Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
VEVAK learned its methodology from the Soviet KGB and many of the Islamist revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini actually studied at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, the Oxford of terrorism. Documented Iranian alumni include the current Supreme Leader (the faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, under whose Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudent) apparatus it has traditionally operated. Its current head is Cabinet Minister Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ezhei, a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, noted for its extremist position advocating violence against enemies and strict clerical control of society and government. The Ministry is very well funded and its charge, like that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran) is to guard the revolutionary Islamic Iranian regime at all costs and under all contingencies.
From the KGB playbook, VEVAK learned the art of disinformation. It's not so difficult to learn: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%. Depending on how well a VEVAK agent wants to cover his/her tracks, the ratio may go up to 90/10, but it never drops below the 80/20 mark as such would risk suspicion and possible detection. The regime in Teheran has gone to great lengths to place its agents in locations around the world. Many of these operatives have been educated in the West, including the U.K. and the United States. Iranian government agencies such as embassies, consulates, Islamic cultural centers, and airline offices regularly provide cover for the work of VEVAK agents who dress well and are clean shaven, and move comfortably within our society. In this country, because of the severance of diplomatic relations, the principal site of VEVAK activities begins at the offices of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.
Teheran has worked diligently to place its operatives in important think tanks and government agencies in the West. Some of its personnel have been recruited while in prison through torture or more often through bribery, or a combination of both. Others are Islamist revolutionaries that have been set up to look like dissidents - often having been arrested and imprisoned, but released for “medical reasons”. The clue to detecting the fake “dissident” is to read carefully what he/she writes, and to ask why this vocal “dissident” was released from prison when other real dissidents have not been released, indeed have been grievously tortured and executed. Other agents have been placed in this country for over twenty-five years to slowly go through the system and rise to positions of academic prominence due to their knowledge of Farsi and Shia Islam or Islamist fundamentalism.
One of the usual tactics of VEVAK is to co-opt academia to its purposes. Using various forms of bribery, academics are bought to defend the Islamic Republic or slander its enemies. Another method is to assign bright students to train for academic posts as specialists in Iranian or Middle East affairs. Once established, such individuals are often consulted by our government as it tries to get a better idea of how it should deal with Iran. These academics then are in a position to skew the information, suggesting the utility of extended dialogue and negotiation, or the danger and futility of confronting a strong Iran or its proxies such as Hizballah (Hezbollah). These academics serve to shield the regime from an aggressive American or Western policy, and thereby buy more time for the regime to attain its goals, especially in regards to its nuclear weaponry and missile programs.
MOIS likes to use the media, especially electronic media, to its advantage. One of VEVAK's favorite tricks is setting up web sites that look like they are opposition sites but which are actually controlled by the regime. These sites often will be multilingual, including Farsi, German, Arabic French, and English. Some are crafted carefully and are very subtle in how they skew their information (e.g., Iran-Interlink, set up and run by Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton from Leeds, England); others are less subtle, simply providing the regime's point of view on facts and events in the news (e.g., www.mujahedeen.com or www.mojahedin.ws). This latter group is aimed at the more gullible in our open society and unfortunately such a market exists. However, if one begins to do one's homework, asking careful questions, the material on these fake sites generally does not add up.
Let's examine a few examples of VEVAK's work in the United States. In late October, 2005, VEVAK sent three of its agents to Washington to stage a press event in which the principal Iranian resistance movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), was to be slandered. Veteran VEVAK agent Karim Haqi flew from Amsterdam to Canada where he was joined by VEVAK's Ottawa agents Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahin (Parvin-Mahrokh) Haji, and the three flew from Toronto to Washington. Fortunately the resistance had been tracking these three, informed the FBI of their presence in Washington, and when the three tried to hold a press conference, the resistance had people assigned to ask pointed questions of them so that they ended the interview prematurely and fled back to Canada.
