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The U.S. is sending helmets, sleeping bags and generators to support the Ukrainian military -- but stopped short of approving other items the interim government reportedly says it needs to stand up to the might of Moscow, saber-rattling on its doorstep. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Thursday that the U.S. will send the additional non-lethal military aid. The additional aid was announced as fighting between Ukraine's military and pro-Russian factions intensified in the eastern part of the country. Hagel, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon with his Polish counterpart, said the approved aid would include medical supplies, helmets,...

As thousands of Jewish visitors stream in to visit the Cave of the Patriarchs to celebrate Passover holiday, dozens of rioters throw stones at soldiers in West Bank city. For the second day in a row violent clashes broke out between the IDF and Palestinian activists in Hebron by the Policeman’s Checkpoint in the West Bank city. On Thursday the clashes occurred on the sidelines of a Hebron demonstration to mark Prisoner Security forces responded with riot dispersal means, including tear gas. The checkpoint separates the section of the city that is under control of the Palestinian Authority from the...

A new op-ed prompted by his interview with ABC over the weekend, which generated headlines like, “Rand Paul: Don’t dismiss containment option for nuclear Iran.�He’s not for containment, he now says, but nor is he irrevocably against it. What he’s for is strategic ambiguity, not telegraphing your intentions towards a bad actor lest you inadvertently limit your options later. Does America have any recent experience with that? I am not for containment in Iran. Let me repeat that, since no one seems to be listening closely: I am unequivocally not for containing Iran.I am also not for announcing that the...

For years, Barack Obama has called al Qaeda “decimated, “defeated,” and “on the run.” Recently in Yemen, the so-called “decimated” terrorist organization held its largest gathering in years – in broad daylight. So, either the CIA and the Pentagon didn’t know about it – or couldn’t get a drone there fast enough to strike. Video of the meeting has started showing up on jihadist websites. Via CNN:

A new Danish statistical study finds that “Muslims [are] 218 percent more criminal in second generation than first.�  While some of these crimes are clearly related to Islam – such as attacks on Muslim apostates to Christianity – others, such as rampant theft against non-Muslims, would appear banal, until one realizes that even robbery and plunder are justified by Islamic doctrine – as one U.K. Muslim cleric once clearly said. The interesting question here is why second-generation Muslims, who are presumably more Westernized than their Muslim parents, are also more “radical.�  Lest one dismiss this phenomenon as a product of economics...

Syria's opposition fighters have been supplied with U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, the first time a major American weapons system has appeared in rebel hands. It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating heavy armor and fortifications and are standard in the U.S. military arsenal. The United States has sold them in the past to Turkey, among other countries, and the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 of the weapons to Saudi Arabia in December. Both countries aid Syrian opposition groups. U.S. officials declined to discuss the origin of the weapons but did not dispute...

Israeli security officials said on Wednesday evening that they would ultimately have to force their way into al-Aqsa mosque, atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, because hundreds of young Palestinian men are now routinely stockpiling large quantities of rocks and slabs of stone there to attack security forces. The unnamed officials, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 news, were speaking hours after dozens of Palestinian protesters and an Israeli policeman were wounded on the Mount when clashes broke out soon after the holy site was opened to Jewish visitors on Wednesday morning. >>SNIP<< The officials were quoted saying that,...

After Israel accuses PA of encouraging Monday's shooting, PA endowments minister tells Israeli reporters that he is "pained" by murder of police officer; PA says meeting delayed to allow for Indyk's arrival. A meeting scheduled between Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators on Wednesday evening has been postponed, AFP is reporting. The talks, which were aimed at salvaging the peace negotiations that have been teetering on the brink of collapse since late last month, were pushed back following Monday evening's terrorist attack near Hebron which left an Israeli man dead. AFP cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that the meeting...

Russia and Israel seem to have a growing affinity for each other. A few weeks ago, Israel abstained from a vote in the UN censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported [link at URL] that this is a sore spot for the White House and a diplomatic novum on the world scene. A senior Israeli official said that Israel's absence from the United Nations vote was viewed around the world as an extremely irregular measure, a departure from a long-standing Israeli policy of voting with the United States in the UN. While the Americans viewed...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, CUBA — Frustration gripped Camp Justice this week. By Tuesday morning, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, chief prosecutor for the 9/11 trials, sat glowering in the courtroom, drumming his fingertips together in steeple-position as we awaited the judge’s appearance. The five defense teams were seething, reporters and observers were incredulous, and some victim families were furious. “We came here four years ago, and we’re in exactly the same place,” said Lorraine Arias-Beliveau. Lorraine’s brother, Adam P. Arias, escaped from the 84th floor of the South Tower after warning others. He made it to the street, only...

