Is a Secret Sniper Killing off ISIS’s High Command in Libya?

/5 Comments/in , /by

As befits all the best practitioners of his shadowy trade, no-one is quite sure whether he is one man or many, or even simply an urban legend.

But after a string of assassinations of its local henchmen, the Islamic State’s new “Caliphate” in the Libyan city of Sirte is abuzz with talk that an anti-Isil sniper is at work.

In recent weeks, no fewer than three Isil commanders in Sirte have been shot dead from long range, according to local media.

The killings – reported to be the work of a sniper who honed his skills in Libya’s uprising against Colonel Gaddafi – are said to have sowed panic among Isil’s forces in the city, who have carried a string of arrests and executions in a bid to track down the culprit.

The Sirte assassin’s most recent casualty, according to social media reports from Sirte, was Abdullah Hamad Al-Ansari, an Isil commander from southern Libyan city of Obari, who was shot dead on January 23 as he left a city centre mosque. (Read more from “Is a Secret Sniper Killing off ISIS’s High Command in Libya?” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods

/1 Comment/in , /by

In a step towards joining an Israel boycott, the U.S. is now requiring goods originating from the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria) to be labeled separately from products from the rest of Israel, following the European Union’s crackdown on products from the disputed territories.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has issued new mandates requiring that West Bank products not be marked “Israel,” citing a notice from the year 1997 that offers such instructions.

The memo from DHS, titled, “West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirements,” reads:

“The purpose of this message is to provide guidance to the trade community regarding the country of origin marking requirements for goods that are manufactured in the West Bank.”

According to the instructions, “It is not acceptable to mark” goods from the West Bank as having been from “Israel,” “Made in Israel,” or from “Occupied Territories-Israel.” (Read more from “Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Doubts That the Holocaust Occurred

/1 Comment/in , /by

By Jerusalem Post. Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday once again repeated provocative assertions about the Holocaust, defying the world on a day that it paused to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide in Europe.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei released a video in which he said America “assists the fake Zionist regime” and that when “they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS they are lying,” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Of the Holocaust, Khamenei remarked: “It is not clear whether the core of this matter is a reality or not. Even if it is a reality, it is not clear how it happened…This is the ignorance that exists in today’s world. We should be awake. [Muslims] should know that we can stand up against the ignorance.” “Who assists the fake Zionist regime,” Khamenei says in the video. “Who supports them, who clears the road for them, who stands behind them.”

“It is Western powers headed by America that are doing so. This is while they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS.” (Read more from “Iran’s Supreme Leader Doubts That the Holocaust Occurred” HERE)

____________________________

Obama Says ‘We Are All Jews’

By Eric Cortellessa. US President Barack Obama joined members of the American Jewish community Wednesday night for a ceremony honoring four individuals who were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, an honorific bestowed by the State of Israel on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews in the Holocaust.

The ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington was the first of its kind to be held in the United States, and thus the first to be addressed by a sitting US president. Held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Obama said the unusual gathering was to “make real the call to ‘never forget.’”

Mere months after a tumultuous showdown with Israel’s government over his signature foreign policy priority — an Iranian nuclear accord that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted as a “historic mistake” that poses an existential threat to Israel — Obama sought to showcase the US’s enduring ties with the Jewish state, undergirded by a genuine solicitude for the Jewish people.

“We are all Jews,” he said, paying homage to one of the four individuals being honored.

Americans Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee; Lois Gunden of Goshen, Indiana; and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski of Warsaw were the four recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust remembrance and education organization. (Read more from “Obama Says ‘We Are All Jews'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

French Cops Run From Migrants Screaming: ‘We Are Muslim, We Want to Go to UK!’ [+video]

/1 Comment/in , /by

Video footage reveals the moment migrants and anarchists marching through the center of Calais on Saturday broke through police lines and stormed the city’s port which connects France to the United Kingdom.

The French government is adamant that current security provisions in the area are adequate and effective, yet the video shows riot police backing away from a crowd of migrants chanting “UK, UK”, before turning and running. One migrant angrily screams at the camera: “We are people. We are Muslim! We want to go to UK!”

The migrants were then able to break through security fencing; 50 made it all the way onto the UK-bound ferry Spirit of Britain.

It is not clear from the video how many migrants broke through the police line and marched into the port, but it is apparent that initial reports of 150 were an underestimate. Later reports suggested that anywhere between 500 and 1000 migrants made it within port boundaries, although only 50 succeeded in boarding the UK bound ferry Pride of Britain.

However, the new video, which was filmed from within the migrant crowd, sheds new light on how the migrants were able to access the port in the first place. It shows a line of around 20 riot police blocking access to Rue de la Mer, which leads to the port. A large contingent of migrants and anarchists walk up to the police line chanting “UK, UK”. (Read more from “French Cops Run From Migrants Screaming: ‘We Are Muslim, We Want to Go to UK!'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

North Korea ‘Preparing Long-Range Missile Launch Next Week’

/1 Comment/in , /by

North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as in a week, Japan’s Kyodo news agency has reported, citing an unnamed Japanese government official.

The official cited signs of possible preparations for a missile launch based on analysis of satellite imagery.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan 6., which is expected to result in fresh sanctions at the United Nations.

Earlier on Wednesday, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, said that a nuclear-armed North Korea poses an “overt threat, a declared threat to the world”.

Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response to the North’s latest atomic blast – which Pyongyang said was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, a claim largely dismissed by experts – with enhanced sanctions. (Read more from “North Korea ‘Preparing Long-Range Missile Launch Next Week'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Benjamin Netanyahu Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day

/1 Comment/in , /by

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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says

/2 Comments/in , /by

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)

____________________________

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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

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

/2 Comments/in , /by

“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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

ISIS Releases New Video Showing Paris Attackers Committing Previous Atrocities

/0 Comments/in , /by

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)

__________________________

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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

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

/1 Comment/in , /by

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)

______________________________

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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.