Report: Terrorist Super-Axis to Strike Within U.S.

Photo Credit: WNDIran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.

A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials.

Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.

If only one of the attacks occurs, the regime will consider the operation a success, the source said. Tehran believes, he said, an attack would not be traced back to Iran due to the nationalities of the operators.

One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days. India alleges Pakistan used proxies to carry out the Mumbai attack so it wouldn’t be traced back to Pakistan, just as Iran now is using proxies to hide its current terrorism. The information provided by the source provides details of a new jihadist coalition with a focus on creating instability in the U.S.

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Obama Congratulates Pakistan for Electing Islamist Prime Minister Linked to Osama bin Laden

Photo Credit: APPakistan held another one of those democratic elections that the reformers claim is the solution to terrorism. And Obama seemed upbeat about the Pakistan Muslim League’s big win.

President Obama congratulated the people of Pakistan on national elections Saturday that marked the country’s first democratic transfer of power.

“I congratulate the people of Pakistan on the successful completion of yesterday’s parliamentary elections,” Obama said in a statement. “The United States stands with all Pakistanis in welcoming this historic peaceful and transparent transfer of civilian power, which is a significant milestone in Pakistan’s democratic progress.

The next Prime Minister is an Islamist fellow by the name of Nawaz Sharif who doesn’t like America, but does like Osama bin Laden.

The former prime minister of Pakistan, now one of President Pervez Musharraf’s chief political rivals, once received a million-dollar payoff from Osama Bin Laden as a thanks for not cracking down on the militant tribal areas in Pakistan’s northwest border province, according to a former member of bin Laden’s inner circle. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup, returned to Pakistan earlier this week after spending seven years in exile living in Saudi Arabia. When in power, Sharif aggravated the United States by detonating Pakistan’s first nuclear weapon and turning a blind eye to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now a former member of bin Laden’s inner circle is saying that Sharif was handsomely rewarded by bin Laden for his policies.

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Fox in the Hen House: Iran to Chair United Nations Arms Control Forum

Photo Credit: APIran will preside over the United Nations arms control forum this month, despite the fact that it is under U.N. sanctions for illicit nuclear activities and routinely supplies arms to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in violation of international law.

The U.N.’s annual Conference on Disarmament, which Iran is slated to lead from May 27 to June 23, is the organization’s primary multilateral forum for negotiating arms control agreements.

The forum has given way to major international treaties on nuclear non-proliferation, prohibitions on chemical weapons, and bans on nuclear tests.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, blasted the decision to allow Iran to chair the conference.

“This is like putting Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer in a statement. “Iran is an international outlaw state that illegally supplies rockets to Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, aiding and abetting mass murder and terrorism. To make this rogue regime head of world arms control is simply an outrage. Abusers of international norms should not be the public face of the U.N.”

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Car Bombs Kill Dozens in Center of Turkish Town Near the Syrian Border

Photo Credit: European Pressphoto AgencyTwo powerful car bombs killed at least 43 people in this town near Turkey’s border with Syria on Saturday, transforming downtown office blocks into smoldering husks in one of the deadliest attacks on Turkish soil in at least a decade.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks, which came 15 minutes and barely a mile apart. Hours later, officials with Turkey’s government, which has backed the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, said they had identified the suspects in the bombing. The attackers, officials said, belonged to an organization linked to Mr. Assad’s intelligence services, though they did not name the organization or the suspects, or provide a detailed explanation of how they reached that conclusion.

Turkey’s swift accusation raised the possibility of an escalating conflict with Syria and the broadening of the war. A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the government had not reached the point where it was considering a military retaliation, but added, “No crime will be left without a response.”

In blaming Mr. Assad’s government, Turkish officials seemed anxious to stave off any possible backlash against thousands of Syrian refugees in Reyhanli or its allies in the Syrian opposition for the bombing. The town is in a region of southern Turkey where some Turks have bristled at their government’s willingness to make Turkey a party to the war, putting it at risk.

After the bombings on Saturday, angry residents smashed the windows of cars from Syria, and a Turkish newspaper reported that protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later erupted in Reyhanli’s streets.

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Cardinal Boycotting Boston College Commencement to Protest Irish Prime Minister’s Support for Abortion

Photo Credit: Barry ChinCardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, said today he would not attend Boston College’s commencement because the scheduled speaker, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, supports controversial abortion-rights legislation in his country.

In a statement released this afternoon, O’Malley said the Catholic Bishops of the United States have urged Catholic institutions not to honor government officials whose views on the issue are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic church.

The Irish legislation would permit abortions if there is a real and substantial threat to the mother’s life, including from suicide.

“Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach [prime minister] has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation,’’ O’Malley said in a statement. “It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the Bishops’ directives.’’