Abolghasem Bayyenet is a member of the Iranian government. He serves as a trade expert for the Ministry of Commerce. But his background of study and service in the Foreign Ministry indicates that Bayyenet is more than just an economist or a suave and savvy businessman. In an article published in Global Politician on April 23, 2006, entitled “Is Regime Change Possible in Iran?”, Bayyenet leads his audience to think that he is a neutral observer, concerned lest the United States make an error in its assessment of Iran similar to the errors of intelligence and judgment that led to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its less than successful outcome. However, his carefully crafted bottom line is that the people of Iran are not going to support regime change and that hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has achieved greater popularity than his predecessors because of his concern for the problems of the poor and his fight for economic and social justice. To the naive, Bayyenet makes Ahmadinejad sound positively saintly. Conveniently overlooked is the occurrence of over four thousand acts of protest, strikes, anti-regime rallies, riots, and even political assassinations by the people of Iran against the government in the year since Ahmadinejad assumed office. So too, the following facts are ignored: the sizeable flight of capital, the increase in unemployment, and the rising two-figure rate of inflation, all within this last year. Bayyenet is a regime apologist, and when one is familiar with the facts, his arguments ring very hollow. However, his English skills are excellent, and so the naОve might be beguiled by his commentary.
Mohsen Sazegara is VEVAK's “reformed revolutionary”. A student supporter of Khomeini before the 1979 revolution, Sazegara joined the “imam” on his return from exile and served in the government for a decade before supposedly growing disillusioned.
He formed several reformist newspapers but ran afoul of the hardliners in 2003 and was arrested and imprisoned by VEVAK. Following “hunger strikes”, Sazegara was released for health reasons and permitted to seek treatment abroad. Although critical of the government and particularly of Ahmadinejad and KhameneМ, Sazegara is yet more critical of opposition groups, leaving the impression that he favors internal regime change but sees no one to lead such a movement for the foreseeable future. His bottom line: no one is capable of doing what needs to be done, so we must bide our time. Very slick, but his shadow shows his likely remaining ties to the MOIS.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27144.shtml
Islamist militants claim vaccines are US plot
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/17/wus217.xml
Islamist militants claim vaccines are US plot
By Isambard Wilkinson in Peshawar
Last Updated: 12:15am GMT 18/02/2007
A doctor was killed by a roadside bomb in Pakistan today as Islamist
militants tried to halt a polio immunisation campaign which, they say,
is an American plot to sterilise Muslims.
Dr. Abdul Ghani was killed and three guards wounded after he visited a
mullah, or religious leader, in Salarzai, a village in Bajaur tribal
region in the borderlands with Afghanistan.
"It was a remote-controlled bomb," said an intelligence official in
Khar, Bajaur's main town. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Dr Ghani was killed while returning to Khar, where he was chief surgeon
at the main hospital, after attending a tribal gathering to promote
polio vaccinations.
Last month, the parents of 24,000 children in Pakistan's Northern Areas
bordering Afghanistan refused to allow health workers to vaccinate
their
offspring against polio.
Radical mullahs claim the polio campaign is an American bid to reduce
the world's Muslim population by spreading sterility. This message is
carried on local radio stations and from the loudspeakers of some
mosques.
Health experts say the risks of a polio epidemic have increased. The
World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 39 cases of polio in Pakistan
last year, compared with 28 in 2005.
Waheed Khan, a government coordinator for the anti-polio drive in North
West Frontier Province, said the authorities were trying to reason with
the clerics. "We have launched a campaign to convince parents that
polio
vaccination has nothing to do with religion and it does not affect
fertility, or the ability to produce children," said Mr Khan.
Unicef, which helps run the vaccination campaign, played down the
impact
of obscurantist preachers.
"It is a very small percentage [of the 5.8 million children targeted in
NWFP] and these children missed vaccination for a variety of reasons -
that the child was not at home, or had gone out to play," said Melissa
Corkum, a Unicef spokesman.
But a WHO health worker said that 60 per cent of the refusals in North
West Frontier Province were made on religious grounds - and the failure
to vaccinate in all areas would cause the disease to spread.
Muslim clerics in northern Nigeria spread the same message in 2003.
They
managed to halt all vaccinations in Kano state for about one year. By
the time they resumed, 257 children had been paralysed and polio had
spread into two neighbouring countries.
AIJAC 'dumps' scholar over Muslim remarks
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news_print.asp?pgID=2564
NATIONAL (February 16, 2007)
AIJAC 'dumps' scholar over Muslim remarks
jason frenkel
THE Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has withdrawn its
support for a visiting Israeli expert on Islam who earlier this week
urged Australia to cap its intake of Muslim immigrants.
