Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Why Iran Spends $35 Billion a Year to Prop Up Assad
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| Bashar al-Assad |
Experts and Syrian officials revealed why exactly Iran, which is financially saddled by international sanctions, continues to spend fortunes and deploy thousands of troops to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, even as the fight turns against him.
A detailed report in Christian Science Monitor revealed that the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura disclosed to a private meeting in Washington DC recently that Iran funnels no less than $35 billion annually to its Syrian ally, according to a source who was present at the meeting.
Despite the massive aid, Assad this past month has suffered major losses, putting him on the brink of losing the bloody civil war that has stretched over four years and cost over 220,000 lives, and leading Syria's Defense Minister General Fahd al-Freij to head for a visit to Iran on Tuesday.
Explaining why Iran is willing to invest such massive resources even while staggering under sanctions, Hezbollah expert and director at the Washington-based Middle East Institute Randa Slim told the paper how Iran's larger regional aspirations fuel the move.
"Iran has always considered Syria its gateway to the Arab region. I don’t think that assessment has changed," said Slim. » | Ari Yashar | Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Swastikas Graffitied on Stanford University Fraternity House
The fraternity house of the Stanford University chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) chapter was vandalized last weekend with swastikas, as well as various other anti-Semitic slurs and epithets.
Members of the fraternity discovered the graffiti as they returned to the house on Saturday night, the California university's Stanford Daily reported.
“We discovered a number of offensive symbols and messages spray-painted on the SAE house,” the president of Stanford’s SAE chapter said, declining to give his name so as not to be associated with "such hateful symbolism."
Also condemning the anti-Semitic graffiti was University President John Hennessy. » | Cynthia Blank | Monday, April 27, 2015
Saudi Arabia 'Arrests 93 Members of Islamic State Cells'
The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the arrests had taken place since December and that the suspects included 77 Saudi nationals.
The group had set up training sites in a remote area of the al-Qassim region and planned suicide bombings, it added. Among the alleged targets was the US embassy in the capital, Riyadh.
The Gulf kingdom is part of a US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against IS militants, who control a large swath of Syria and Iraq. » | Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Breaking News: Iran Forces 'Seize US Cargo Ship'
Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said an Iranian "force" seized a US cargo ship after opening fire on it in the Gulf on Tuesday and directed it to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
A Pentagon spokesman said Iranian forces had boarded a Marshall Island-flagged vessel, the MV Maersk Tigris, in the Gulf. He said the boarding occurred after Iranian patrol boats fired shots across the vessel's bow and ordered it deeper into Iranian waters. » | David Lawler, Washington and Reuters | Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Saudi's Ultra-strict Religious Police Join Twitter – Despite JAILING Others for Using Site
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| The religious police have more than 65,000 followers |
The notorious group, tasked with enforcing sharia law in the country, have already racked up more than 65,000 followers.
Their first tweet asked "Allah to benefit everyone" and was retweeted 20,000 times.
In 2014 they closed over 10,000 Twitter accounts because "users were committing religious and ethical violations".
A spokesman claimed that IT-related crimes could see people jailed for five years and fined £500,000.
In 2013 the head of the police claimed that anyone using social media "has lost this world and the afterlife".
Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh has also blasted the site as "a source of lies and falsehood". » | Tom Parfitt | Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
Australian Islamic State Doctor Tareq Kamleh's Sudden Change after Mystery Trip in 2013
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| Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh in the IS propaganda video. |
Dr Kamleh, who up until recently was working in the health system in Perth, appeared in a propaganda video for Islamic State released this week where he spruiked its health services and asked other Muslim clinicians to join him.
But before this recent infamy, he was working as a pediatrician at a Mackay hospital in north-east Queensland and it is here that former colleagues say he underwent a seismic shift in his personality.
Known as a partying and drinking playboy who constantly cheated on his girlfriend, Dr Kamleh embraced a fundamental interpretation of the religion of his parents in a few short days in 2013, colleagues said.
"I didn't think we had too many radical fundamentalists up in Mackay."