Jordan’s air force has destroyed military vehicles trying to cross from Syria, Jordanian state television said Wednesday

Candidate Bill de Blasio was “deeply troubled� by NYPD surveillance of mosques, and now his police commissioner is dropping the program. Matt Apuzzo and Joseph Goldstein report ion the New York Times: The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said. The decision by the nation’s largest police force to shutter the controversial surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the department’s new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11 intelligence-gathering practices...

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz likes to say that if you are for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, minority rights, basic freedoms of speech, press, association, open democracy, and an independent judiciary, there is only one country in the Middle East that espouses those values you support: Israel. And he is absolutely correct. But there appears to be a major disconnect among American Jews. Today, too many Jewish Americans are ambivalent about Israel, or even openly hostile towards it, believing erroneously that Israel acts in ways that contradict their “progressive” or “liberal” ideals. Jews are even at the forefront...

Dozens of Palestinian protesters and an Israeli policeman were wounded Wednesday morning on the Temple Mount after the site was opened to Jewish visitors. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP that Palestinians threw “stones and firecrackers” at police when they opened the walled compound’s gates. Police responded with stun grenades, Rosenfeld said, and closed the complex to the Jewish visitors after a small number had toured the site. An AFP correspondent at the scene said dozens of Palestinians were wounded by rubber-coated bullets and stun grenade canisters, and were staying inside the Al-Aqsa mosque out of fear they would be...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Kerry: Our Goal is Not Eliminating Iranian Nuclear CapabilityPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 15, 2014 @ 7:30 pm In The Point | No Comments Sometimes a choice of words can be extremely revealing. That was the case with Kerry’s contentious testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Under pressure, Kerry tends to slip and say revealing things. That was how the infamous, “for it and against it� clip was born. Kerry dismissed breakout as “just having one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, but without any necessary capacity to put it in anything,...

Remarkable footage....shows the jihadist group's second in command....meeting openly with fighters and commanders in Yemen.

BOSTON (CBS) – On the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, Boylston Street was evacuated and two bags were detonated by the Bomb Squad near the finish line. One of the bags was being carried by a barefoot man who was wearing a long black veil and screaming “Boston Strong.” That man has been identified by sources as 25-year-old Kayvon Edson. A source tells WBZ-TV that when Edson was stopped by police, he told them he had a rice cooker in his bag. That is when the Bomb Squad was called to the scene. A source tells CBS News that...

The government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has accused the United States, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the rebels fighting to overthrow it, of being responsible for chemical weapons attacks in the country, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday. In letters to the UN Security Council as well as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Assad regime cited “reports, studies and documented researches” that allegedly implicate the US and Turkish administrations, as well as several other countries, “whether directly or indirectly in these appalling carnage in Syria, including Khad al-Assal on March 15, 2013.” …

Barefoot and wearing a black veil, the man dropped a large backpack shortly before being apprehended by police. The area is on high alert as commemorations for the victims of last year's bombing are underway Tuesday. The area around the Boston Marathon finish line has been evacuated as cops investigate two suspicious backpacks left along Boylston Street. Ceremonies throughout the day commemorated the victims on the one year anniversary of the bombing at the site that killed three and injured more than 260 people. Around 7 p.m., a barefoot man wearing a black veil and yelling “Boston Strong!” as he...

The area near the Boston Marathon finish line has been evacuated after two unattended bags were discovered. WBZ-TV photographers on the scene, which earlier in the day was the site of a tribute to last year's bombing victims, reported they saw a man with a backpack screaming "Boston Strong." The Boston Police Department reported on Twitter two unattended backpacks were found in the area of the Boston Marathon finish line. They asked people to avoid the area. A bomb squad was en route.

