’s Mayfair district. . .

Just four months before his death, Litvinenko would publish an embarrassing account on a Russian news site that detailed evidence purporting to prove that Putin was a pedophile.

He had repeatedly been warned about threats on his life, and as recently as the very day of his poisoning had been told by an Italian colleague that he was on a “hit list” kept by Russian security services agents. (Read more from “How Ex-KGB Spy Was Killed With Tea After Accusing Putin of Pedophilia” HERE)

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Judicial Watch Uncovers New State Department Records Confirming Arab Smuggling ‘Cells,’ Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico

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For more than a decade the U.S. government has known that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells,” according to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch that reveal among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new intelligence records were released as a result of an ongoing JW investigation into the critical national security threats on the southern border, specifically those created by Islamic terrorists teaming up with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and attack the U.S. In response to JW’s reporting in the last two years the Obama administration—through various spokespeople, including FBI Director James Comey—has vehemently denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in Mexican towns near American cities or entering the U.S. through the famously porous southern border.

The State Department documents, which include substantial redactions supposedly to protect classified and personal information, contradict this. JW obtained them as part of an investigative series into Shukrijumah, an Al Qaeda operative also known as Javier Robles. In December, 2014 Shukrijumah was killed by the Pakistan Army in an intelligence-borne operation in South Waziristan. But before he died Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey’s studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities. For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, he crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. JW has reported that, as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico. (Read more from “Judicial Watch Uncovers New State Department Records Confirming Arab Smuggling ‘Cells,’ Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico” HERE)

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WATCH: John Kerry ADMITS We Are Giving Money to Terrorists

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By Matthew Lee. It’s likely that some of the billions of dollars in sanctions relief granted to Iran under a landmark nuclear deal will go to groups deemed to be terrorists, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday. But, he added, he doesn’t believe Iran will be able to use the freed-up cash to boost funding of malign activities if it is serious about revamping its economy.

Kerry said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum the U.S. or others can do little to prevent the now-unfrozen assets from getting into the hands of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps or “other entities” that Iran has supported in the past. But since nuclear-related sanctions were lifted on Iran last weekend, Kerry said, there is no evidence yet to suggest such transfers have occurred.

“I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,” he told CNBC television in an interview. “You know, to some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented. But I can tell you this: Right now, we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor at this point in time.” (Read more from “John Kerry Just Confirmed We Are Giving Money to Terrorists” HERE)

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Congress Moves to Block Payment to Iran of $1.7 Billion in Taxpayer Funds

By Adam Kredo. Congress is considering legislation that would bar the Obama administration from moving forward on a cash payment to Iran of $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a copy of the legislation provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Obama administration officials confirmed to the Free Beacon earlier Thursday that it is using a taxpayer-funded account to pay Iran $1.7 billion as part of a settlement agreement reached with the Islamic Republic ahead of the release of five imprisoned Americans.

Critics of the agreement allege that the administration agreed to the payment to spur Iran to release the five Americans, who were freed over the weekend.

The news has sparked outrage on Capitol Hill and prompted Sen. Jerry Moran (R., Kan.) to file legislation Thursday afternoon that would bar the administration from moving forward on the payment until Iran pays millions in judgments awarded to the U.S. victims of its global terrorist network, according to the bill.

“The United States should not be funding governments that openly violate human rights, proudly disregard U.N. Security Council resolutions, and call for the destruction of America and its allies,” Moran said in a statement. “This bill directs the U.S. government to put justice for American victims of Iranian terrorism ahead of compensation for the Iranian regime.” (Read more from “Congress Moves to Block Payment to Iran of $1.7 Billion in Taxpayer Funds” HERE)

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2015 Saw ‘Most Violent’ Persecution of Christians in Modern History

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The brutal, worldwide persecution of Christians during the past year makes 2015 “the most violent and sustained attack on Christian faith in modern history,” according to a watchdog organization that has been monitoring Christian persecution for decades.

Open Doors, an organization founded in 1955 to assist persecuted Christians, publishes an annual “World Watch List,” documenting attacks on Christians and ranking the most hostile national environments for believers.

“The 2016 World Watch List documents an unprecedented escalation of violence against Christians, making this past year the most violent and sustained attack on Christian faith in modern history,” Open Doors CEO David Curry said at the rollout of the list.

Persecution in “continuing to increase, intensify and spread across the globe,” he said.

At the top of the Watch List, for the 14th consecutive year, stands North Korea, where an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in labor camps. Carrying on as one of the last holdouts of Communist totalitarianism, North Korea bears a particular hatred for Christians, who are a constant reminder of accountability to a higher power than the state. (Read more from “2015 Saw ‘Most Violent’ Persecution of Christians in Modern History” HERE)

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Former US Marine Freed From Iran: ‘I Feel Alive for the First Time’ [+video]

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Photo Credit: Fox News Amir Hekmati, one of the Americans freed from Iran in a prisoner swap, said Tuesday he couldn’t wait to return to his home in Michigan.

“I feel alive for the first time,” the 32-year-old retired Marine told reporters outside a hospital in Germany, one day after an emotional reunion there with his family . . .

Hekmati, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and pastor Saeed Abedini arrived late Sunday at the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for treatment. A fourth American released in exchange for the U.S. pardoning or dropping charges against seven Iranians opted to stay in Iran, and a fifth American was released separately.

Hekmati was detained in August 2011 on espionage charges. Hekmati says he went to Iran to visit family and spend time with his ailing grandmother. After his arrest, family members say they were told to keep the matter quiet.

He was convicted of spying and sentenced to death in 2012. After a higher court ordered a retrial, he was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years on a lesser charge. (Read more from “Former US Marine Freed From Iran: ‘I Feel Alive for the First Time'” HERE)

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Oldest Christian Monastery in Iraq Is Razed

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The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group’s relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites.

For 1,400 years the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops. In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ’s name, were carved near the entrance.

Now satellite photos obtained exclusively by The Associated Press confirm the worst fears of church authorities and preservationists — St. Elijah’s Monastery of Mosul has been completely wiped out.

In his office in exile in Irbil, Iraq, the Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39, stared quietly at before- and after-images of the monastery that once perched on a hillside above his hometown of Mosul. Shaken, he flipped back to his own photos for comparison.

“I can’t describe my sadness,” he said in Arabic. “Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.” (Read more from “Oldest Christian Monastery in Iraq Is Razed” HERE)

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