They said Dr Kamleh stopped drinking alcohol, abstained from sex, grew his beard and withdrew from the friends he had made. » | Tammy Mills, Patrick Hatch and Rachel Olding | Monday, April 27, 2015
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Iran Bans Magazine after 'White Marriage' Special
Iran’s judiciary has banned a magazine for encouraging cohabitation, according to an Iranian newspaper.
Sex outside marriage is crime under Iran’s sharia-based laws, punishable by flogging. In cases of adultery, it can carry a sentence of death by stoning.
Last year, the magazine Zanan-e Emrouz (Today’s Women) published a special issue discussing various aspects of cohabitation, dubbed “white marriage” in Iran, and the reasons behind what it said was the increasing number of unmarried Iranian couples living together.
“The press watchdog banned Zanan-e Emrouz monthly today for encouraging and justifying ‘white marriage’,” the Shargh newspaper reported on Monday.
Last year, the office of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a clampdown on cohabitation. » | Reuters in Ankara | Monday, April 27, 2015
George W. Bush Bashes Obama on Middle East
One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush’s remarks. The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was something he didn’t want to do. He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the U.S. in "retreat" around the world. He also said Obama was misreading Iran’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.
According to the attendee's transcription, Bush noted that Iran has a new president, Hassan Rouhani. “He's smooth," Bush said. "And you’ve got to ask yourself, is there a new policy or did they just change the spokesman?”
Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.” » | Josh Rogin | Sunday, April 26, 2015
Labour Would Outlaw Islamophobia, Says Miliband in an Exclusive Interview
“We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime,” Miliband told the Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi in a wide ranging exclusive interview.
“We are going to change the law on this so we make it absolutely clear of our abhorrence of hate crime and Islamophobia. It will be the first time that the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country,” he said.
Labour Party Manifesto pledged to take a “zero-tolerance approach to hate crime” regarding the growth of Islamophobia as well as anti-Semitism. “We will challenge prejudice before it grows, whether in schools, universities or on social media. And we will strengthen the law on disability, homophobic, and transphobic hate crime,” it said. » | Hamed Chapman | Friday, April 24, 2015
HT: Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch »
Franklin Graham: 'Halt All Immigration of Muslims' From Terror Nations
The Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, also wants the government to take "immediate military action" to crush ISIS.
"We should make sure our government and the current administration recognizes Islam for the danger it is, and that they are doing all they can to work against it," Graham writes in a Facebook post Monday.
"Out [sic] government needs to immediately look at immigration reform to halt all immigration of Muslims from countries that have active terrorist cells — the threat this poses to our nation is huge and could end up costing thousands of lives in the future if we don’t act now."
He adds the second-most important thing the government must do is "take immediate military action to defeat ISIS." » | Cathy Burke | Monday, April 20, 2015
Sunday, April 26, 2015
WARNING! Extremely Distressing Images: Holocaust Uncovered (1945)
‘Australian’ Islamist Video Deplored
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| Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh. |
Registered Adelaide doctor Tareq Khamleh has appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video calling for Muslim health professionals in the West to join him in the extremist group’s stronghold in Raqqa in Syria.
The 29-year-old flew to Kuala Lumpur on March 10, before appearing on the video on the weekend wearing scrubs and working in a neonatal unit describing his work as “part of my Jihad”.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says Mr Khamleh is the first known Australian medical professional to join the extremist organisation.
It proved Islamic State isn’t just recruiting fighters, and security agencies will be alert to the new threat, he said.
The acting attorney-general and foreign affairs minister said it was disturbing development that a highly-educated person had succumbed to “the death cult’s evil message”.
“For an Australian doctor to go, to sign up with this group of bandits, people who are murdering, raping, killing people in the Middle East, in the name of ISIL is just something that our country can’t tolerate,” he said.
Mr Dutton urged Australians to report family and friends if they had concerns they were considering joining the extremist group. There is a maximum 25 year jail term for anyone found to be aiding the group. » | AAP | Sunday, April 26, 2015
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