The New York Police Department said Tuesday it has disbanded a special unit whose efforts to try to detect terror threats in Muslim communities through secret surveillance sparked outrage. The surveillance program by the NYPD Intelligence Division had come under fire by community activists who accused the department of abusing civil rights. The program relied on plainclothes officers to eavesdrop on people in bookstores, restaurants and mosques. The tactic was detailed in a series of stories by The Associated Press and became the subject of two federal lawsuits. In a series of articles that began in August 2011, the AP...

Thanking you in advance for reading and helping our soldiers! Below is a beautiful email sent by Michael Behenna. He is finally home and thank you to all who helped him through calls you made and letters you wrote on his behalf. Michael is right, the fight is not over. We still have Sons locked up in Leavenworth who need our help. I had the good fortune to visit with Sgt Derrick Miller at Leavenworth this past weekend. I am astounded, after meeting this truly good man, that anyone in their right mind can justify keeping him locked away. I...

WASHINGTON — Former Army Sgt. Kyle J. White will be awarded the Medal of Honor on May 13, 2014, the White House announced late Tuesday afternoon. White will receive the nation's highest military award for his actions during a dismounted movement in mountainous terrain in Aranas, Afghanistan, on November 9, 2007. He was then serving as a Platoon Radio Telephone Operator assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. White, who now works as an investment analyst in Charlotte, N.C., will be the seventh living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions...

The prime minister of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday praised a shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded his wife and son as they drove through the West Bank the previous evening en route to a Seder, the traditional Passover meal that starts the week-long Jewish holiday. Speaking in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh said the attack outside the city of Hebron “brought back life to the path of resistance” against Israel and warned of more attacks in the territory. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest incident to threaten peace talks with the Palestinians. […] “We tell the...

Gitmo Guards Attacked on ‘Daily Basis’ by Detainees Physical, verbal assaults, body fluids aimed at guards Guantanamo's Camp 6 detention facility / AP BY: Adam Kredo Follow @Kredo0 April 15, 2014 4:30 pm GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE—Prison guards here at the Guantanamo Bay prison are attacked on a “daily basis” by detainees, according to Commander John Filostat, a prison spokesman for the Joint Task Force (JTF) Guantanamo. There are “daily attacks against the guard both verbal and physical,” such as scratching and other assaults, Filostat told reporters on Tuesday. “Guards endure that on a daily basis.” Detainees also engage in...

The Iraqi army began buttressing its defense lines on April 12 to save parts of the capital city of Baghdad from the approaching danger of falling to al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Iraqi intelligence reports that terrorist forces have broken through into the city’s western outskirts and preparing to head out to other parts of the city of more than seven million and the Green Zone government headquarters. In addition to the lethal bombings and shootings which have reduced the country to misery, Debkafile’s counter-terrorism sources describe a more insidious ISIS tactic of conquest: Armed...

In a recent report, NGO Monitor revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit funded largely by the U.S. Congress (i.e. American taxpayers), gave approximately $232,000 to the Holy Land Trust (HLT) between 2006 and 2012.  A search of NED’s website confirms that it has given multiple grants to the organization. HLT is a Bethlehem-based “peacemaking” organization whose leader, Sami Awad, has stated publicly that his organization has given training in non-violence to Hamas and other militant groups in Palestinian society. He did it in a speech he gave at the National Leadership Conference for the Vinyard Church in Galveston,...

The man allegedly behind Norway's devastating terror attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, is now under arrest. And he should count himself lucky for—if entirely undeserving of—a penal system in that country that is among the cushiest in the world. There's no capital punishment, and the longest jail term allowed is 21 years (a caveat: if a prisoner is deemed to still be a threat, his sentence can be extended in five-year blocks indefinitely, though it's highly unlikely, according to Norwegian officials). In Norway, rehabilitation is the guiding principle, not punishment—a somewhat difficult notion to swallow given the gravity and callousness of...

A Swedish professor suggested Israel was behind the bloody terror attacks committed by Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik this past July, stirring up controversy in the country. Research professor Ola Tunander of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) published an article in the Norwegian academic journal Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift in which he called to further examine Brevik's motives. According to Tunander, it is possible that some country was behind the terror attacks, hinting that Israel might be that country.

Could there be a link between Norway-based LTTE operatives and Anders Behring Breivik, who bombed the Norwegian government headquarters in Oslo and wiped out a youth group on a nearby island on July 22 killing over 80 civilians? Responding to a query by The Island, informed sources said that the Norwegian could have had a link with the LTTEactivists in Norway. Breivik, in his 1,518 manifesto, which was released hours before he carried out the massacre, said had felt that Europe should follow the LTTE example of expelling the Muslims from Sri Lanka. He had interpreted the expulsion of Muslims...

