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Indonesian terrorists believed to have returned from fighting with the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria are suspected of being behind an attempted chlorine bomb attack in a shopping mall last month, police said Wednesday. The homemade device - made up of several bottles and a detonator - was discovered in the mall south of Jakarta after it failed to go off properly. Police said it was the first such attack ever attempted in Indonesia. National Police Inspector General, Tito Karnavian, said the use of the chlorine resembled tactics employed by ISIS jihadists, who have taken over a vast swath...

After earlier reports said that the Palestinian Authority was considering suspending all security cooperation with Israel in the wake of Binyamin Netanyahu's reelection, the PA officially announced Wednesday night that it was hoping to renew talks with Israel, regardless of who was Prime Minister. Nabil Abu-Rudeineh, the PA's official spokesperson, said that the PA has “no interest in the disposition of Israel's Prime Minister. The only thing we are interested in from any Israeli government is the recognition and acceptance of the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.” At a press conference in Ramallah, Abu-Rudeineh...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's victory in the Israeli election will not hamper US efforts to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, the State Department said Wednesday. The Israeli leader opposes any accommodation with Tehran and came to Washington during the campaign to address US lawmakers and denounce the agreement under negotiation as a "bad deal." "We've been long familiar with the views of the prime minister on Iran. We don't think that his win has impacted the Iran negotiations, or will," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Lausanne for talks this week...

Yachad is over the threshold and in the Knesset, Bayit Yehudi got 6.13% of the vote, Likud got near 25%, Avoda (Labor) just 18%, Yesh Atid a paltry 8 point something.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that the 2009 Bar Ilan speech in which he voiced support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is no longer relevant. The Friday brochure Olam Katan that was distributed at synagogues this Sabbath asked the parties running for election where they stood on the idea of establishing a Palestinian state. Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely replied to the brochure in the name of Likud, and said that “The Prime Minister has announced to the public that the Bar Ilan speech is null and void. Netanyahu's entire political biography is a struggle against a Palestinian state.” Following...

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, warned that public talks on the formulating nuclear deal with Iran will make it exceedingly difficult for the US to prevent Ian from developing nuclear abilities. Kerry stated that he is concerned by reports that details of the nuclear talks will be exposed in the next few days. .....

A senior Hamas terrorist said Monday his Islamist group which controls Gaza is rebuilding its heavily depleted rocket arsenal to prepare for a new terror war against Israel. "Any regional or international attempt to lay siege to Hamas or its armed wing is bound to fail," said Marwan Eissa, a commander of Hamas's "military branch," the Al-Qassam Brigades, reports AFP. Hamas is "not looking for confrontation" with Israel, he said, as quoted by Hamas-run news agency Al-Ray. "But we are making sure our forces are reinforced in case of a confrontation. We're continuing to make rockets." Hamas fired thousands of...

Senator Dianne Feinstein on Sunday launched a verbal attack against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over his upcoming speech to Congress. Speaking to CNN, the Democrat from California said that Netanyahu is "arrogant" for asserting that he speaks for all Jews, adding that he doesn't speak for her. Feinstein said she would attend Netanyahu's speech and would “listen respectively -- respectfully. I don't intend to jump up and down. And I hope he will speak about what happens if there isn't an agreement.” “I happen to believe Israel is a lot safer with an agreement that's agreed to by all...

Iran has ended its large scale Great Prophet 9 exercise in the Persian Gulf, test firing a “new strategic weapon,” which it says will play an important role in the future battle against the US. The test was performed on the final day of the exercise, staged by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world's oil passes. "The new weapon will have a very decisive role in adding our naval power in confronting threats, particular by the Great Satan, the US," Admiral Ali Fadavi, Iran’s navy chief, told the Revolutionary...

The back and forth banter between Israel and the United States over Iran’s nuclear aspirations continued on Wednesday, as Secretary of State John Kerry questioned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s judgment when it comes to Iran. The comments, according to The Huffington Post, came as Kerry was testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Committee member Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) pointed to Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the Congress as evidence of the weakness of the deal being negotiated between Iran and the six world powers. “The Prime Minister was also profoundly forward-leaning and very outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq...

an has built an active front from Israel's northern Mediterranean border adjacent to Rosh Hanikra, all the way to the Golan Heights. The goal: to undermine and wage war against the "Zionist entity" with conventional, powerful military means from within Lebanon and Syria. So says Yigal Carmon, Counter-terrorism Adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, and founder and president of the prestigious Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "Iran has taken advantage of the chaos in the Middle East to form a united front from Tehran, through Baghdad, Syria and Lebanon," Carmon told Kol Yisrael public radio on...