AIJAC executive director Dr Colin Rubenstein issued a statement on
Friday distancing the organisation, which has partly sponsored Hebrew
University Professor Raphael Israeli's six-week Australian visit, from
the academic's claims that “life will become untenable†unless the
Muslim population is kept in check.
Professor Israeli said Australia was in danger of being swamped by
Muslims – especially from Indonesia – and called for a
“preventative
policy†to protect national security and ensure Muslims remained a
“marginal minorityâ€.
But Dr Rubenstein rejected Professor Israeli's "implication that the
Muslim community as a whole is a threat or danger".
"Islamist extremism is a genuine and serious global problem, but it is
completely wrong to single out all Muslims for suspicion or negatively
stereotype the Muslim community as a whole in this way."
Dr Rubenstein said AIJAC had censured Professor Israeli over the
"unacceptable and unhelpful" remarks, and "will not be co-hosting any
of
his further appearances in Australia".
Professor Israeli had just begun a stint as a scholar-in-residence at
the Shalom Institute in Sydney, where he is teaching a course on
“Understanding Islamâ€.
Shalom Institute CEO Hilton Immerman said that while Professor
Israeli's
views do not necessarily represent those of the Shalom Institute, which
"rejects any form of racial stereotyping or ethnic quotas", the course
would proceed.
An author of 20 books on the Muslim, Arab and Chinese worlds, he was
also scheduled to give talks in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and New
Zealand. However, Dr Rubenstein told the AJN that he was unsure whether
the talks would go ahead given that AIJAC had withdrew its support.
In an interview with the AJN, Professor Israeli said radical Islam
would
not be defeated by a war of words.
“You have to infiltrate all those circles where the Muslim radicals
operate, to arrest them, and to limit immigration into western
countries
where these Muslims, who are bent on destroying western civilisation
...
to limit immigration, even students who apply to come from Islamic
countries to the West,†he said.
“It serves no purpose when you have this home-grown terrorist, who
has
been preparing for years to blow up undergrounds in London, and all you
do is lead a war of words. The war of words doesn’t help. There is a
whole gamut of actions that are possible in order to check this threat
of Islam.â€
Citing France, where Muslims comprise about nine per cent of the
population, as an example, Professor Israeli warned growing Muslim
communities could change the political, economic, and cultural fabric
of
a country.
“You have to adopt some kind of preventative policy. In order not to
get
there, limit the immigration and therefore you keep them a marginal
minority, which will be a nuisance, but cannot pose a threat to the
demographic and security aspects of a country.â€
But Islamic Council of Victoria director Waleed Aly branded the
comments
“ill-advised and foolish†and said Professor Israeli didn’t
understand
Australia.
“It is clearly possible in the current environment to say things
about
Muslims that you simply cannot say about anyone else,†Aly said.
“The fundamental problem at the heart of this is that he seems to be
suggesting that increased marginalisation of Muslim populations will
somehow produce something other than mutual resentment. It should be
obvious to anyone really that it’s doomed to failure.â€
Officially, there are fewer than 300,000 Muslims in Australia according
to the 2001 Census, but Islamic community officials estimate the actual
number to be at least 500,000 – about 2.5 per cent of the population.
“Even though it’s so low, they are so vocal, and they make so much
noise,†Professor Israeli said. “And therefore the situation has to
be
checked before they increase their numbers, because don’t forget in
your
immediate proximity dwells the largest or most populous Islamic country
in the world [Indonesia], and by necessity, there is demographic
pressure from there to channel the surplus of populations to wherever
it’s possible.
“And one of the big possibilities is Australia, so they will continue
to
come legally, or illegally, and settle here, and when they get to the
rate of the 10 per cent like in France, then you will see life will
become untenable.â€
He said France might already be at the “point of no returnâ€.
“Then they control whole sections of the economy, there are areas in
France where you cannot be elected to Parliament without the support of
the Muslims and so on. And therefore, by increasing their numbers they
start to have an impact on the social, economic, political and cultural
nature of the country.â€
He warned that radical Muslims would find it easier to “melt†into
the
community and plan terrorist acts without scrutiny from authorities if
the growth of Australia’s Muslim population was allowed to continue.