Anders Behring Breivik is a conservative Christian who enjoys classical music and the video game World of Warcraft. Breivik has been named by several Norwegian media outlets as the suspected shooter at a youth camp in Oslo, where 10 people were killed Friday and he may be linked to a bombing near the prime minister's residence that killed seven others. On his Facebook page, which appears to only have been started July 17, Breivik mostly posted music videos and said his interests include hunting and bodybuilding. Under education, Breivik wrote he studied independently, noting he has "approximately 14,500 hours of...

Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At Risk - FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At RiskPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 14, 2014 @ 12:27 pm In The Point | 4 Comments Leftist Anti-Israel journalist Max Blumenthal, who is affiliated with The Nation, ridiculed the idea that American Jews are an at risk population.Blumenthal, whose attacks on Israel and Jews were described as anti-Semitic even by many on the left, and whose work was allegedly cited by the Kansas City killer and...

The United States has been fighting the wrong war against the wrong enemy these past 13-years according to a damning new book - while behind closed doors Pakistan has been laughing in its ally's face. Pullitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall claims that not only did Pakistan willfully hide 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden but also sponsored the Taliban insurgency after 2001 that has cost 2,625 American and British lives. The respected reporter, who spent more than a decade in the region for the newspaper, alleges that Pakistan's leadership have been tricking the United States into treating it...

Steinitz says Kerry remarks on Iran nuclear threshold 'not acceptable' Minister in charge of nuclear affairs believes Israel will not adopt 'any agreement' that keeps Iran within a year of attaining nuclear weaponry. Israel described as "unacceptable" on Monday remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability. "In the past, and also recently, what we heard from the Americans, including publicly, and from the Europeans and even from the Russians, was that Iran must be distanced years – not months...

What if the United States has been waging the wrong war against the wrong enemy for the last 13 years in Afghanistan? Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall, who's spent more than a decade covering Afghanistan since 2001, concludes just that in her new book, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014.

Palestinian terrorists open fire on Israeli cars en route to Passover meal; IDF troops launch massive manhunt in area; Hamas, Jihad praise attack. * * * Hamas and Islamic Jihad both praised the attack, although neither organization claimed responsibility. A spokesman for Islamic Jihad called the attack "a natural response to Israeli crimes," while Hamas said the shooting was "the response to the crimes of the occupation, and the repeated assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and against our prisoners in Israel jails."

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind. The ruling dismissed a suit by the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government advocacy group in San Rafael. The organization sued after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric whom authorities suspected of organizing an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009. Another U.S. citizen was also killed in the drone attack, and Awlaki's U.S.-born, 16-year-old...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) went after fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and President Barack Obama on This Week With George Stephanopoulos sunday morning, telling ABC’s Jonathan Karl that Obama’s “five years of weakness� had emboldened Putin and that the U.S. needed to defend its values across the globe, in contrast to Paul’s less-interventionist foreign policy. “I’m a big fan of Rand Paul,� Cruz said, “but I don’t agree with him on foreign policy. I think U.S. leadership is critical in the world. I agree with him that we should be very reluctant to deploy military force abroad. But...

... Nigeria's Islamist insurgency has claimed more than 3,000 lives since it began in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch. Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in West Africa's Hausa-Fulani language, is fighting for the imposition of stricter Sharia law across the country, and has launched a self-styled "war on Christians" in Nigeria. ... U.N. refugee agencies estimate that more than 8,000 Nigerians have fled into neighboring Cameroon to escape escalating violence sparked by the militants, while another 5,000 have become internally displaced. Until now, Boko Haram's focus has mainly been concentrated on areas of Nigeria's northeast, where...

What started as a hard-charging Marine comment to Congress has turned into a public relations emergency for Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Micheal Barrett. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel on Wednesday, Barrett was making the case that personnel costs needed to be reined in to maintain readiness — as all the services have in recent testimony — but went a step further by saying that lower pay would actually improve discipline within the Corps. “I truly believe it will raise discipline,” Barrett said. “You’ll have better spending habits. You won’t be so wasteful.” (snip) Barrett...

