Al Qaeda Calls For Jihadists To Kill Ex-Leaders Clinton, Bush, Blair

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Photo Credit: Ron EdmondsThe latest edition of al Qaeda’s English-language online magazine Inspire urges readers to become “lone wolf” jihadists focused on assassinating current and former leaders of Western countries.

“It is easy,” an al Qaeda “consultant” writes of killing the U.S. or French president.

“These people have many weak points, especially during parties, ceremonies and election campaigns.”

In the article titled “You ask, we answer,” the consultant says that “individual mujahids” or holy warriors, who are daunted by the task of killing current world leaders should consider murdering their predecessors.

“If you think you are unable,” the consultant writes “then you have easy targets like [former U.S. Presidents George W.] Bush [and] Bill Clinton, [and former U.S. Secretaries of State] Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, … [as well as former French President Nicholas] Sarkozy and [former British Prime Minister] Tony Blair. “It is now easy to reach these guys, especially since they aren’t in office anymore.”

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U.S. To Instigate Insurgency in Lebanon?

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Photo Credit: WNDA delegation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrived in Lebanon to oversee the reinforcement of Hezbollah positions throughout South Lebanon amid Iranian concerns the U.S. and other nations are seeking to arm Christian and Druze opposition groups there, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The security officials told WND the U.S., France and Saudi Arabia held serious discussions in recent days about possibly arming Lebanese groups to act against the Hezbollah-Iran axis in Lebanon.

If confirmed, any such arming could expand the growing insurgency in Syria to neighboring Lebanon, a country that has been devastated by civil wars on multiple occasions.

Iran’s reported reinforcement of Hezbollah comes as the U.S. earlier this week pledged $60 million in food rations and medical supplies to the Free Syrian Army. It marked the first time that the Obama administration publicly committed itself to sending aid to the armed factions battling President Bashar al-Assad.

A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups.

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Al Qaeda On The Warpath

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Al Qaeda affiliates have spread throughout the Middle East and Africa, transforming al Qaeda into an increasingly dangerous global network, research analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said during a panel Wednesday.

“Al Qaeda is stronger at an operational level than it has been for many years” and the prospects of al Qaeda strengthening are more likely, AEI senior research analyst Katherine Zimmerman said.

Even though the United States successfully found and killed Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda movement has spread to Yemen, North Africa, Syria, Somalia, and other areas in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda is “not defeated or on the verge of defeat,” Zimmerman said.

With the outbreak of the Arab Spring, local affiliated al Qaeda groups have infiltrated unstable locations in the Middle East.

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Currency Wars: Why Is The French Industry Minister Rooting For The Devaluation Of The Euro

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Photo Credit: The BlazeFollowing his embarrassing brush with U.S. CEO Maurice Taylor, French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg has turned to the devaluation of the euro as a means of saving France’s battered economy.

No, really.

“France’s industry minister Tuesday called for a lower euro and said the European Central Bank’s [ECB] role should be reinterpreted, wading back into a currency debate that had been calmed by an agreement between the world’s top finance ministers earlier in the month to refrain from competitive devaluations of their currencies,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“I am for a less-strong euro,” Montebourg said Tuesday, adding that it is “good news” the euro has declined against other currencies.

As noted in the WSJ report, the euro has fallen about 4.6 percent against the U.S. dollar since February:

“I am very happy, [the decline] should continue,” Montebourg added.

The report continues:

Earlier this year, French officials complained about the euro being too strong and making the country’s exports less competitive. In a speech to the EU parliament in early February, French President Francois Hollande said the euro shouldn’t be left to fluctuate according to the mood of the markets and warned that a strong euro wipes out efforts to make economies more competitive.

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Green Fatigue Sets In: The World Cools On Global Warming

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Photo Credit: Jonathan Kos-ReadPublic concern about environmental issues including climate change has slumped to a 20-year low since the financial crisis, a global study reveals.

Fewer people now consider issues such as CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, animal species loss, and water shortages to be “very serious” than at any time in the last two decades, according to the poll of 22,812 people in 22 countries including Britain and the US.

Despite years of studies showing the impact of global warming on the planet, only 49 per cent of people now consider climate change a very serious issue – far fewer than at the beginning of the worldwide financial crisis in 2009.

Worries about climate change first dropped in industrialised nations but they have now also fallen in developing economies including Brazil and China, according to the survey by GlobeScan Radar.

The declining interest in climate change comes amid a backlash against costly green energy investments in an age of austerity. David Nussbaum, head of WWF UK, said “sustained pressure” was required from political leaders to combat climate change. He said it was only when “real indicators” of climate change came, such as floods and droughts, that public perceptions changed.

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Beijing Preparing for War?

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Photo Credit: APUnited States intelligence agencies recently detected China’s military shifting road-mobile ballistic missiles closer to its southern coast near the disputed Senkaku Islands amid growing tensions between Beijing and Japan over the islands dispute.

U.S. defense officials said the movements are being watched closely as China’s military is also holding large-scale military exercises that some fear could be a trigger for a conflict with Japan that could involve U.S. forces. The officials did not provide details of the missile movements that were tracked by U.S. aircraft, ship-based, and satellite surveillance systems in the region.