Tzipi Livni, head of Hatnua and possible prime minister of Israel if her "Zionist camp" union with Labor wins in elections, after which there would be a rotation between her and Labor head Yitzhak Herzog, made a campaign promise on Saturday of same-sex marriage. Livni was at a "Dreck" party at the Oman 17 club in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, where she was dancing with gay couples before taking the stage and the microphone. "Good evening Dreck. There's a chance that on March 20 (after elections - ed.) we'll come to celebrate the end of the period of darkness,...

Norwegian Muslims organized a peace vigil in Oslo Saturday in a show of solidarity with Jews a week after fatal shootings in Denmark targeted a synagogue and free speech seminar. As the small mainly elderly Jewish congregation filed out of the synagogue after Shabbat prayers, a group of young Muslims, many of them teenage girls wearing headscarves, formed a symbolic ring outside the building to roaring applause from a crowd of more than 1,000 people, reports AFP. "This shows that there are many more peacemakers than war-makers," 37-year-old Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the organizers told the crowd. "There is still...

Following are excerpts from an address by Algerian cleric Chemseddine el Djazairi, which aired on Ennahar TV on February 8, 2015: Chemseddine el Djazairi: A viewer asks: What is your position about the prevalent belief that contemporary Jews are of the seed of those who were transformed into apes and pigs? This belief is not true. Contemporary Jews are of the seed of Adam, not of the apes and pigs, because the line of those transformed into apes and pigs was severed. […] A Jew who rebelled so much against God that he was thus transformed – how is this...

Nearly two dozen US House Democrats on Thursday urged the postponement of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress, claiming the controversially-timed address could "undermine" nuclear negotiations with Iran, reports AFP. Republican House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress on March 3 two weeks before his country's elections, and the speech, in which the prime minister will discuss the threat of Iran's nuclear program, has led to an outcry from the left in the US and Israel. Twenty-three lawmakers wrote Boehner urging him to postpone the invitation, which the Republican leader extended without...

Four-year-old Adelle Biton, who passed away following a rapid deterioration in her condition due to a bout with pneumonia, will be buried in her hometown of Yakir in Samaria, the family announced on Tuesday night. The Biton family said that the funeral will take place on Wednesday at 1:00 p.m., despite the difficulties imposed by the Civil Administration, which denied the request to bury Adelle in Yakir, citing the lack of a master plan for a cemetery in a 20 dunam area set aside by the Shomron Regional Council. Adelle was critically wounded in March 2013, when the family car...

Amman-based hip-hop band Torabyeh say ruling party put their lives at risk by linking them to Islamic State Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpVwW_bfEQM Members of the Amman-based alternative hip-hop group Torabyeh accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday of putting their lives at serious risk by linking them with terrorism and associating them with Islamic State fighters, following the apparently illegal use of a rap song performed by the band in a controversial campaign ad posted online by the Likud party Saturday night. “In the last propaganda video released by the Israeli Likud Party which is headed by the criminal Benjamin Netanyahu (Zionist...

...Abd Al-Bari Atwan: In my view, Jihad must be directed, first and foremost, against the Israeli enemy. This is the enemy about which there is a consensus. Arabs who do not think that Israel is an enemy are neither Arabs nor Muslims. Our compass must point toward that enemy. All our guns must be turned toward that enemy, regardless of our differences, because this is the only thing that unites us....

Senior officials in both the State Department and White House denied on Sunday evening reports in the Israeli media that the Obama administration is “punishing” Israel for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and has stopped sharing information with Israel about the nuclear talks with Iran. The report on Channel 2 News stated that Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, who is in charge of the nuclear talks with Iran, has announced that she is no longer briefing Israel about the talks, because the Israeli government is using the information in a manipulative and political way. Susan Rice, Obama's national...

The United States added German former rapper Denis Cuspert to its list of "terrorists" over his role as a fighter with the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, the State Department said Monday. The 39-year-old, who used to rap in Berlin under the name "Deso Dogg" and now goes by the name Abu Talha al-Almani, is one of the most famous Western fighters for ISIS. He is already listed as an Al-Qaeda supporter by the United Nations. The US listing as a "global terrorist" freezes all of Cuspert's assets under US control and prohibits transactions with him. Cuspert joined...