“You will have then large concentrations of Muslims, so it’s not
thousands, it will be millions, and when they become millions it’s a
big
mass where individual Muslims, including terrorists, can melt, and then
go look for them.
“In England they already have that problem, they cannot locate them,
they cannot sort them out from the general population, and sometimes
you
have to impose a curfew on a whole area to catch one or two or three
terrorists, and by doing that you do an injustice to an entire
population, and then they start complaining that they are discriminated
against.â€
Immigrant Muslims had a reputation for manipulating the values of their
adopted countries to suit their own ends, he said.
“And that’s why Islam has become feared in western countries, which
are
open, democratic, and tolerant of others. And Muslim populations, which
are very often minorities, very often abuse that hospitality and use
democracy, openness and tolerance to their benefit, to spread their
faith and to intimidate their hosts, and very often, to impose their
standards and values upon them.â€
WITH MELISSA SINGER
Eye-Opener on Extent of Islamic Activity in US
Investigative Project on Terrorism Alert On Sunday night, February
18, on Fox's "Hannity's America" show, airing at 9:00pm ET, an
exclusive undercover video shot by the Investigative Project on Terrorism over
a series of years of a radical Islamic cleric, Sheik Abdul Alim Musa,
will be broadcast on the Fox News Channel. The Imam, who presides over
two mosques and a popular Islamic organization, has actually been
invited to White House Ifthar dinners.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) shot this undercover video
of Musa during a period of 7 years. About 5 minutes of incendiary IPT
video is expected to be broadcast at around 9:30pm ET during which time
Hannity will be confronting Musa live about his violent exhortations.
Later this year, the Investigative Project on Terrorism will be
releasing the full out-takes of the extremist speeches and rallies led by Musa
calling for suicide bombings and his violent anti-Semitic and
anti-American speeches. What is most shocking is the degree to which Musa has
achieved "mainstream" status in the Muslim community.
Thanks to Mark Taylor and Milford421 for this post.
Posted: February 16, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/ article.asp? ARTICLE_ID= 54293
Hal Lindsey
Step into the Wayback Machine with me for a moment. The year is
1942. The United States is at war with the Axis Powers (Nazi
Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan).
So far, America has been taking a real beating. All the war news is
bad, and getting worse. The Japanese chased Douglas MacArthur all
the way to Australia, occupying the Far East and taking hundreds of
thousands of Allies prisoner.
The Germans conquered all of Europe in a matter of months, occupying
Europe from the Baltics to the English Channel virtually unopposed.
The Italians owned North Africa.
America had yet to win a decisive victory, and it appeared that we
were in danger of losing the war. At home, support for the war had
hit rock bottom.
Now, let's examine a hypothetical situation in that context and see
how it sounds.
An 18-year-old Nazi sympathizer from one of the German-occupied
countries immigrates to the U.S. With his mother. One day, he
marches into Union Station and opens fire on every civilian not fast
enough to dive under something, killing five before being dropped by
an off-duty police officer.
The police chief is baffled by the attack. "It makes no sense," he
said. "It appears to be a random attack." The FBI calls the
attack "unexplainable. " "He was just walking around shooting
everyone he saw," said an FBI agent investigating the attack.
A major American newspaper in Cincinnati covers the story under the
headline, "Gunman's Motive Still Unknown." In San Diego the next
day, the headline was "Teenaged Gunman Who Killed 5 Targeted People
at Random."
One day after the attack, according to a Colorado news
headline, "FBI Rules Out Terrorism in Shooting."
Neither the police nor the media draw any inference from the fact
the shooter is a Nazi sympathizer from a Nazi-occupied country in
the middle of a war with the Nazis. In such a case, it would be no
wonder that America had begun to fear it was losing the war. With
such incompetents in charge of protecting Americans from enemy
attacks at home, and aided and abetted by the media, how could they
hope to win?
Now, let's fast-forward to Valentine's week, 2007. Instead of Union
Station, it is a Utah shopping mall. And instead of being a Nazi,
our shooter is a Bosnian Muslim.