Disclosure of the missile movements comes as White House national security adviser Tom Donilon on Monday met in Seoul with China’s state councilor Liu Yandong. The two were in South Korea to attend the inauguration of South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Tensions remain high between Japan and China over Tokyo’s nationalization last year of several uninhabited islands between Okinawa and Taiwan called the Senkakus. China claims the islands as its territory. At issue are large undersea oil and gas deposits sought by both energy-poor countries.

The officials confirmed the missile movements near the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian after Chinese press outlets first reported them.

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U.S. Offers Training and Other Aid to Syrian Rebels

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WASHINGTON — The United States is significantly stepping up its support for the Syrian opposition, senior administration officials said on Wednesday, helping to train rebels at a base in the region and for the first time offering armed groups nonlethal assistance and equipment that could help their military campaign.

The training mission, already under way, represents the deepest American involvement yet in the Syrian conflict, though the size and scope of the mission is not clear, nor is its host country. The offer of nonlethal assistance is expected to come from Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting on Thursday in Rome with opposition leaders. Mr. Kerry is also expected to raise the prospect of direct financial aid, though officials cautioned that the White House still had to sign off on all the elements.

Before arriving in Rome on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry declared in Paris that the Syrian opposition needed additional assistance and indicated that the United States and its partners planned to provide some.

Under a broad definition of “nonlethal,” assistance to the opposition could include items like vehicles, communications equipment and night vision gear. The Obama administration has said it will not — at least for now — provide arms to the opposition.

One major goal of the administration is to help the opposition build up its credibility within Syria by providing traditional government services to the civilian population. Since the conflict erupted two years ago, the United States has sent $365 million in humanitarian aid to Syrians. American officials have been increasingly worried that extremist members of the resistance against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, notably the Al Nusra Front, which the United States has asserted is affiliated with Al Qaeda, will take control of portions of Syria and cement its authority by providing public services, much as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

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Italy Halts Austerity Plan Leaving EU In Turmoil

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Photo Credit: Max RossiThree years of German-led austerity and budget cuts aimed at saving the euro and retooling the European economy was left facing one of its biggest challenges as Italian voters’ rejection of spending cuts and tax rises opened up a stark new fissure in European politics.

The governing stalemate in Rome and the vote in the general election – by a factor of three to two – against the austerity policies pursued by Italy’s humiliated caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, meant that the spending cuts and tax rises dictated by the eurozone would grind to a halt, risking a re-eruption of the euro crisis after six months of relative stability.

Fears that the deadlock will lengthen Italy’s near two-year recession and spill over into the rest of the eurozone hit markets across Europe. The Italian banking sector fell 7% in value, dragging the main MIB stock market index 4% lower.

The market turmoil in Milan spread to Germany, France and the UK, with domestic banks among the biggest fallers. Deutsche Bank saw almost 5% knocked off its value, while Barclays suffered a 4% decline. The FTSE 100 fell 1.4%. The German Dax slumped more than 2% and the Paris Cac was down 2.75%.

The cliffhanger vote saw the maverick comedian Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star movement take almost one in four of the votes and the political revival of the ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. But the narrow victor, Pier Luigi Bersani, on the centre-left, claimed the mantle of the premiership, although it was unclear if he would be able to form a government.

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President’s Afghan Withdrawal Based on Fraudulent Data?

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photo credit: the us armyAn officially reported downward trend in insurgent attacks that has underpinned President Obama’s decision to pull 34,000 troops from Afghanistan did not actually happen last year.

On Tuesday, the NATO command in the Afghan capital of Kabul acknowledged that a database error caused it to report a 7 percent decline in “enemy initiated attacks,” when the actual number remained the same compared to 2011.

The Pentagon highlighted the decline in the lead-up to Mr. Obama’s announcement in his State of the Union address this month that more than half of the 60,000-plus U.S. troops now in Afghanistan will return home by the end of this year.

The error means that, on a statistical basis, the war is not going as well as professed by the administration — and as most international combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

In December, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta cited a downturn in violence in Afghanistan during a speech at the National Press Club. He referred to a NATO summit in Chicago last May during which the alliance approved an Obama campaign plan to hand over more duties to local Afghan troops, paving the way for a foreign troop exit.

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US Dependence on Middle Eastern Oil Grows

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photo credit: jonrawlinsonThe US was more reliant on the Middle East for its oil imports last year, underscoring the critical importance of the politically unstable region for the country despite the growing energy independence its shale gas revolution is bringing.

That domestic production boom has triggered intense debate over whether the US would still guard the world’s critical sea lanes, such as the Strait of Hormuz in two decades’ time – or whether China, whose dependence on Middle Eastern crude imports is rapidly rising, would replace it.

However, recent oil import trends from the Gulf region suggest why the US might continue to play a critical security role in the region. While domestic production increased the most in 150 years last year, Washington will confirm later this week that oil imports from the Gulf region continued to rise.

By the end of November the US had already imported more than 450m barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia, more than it imported from Riyadh in the whole of 2009, 2010 or 2011, according to figures from the US energy department. For the first time since 2003, Saudi imports accounted for more than 15 per cent of total US oil imports. The Gulf as a whole accounted for more than 25 per cent, a nine-year high.

Other Gulf exporters are also seeing unusually strong US demand. By the end of November, Kuwait had shipped more oil to the US than in any year since 1998. Analysts are expecting annual figures to be released later this week to confirm the trend seen up to November.

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