He added, “although I shall not be present to impart the final benediction, I assure the graduates that they are in my prayers on this important day in their lives, and I pray that their studies will prepare them to be heralds of the Church’s Social Gospel and ‘men and women for others,’ especially for the most vulnerable in our midst.’’

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China May Not Overtake America this Century After All

Photo Credit: GettyThe world’s tallest tower should have been built by now. Officials said last year that the great edifice with 220 floors would be erected in three months flat in China’s inland city of Changsha by March, snatching the crown from Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

The deadline has come and gone, yet the wasteland sits untouched. It now looks as if the fin d’époque project – using prefab blocs – may never be approved. Even China knows its limits.

Prime minister Li Keqiang has asked the State Council to clamp down on the excesses of the regions. Not before time. A top regulator says local government finances are “out of control”.

Mr Li aims to cut China’s economic growth to a safe speed limit of 7pc next year and rein in rampant investment – still a world record 49pc of GDP – before it traps the country in a boom-bust dynamic of frightening scale.

Vested interests are conspiring to stop him, launching a counter-attack from their power-base in the $6 trillion state industries. Even so, uber-growth is surely over.

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Dennis Rodman to Kim Jong Un: ‘Do Me a Solid’

Photo Credit: OPEN SportsNBA great-turned-unofficial diplomat Dennis Rodman asked North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Tuesday to release an imprisoned American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution. The 44-year-old Bae was born in South Korea and is a naturalized American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution…


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Black-Clad Hezbollah Now Fighting Rebels for Assad in Syria

Photo Credit: Lynsey Addario Lebanon — Near Damascus, Hezbollah fighters are defending the shrine of Sayida Zeinab, revered by Shiite Muslims, from encroaching Sunni rebels. To the north, they are not just part of a Syrian government drive to take back the strategic town of Qusair, rebels say, they are leading it.

On Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists reported that rebels had killed 15 Hezbollah fighters in Qusair. But they also said the rebels were besieged in the town and in danger of losing it, after black-clad Hezbollah fighters swept them from surrounding villages.

Recruited and trained to battle Israel and defend Lebanon, Hezbollah’s Lebanese Shiite guerrillas are pushing more and more deeply into a very different fight: in neighboring Syria, against fellow Arab Muslims trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Their leaders have made it increasingly clear that Mr. Assad’s war is their war, too.

Though Hezbollah has never been militarily stronger — it has more than replenished the weapons and fighters it lost in its brief war with Israel in 2006 — it finds itself in an unaccustomed situation. It is struggling to preserve credibility at home and fend off an array of new challenges abroad as it fights what it sees as a battle to preserve Mr. Assad’s rule, and the crucial arms pipeline he provides.

Its chief patron, Iran, is suffering under sanctions over its nuclear program. Its members have been jailed on charges of helping to kill Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, as Europe considers joining the United States in labeling it a terrorist organization. It is facing heightened sectarian talk from its rivals in Lebanon — all while trying to keep its focus on its primary enemy, Israel.

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U.S. Directly Blames China’s Military for Cyberattacks, Espionage

Photo Credit: Gary LerudeThe Obama administration on Monday explicitly accused China’s military of mounting attacks on American government computer systems and defense contractors, saying one motive could be to map “military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.”

While some recent estimates have more than 90 percent of cyberespionage in the United States originating in China, the accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness. Until now the administration avoided directly accusing both the Chinese government and the People’s Liberation Army of using cyberweapons against the United States in a deliberate, government-developed strategy to steal intellectual property and gain strategic advantage.

“In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” the nearly 100-page report said.

The report, released Monday, described China’s primary goal as stealing industrial technology, but said many intrusions also seemed aimed at obtaining insights into American policy makers’ thinking. It warned that the same information-gathering could easily be used for “building a picture of U.S. network defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.”

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China’s H7N9 Killer Bird Flu Virus Has Now Spread to Dozens, 24% Mortality Rate

Photo Credit: anthrovikHealth officials in China reported two new H7N9 infections, both from Fujian province, and four more deaths, boosting the outbreak’s total to 130 cases, 31 of them (24%) fatal.

One of the patients is a 9-year-old boy whose infection was detected during routine flu surveillance, according to official and media reports today. He has been discharged from the hospital, according to a statement Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP).

The other patient is a 69-year-old man who is hospitalized, according to a separate statement yesterday from the CHP. So far none of the man’s nine close contacts have shown any symptoms.

China’s National Health and Family Commission today put the number of deaths at 31, an increase of four since the group’s last update, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reported today. The report did not include any other details about the deaths. The report also said 42 patients have recovered from their H7N9 infections.

In other developments, China’s agriculture ministry yesterday announced five more poultry and market environmental samples that tested positive for H7N9, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)…

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