But the headlines, and the "hypothetical" comments from the police
and FBI are not hypothetical. Indeed, one would have to look long
and hard even to discover the shooter was a Muslim.
Those few newspapers who dared to mention that Sulejman Talovic was
a Bosnian Muslim were careful to follow up by saying there was no
reason to believe there was any connection to Islamic terror.
The local television stations in Salt Lake City were downright
sympathetic, saying that the gunman (whom they identified as
a "teenager") was a "Srebrenica survivor" as if that were sufficient
justification for gunning down ordinary Americans as they went about
the daily business. (While any connection with Islam was wholly
unjustified. )
Fox News reported the story under the headline, "Authorities Seek
Motive for Bosnian Immigrant Teen's Shooting" – as if there were no
possibility that Islam played any role.
Salt Lake's KUTV dutifully reported that Bosnia's ambassador
was "shocked" by the attacks, while Salt Lake's mayor condemned
commentators as "incredibly hateful and uninformed ... Who see that
a Muslim was involved and jump at such unjustified, outrageous
conclusions. "
The "unjustified and outrageous conclusions" to which Mayor Anderson
is referring would be that Islam is somehow related to the massacre.
Is such a conclusion more outrageous than assuming that Talovic
gunned down his American hosts in retaliation for the behavior of
Bosnian Serbs to Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica?
The San Diego Union's headline was "Teenage Gunman Who Killed 5 in
Utah Mall Targeted People at Random" – but denied any connection
between Islam and the shooting.
The Denver Post's headline read, "FBI Rules out Terrorism in Utah
Shooting" only 24 hours after the gun smoke had cleared. Is that
a "justified" conclusion?
In 2002, Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad killed 10 innocent
Americans and wounded three more critically. Authorities claimed no
connection between Islam and the Beltway Sniper case.
That same year, an Egyptian immigrant, (also a Muslim) walked into
LAX and shot down two EL Al employees before being killed by El Al
Security.
In the past year, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, 22, stole a car in
Minneapolis. He went on a rampage, ramming the stolen car into other
cars and then stealing a van and continuing to ram other cars,
injuring one person. During his rampage, Mohamed repeatedly
yelled, "Die, die, die, kill, kill, kill," and when asked why he did
all this, he replied, "Allah made me do it."
Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim from Afghanistan, killed one person and
injured 14 during a murderous drive through San Francisco city
streets in August 2006, during which he targeted people on
crosswalks and sidewalks He identified himself as a terrorist after
his rampage. Later the murders were ascribed to Popal's mental
problems, and to stress arising from his impending arranged
marriage.
On July 28, 2006, a Muslim named Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way
into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Once inside, Haq
announced, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," and then
began shooting, killing one woman and injuring five more. FBI
assistant special agent David Gomez stated: "We believe … it's a
lone individual acting out his antagonism. There's nothing to
indicate that it's terrorism-related. But we're monitoring the
entire situation."
In March 2006, a 22-year-old Iranian student named Mohammed Reza
Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, deliberately trying to kill people and
succeeding in injuring nine. During his arraignment, he explained
that he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of
Allah."
Officials dismissed the possibility of terrorism, even after Taheri-
azar wrote a series of letters to the UNC campus newspaper detailing
the Islamic justification for warfare against unbelievers and
explaining why he believed his attacks were justified from an
Islamic perspective.
The FBI and the media assured the public in every case that there
was no connection between Islam and the attacks.
Had America been blessed with such competent officials and such hard-
hitting journalists in 1942, you'd be reading this column today in
German
Thanks to Milford421 for this update.
FDA widens peanut butter warning
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?
type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-02-
17T041658Z_01_N16344200_RTRUKOC_0_US-SALMONELLA-
PEANUTBUTTER.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
FDA widens peanut butter warning
Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:11pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - All Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May
2006 should be discarded, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said
on Friday in a statement broadening its warning about salmonella-
contaminated peanut butter.
More than 290 people from 39 states have become ill in the food
poisoning outbreak, and 46 have been hospitalized, the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
ConAgra Foods Inc., which makes Peter Pan, said earlier it was
checking the source of the contamination, which may have also
affected the Great Value label peanut butter it makes for retailer
Wal-Mart.