A bird native to Arizona and other western states could be listed as a threatened species by the federal government. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo lives along the Verde, Colorado and San Pedro Rivers in Arizona. It also can be found at the Gila River and Rio Grande in New Mexico and the Sacramento and Kern Rivers in California. Federal officials said the bird’s habitat is shrinking because of dams and other construction projects on the rivers, plus cattle grazing.

Attorney Stanley Cohen, who has defended Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and the leader of Hamas .. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Stanley Cohen, a prominent lawyer who has represented political activists and terrorism suspects, among them Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, pleaded guilty this morning in Syracuse to obstructing the IRS. ... Last month, Cohen was the lawyer representing Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in a high-profile New York City criminal trial. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and of other terrorism charges. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan wrote that Cohen failed to file tax returns from 2005 through...

<p>‘HONOR DIARIES” might not be coming to a theater near you, at least not if CAIR gets its way. The award-winning documentary about “honor” violence against girls and women in much of the Muslim world was released last month in honor of International Women’s Day, and it didn’t take long for the Council on American Islamic Relations to slap its all-purpose “Islamophobic” label on it. The film has been shown in dozens of venues, but CAIR has raised enough of a stink to get screenings cancelled on several college campuses, including the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.</p>

Brandeis sides with a spawn of Hamas over a champion of women’s rights. Author’s Note: This week, capitulating to Islamic-supremacist agitation led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Brandeis University reneged on its announced plan to present an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the heroic human-rights activist. In my 2010 book, The Grand Jihad, I devoted a chapter to the origins and purposes of CAIR, its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas-support network, and its aim to silence critics of Islamic supremacism. In light of the continuing success of this campaign — despite a federal terrorism-financing prosecution that...

During last week's memorial service for victims of April 2 Fort Hood shooting, President Barack Obama spoke about the lingering hurt from the previous attack on the base in 2009. "Part of what makes this so painful is that we've been here before," Obama said. "This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago. Once more soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home, where they're supposed to be safe." Yet, when victims of the first Fort Hood shooting invited the president to see those wounds up close, he refused, without explaining why. The...

A bomb at a crowded bus station on the outskirts of Abuja killed at least 35 people during rush hour on Monday morning, witnesses said, the first such attack near the Nigerian capital for two years. Body parts and blood were strewn across the station and an unruly crowd of several hundred onlookers were roaming around with security forces unable to keep them away. "I was waiting to get on a bus when I heard a deafening explosion then saw smoke. People were running around in panic," said Mimi Daniels, who works in Abuja. A Reuters cameraman saw 20 bodies...

U.S. officials angry over Israel's lack of condemnation of Russia. Israeli policy is driven by its own security interests and does not need to be identical to that of the U.S., a senior defense official said Sunday in response to Haaretz's report that White House and State Department officials in Washington have built up a great deal of anger over Jerusalem's "neutrality" regarding Russia's invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. Senior figures in the Obama administration have expressed great disappointment with the lack of support from Israel for the American position on the Ukraine crisis and with the fact that the...

Police have “lost control of the Temple Mount,” Temple activists charged Monday morning, on the eve of Pesach. Dozens of Hamas men have taken over the Mount, waving Hamas flags, and are “not allowing Jews and tourists into the Mount,” said the activists. […] The Temple organizations called for the police commissioner to resign, following his failures on the Temple Mount. …

Hillary’s profiles in courage continues as she avoided a protest by the mother of one of her victims, canceling a personal appearance and instead appearing remotely by satellite. A crowd of sign-wielding protesters gathered Friday morning outside the San Diego Convention Center to voice their discontent with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi crisis.Among them was Pat Smith, mother of San Diego native Sean Smith, one of the four Americans who died in the highly-publicized 2012 attacks on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. She has been a prominent voice in the ensuing fallout, with Clinton and...

One of Britain’s top public schools is the subject of scandal Sunday, after it was revealed that a teacher threatened to send a Jewish student to “one of your gas chambers” for skipping the lunch line. The student, a seventeen year-old girl at the highly prestigious North London Collegiate School, later received an apology from the teacher in private over the remark, according to the Daily Mail. The school has refused to identify the offending teacher, however, or what—if any—disciplinary action had been taken over the remark. The girl’s parents urged the headmistress on Saturday night to make a public...