The FDA had said on Wednesday that certain batches of Peter Pan
butter may contain salmonella and that all had a product code on the
lid of the jar beginning with 2111.
continues...............
'Pak secretly agrees to give Saudis N-bomb'
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1931096,001300850000.htm
'Pak secretly agrees to give Saudis N-bomb'
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri
New York City, February 17, 2007
Pakistan has agreed to provide Saudi Arabia nuclear weapons and
missiles last month, according to an Israeli intelligence website
debka.com.
The website stated that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Saudi
King Abdullah concluded an agreement with "seven secret clauses" on
January 21, during his visit to Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan agreed to provide an atomic deterrent in the event of "a
nuclear emergency". The transfer of control would also occur in case
Iran threatened the Persian Gulf Emirates, Egypt or Jordan.
According to intelligence sources, the agreement is impossible to
confirm. However, it is a logical extension of a long-standing
Saudi-Pakistan nuclear understanding. The goal: ensure a nuclear Iran
does not dominate the Gulf.
Retired senior Indian officials believe the Saudis have financed
Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme through shipments of cheap petrol
since the 90s. In return, Pakistan was to provide a nuclear weapon on
request.
However, it is uncertain how the exchange will occur.
While, Indian intelligence believes a number of missiles will be
designated as Saudi, but physically remain in Pakistan with Riyadh
controlling the launch button, others differ.
A Pentagon nuclear consultant said: "Saudis would have to develop a
system of ground-tracking stations and satellites. This would be too
much trouble and attract too much attention." But John Pike, head of
globalsecurity.org, said a large airplane could easily move warheads,
especially if the missiles are bought elsewhere.
The implications of such a nexus for India would be negative, added
the Pentagon advisor.
Commentary: Iran 'a very serious threat'
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070216-061750-8529r
Commentary: Iran 'a very serious threat'
Claude Salhani
UPI
February 16, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Iran today poses a five-pronged threat, warned the man
who first blew the whistle on the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
Iran is "a very, very serious threat to the free world," said Alireza
Jafarzadeh, who outlines the dangers posed by the Islamic republic, as
he sees them, in his new book, The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad
and the coming nuclear crisis.
The whistle-blower is blunt from the outset: "Iran wants to extend its
influence beyond its borders."
"The agenda of [Iran's late supreme leader] Ayatollah Khomeini was to
establish global Islamic rule, to expand Iran's influence beyond the
Iranian borders. They want to deliver Jerusalem via Karbala, [which
means turning] Iraq into an Islamic republic and from there [using] it
as a springboard to spread their revolution to other countries in the
area," he said.
The author, who is close to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was the first
person to reveal the Islamic republic's secret nuclear processing
sites at Natanz and Arak.
On Iran's role in Iraq, Jafarzadeh wrote: "The problem in Iraq is
neither a civil nor a sectarian war. The main threat to Iraq is
neither Al Qaeda nor the Sunni insurgents - [while] they both are
cause for major problems ... neither can take the whole future of Iraq
... hostage. Rather, Iraq is now a battleground for the clash of two
alternatives: Islamic extremist opinion [that] gets its orders from
Tehran and seeks to establish an Islamic republic in Iraq, [or] a
democratic alternative seeking a pluralistic democracy in the country.
The former seeks sectarian violence and fans the flames of civil war,
while the latter seeks to ease tension, provide security and
stability, and establish democratic institutions."
Outlining those threats, Jafarzadeh, an Iranian exile who lives in
Washington, underlined the five prongs followed by the regime in
Tehran.
Firstly: Iran wants to pursue its nuclear program come what may. Iran
is cognizant of the fact possession of nuclear weapons puts it in a
different category altogether. The regime in Tehran believes nuclear
arms will offer it protection from a potential invasion by the United
States. Indeed, Washington is likely to think twice about waging war
on a country that can draw on atomic protection.
Secondly: Iran's meddling in Iraq. Since the start of the Iranian
revolution in 1979, Khomeini wanted to export the Islamic revolution
to neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait, all
of which have significant Shiite minorities. But try as they might,
Iran's mullahs were unsuccessful in this aim until the fall of Saddam
Hussein.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 offered the Iranians a unique
opportunity to intervene in Iraq's internal affairs.
Immediately after Baghdad fell to the US-led coalition, Iranian
Revolutionary Guards profited from the fact that Iraq's
1,450-kilometer (900-mile) border with Iran was largely unguarded,
given that the Iraqi army was, firstly, on the retreat, and, secondly,
disbanded by order of the US administrator of Iraq. Iranian forces
thus immediately began to cross into Iraq and supporting anti-American
and anti-coalition elements. Iranian agents started training Iraqis in
insurgency tactics, and, according to several sources, Iran has
provided training, financing, and explosives and weapons to the
insurgency.
Thirdly: Iran's support of international terrorism. The United States
accuses the Tehran regime of supporting terrorist groups, or groups
considered to be terrorists by the US. Iran, says Jafarzadeh, poses a
serious threat to the world by its support of terrorism. The Islamic
republic has long been a supporter of groups such as Lebanon's
Hezbollah, or the Islamic resistance movement in the Palestinian
territories, better known as Hamas.
Fourthly: Iran continues to oppose the Middle East peace process. And,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does nothing to encourage
harmony in the region with his repeated claims that "Israel should be
wiped off the map," persisting in his insistence that the "Holocaust
never happened."
Needless to say, this has raised concerns - not only in Israel, but
also in the United States and the West - that a nuclear-armed Iran
will only make matters worse.
Jafarzadeh writes: "For 27 years, the Iranian regime has voiced its
hatred of the United States and the West, and for the same number of
years attempts have been made to change the regime's behavior through
external pressures, threats, negotiations, and appeasement. All these
attempts have failed, and, as the Iranian regime accelerates its push
for a nuclear arsenal, the world no longer has the luxury of waiting
for Tehran to turn itself around and shed its medieval mindset. The
Iranian regime has not budged from its original theme of hating the
West and working to export its Islamic revolution."
"Ignoring this will only further step up Tehran's rush to the bomb,"
he warned.
And fifthly: the way Iran treats its own citizens. The mistreatment of
women, abuse of human rights, and censorship and executions continue
to preoccupy human rights groups and Iranians struggling and hoping to
see democracy blossom in their country.
Claude Salhani is Middle East Times' Editor and International Editor
at UPI.
[communist manifesto at work]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1400670.ece
From The Sunday Times
February 18, 2007
KGB and the plot to taint ‘Nazi pope’
John Follain
THE KGB hatched a plot to smear the late Pope Pius XII as an antisemitic Hitler supporter and fostered a controversial play that tarnished the pontiff, according to the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence officer to have defected to the West.
Former Lieutenant-General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who headed the Romanian secret service before defecting in 1978, has broken a silence of nearly half a century to reveal that he was involved in the operation code-named Seat12, a Kremlin scheme launched in 1960 to portray Pius XII “as a cold-hearted Nazi sympathiser”.
The result, according to Pacepa, was the 1963 play The Deputy, by Rolf Hochhuth, which argued that Pius XII had supported Hitler and encouraged him to launch the Holocaust. It ignited a furious debate over Pius XII’s attitude towards Hitler.
The controversy was revived when the director Costa-Gavras adapted the play for his 2002 film Amen, whose poster depicted a swastika twisted into the cross.
The cold war plan had the motto “Dead men cannot defend themselves” as the Pope had died in 1958. “Because Pius XII had served as the papal nuncio in Munich and Berlin when the Nazis were beginning their rise to power, the KGB wanted to depict him as an antisemite who had encouraged Hitler’s Holocaust,” Pacepa wrote in an article published by the National Review.
To obtain original Vatican documents, the KGB recruited the Romanian foreign intelligence service to pretend that Romania was ready to restore its broken relations with the Vatican. Pacepa said he was granted access to its archives by Mon-signor Agostino Casaroli, who was in charge of confidential talks with Soviet bloc authorities.
Pacepa persuaded Casaroli, whom he met at a Geneva hotel, that he needed to find historical roots that would help Romania to justify publicly its change of heart towards the Vatican. For two years, three spies posing as priests smuggled documents out of the Vatican archives and the
Apostolic Library to be photographed. “Everything was immediately sent to the KGB via special courier,” Pacepa said. “In fact, no incriminating material against the pontiff ever turned up. Nevertheless, the KGB kept asking for more documents.”
continued.............
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1400655.ece
From The Sunday Times
February 18, 2007
Arab states trained Al-Qaeda men to fight in Somalia
Jon Swain and Brian Johnson-Thomas Johannesburg
MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.
Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.
UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.
A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.
In an interview, Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft, based in Johannesburg but registered in the British Virgin Islands, said: “We transported lots of men in uniform — Arabian men with masks.
“They were disciplined men and although none of them had rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on the aircraft as if they had done it many times before.”
Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by a General Tambi of the Eritrean People’s Defence Forces. Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa, was a major supporter of the Islamists.
Tambi offered to buy Zakharov’s Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN 76496 for $1.5m (£770,000), even though the normal price for an aircraft of that vintage and condition is just $1m.
Zakharov went ahead despite the unusual contract conditions that stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.
However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing out the masked men on the return legs. “I do not know who they were but you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.
Zakharov’s revelations came as western security services continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining Al-Qaeda last year. Among them are British, American and French Muslims.
continued............
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070218-061624-2184r
Iran denies Sadr is in country
AFP
February 18, 2007
TEHRAN -- Iran for the first time formally denied Sunday claims by
Iraqi and US officials that radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr is in
the Islamic republic, the ISNA news agency reported.
"Moqtada Al Sadr is not in Iran," said foreign ministry spokesman
Mohammad Ali Hosseini.
"This is part of the propaganda and psychological warfare led by the
United States in Iraq to impose pressure on Iran and it has no basis,"
he added.
Iraqi government and US officials have said that firebrand cleric
Sadr, leader of the Mehdi Army Shiite militia and a powerful political
movement, left for Tehran last month ahead of a renewed security
operation.
Sami Al Askari, an aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, said
Thursday that Sadr was "on a short visit" to Iran on an "official
invitation."
Some Sadr aides promised Friday that Sadr would disprove the claims by
publicly leading weekly prayers at his regular mosque in the Shiite
town of Kufa, south of Baghdad. However he failed to appear.
The Iranian government has up until now condemned the US claims as a
provocation, but not explicitly confirmed or denied whether Sadr was
on its territory.
While Debka is not a reliable source, if this is one of the times they are correct, the report of nukes to the Saudis is ominous. The number one source of jihadists funding having the bomb would certainly lead to the end of days. I would think that Israel would never allow this (as opposed to Iran for the simple fact Israel does not have the missile or air force to take out Iran's nukes to be).
[Jan. 2003 Russia news]
http://www.terrorism.ru/english.phtml
http://www.terrorism.ru/
http://www.google.com/search?q=found+out+in+the+center+of+Moscow+is+a+bomb&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=data+on+intentions+of+criminal+groups+or+insurgents&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Arabian+terrorists+of+bin+Laden+was+at+the+Pankissi+gorge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Arabian+terrorist+group+Abu+Kharsi&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Institute+of+biochemistry+and+biotechnology+Otar+Kvesitadze&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
xxx
http://www.google.com/search?q=the+terrorists+could+made+only+crude+poison+with+low+activity&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=files+concerning+manufactures+there+poisoning+chemical+substances&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Yes, I know that Debka is often unreliable, but suspect that they were correct, until others stepped in and stopped the planned action.
All I can say about the nuclear devices, is that Dr. Bill Wattenberg says that it is not "if", but rather a question of "when" we will be hit.
He has trained people in all the countries, over his many years of teaching, as we are still doing, in our universities.
I do not know how Israel can be expected or hope to win, against the entire mid-east...........unless it is true and they can sneak in and take out the top, one at a time.
[The links and articles to these award winners are on the pages, sorry, but they had me laughing out loud...granny]
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-63275
Stupid Security Contest 2003 Award Winners
28/03/2003
Privacy International
Stupid Security Contest Winners
April 2003
Most Egregiously Stupid Award
Winner - The Australian Government for a litany of pointless, irritating and self-serving security measures
Runner-Up - Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov for the "Propiska" Identity Papers
Most Inexplicably Stupid Award
Winner - Philadelphia International Airport for over-reaction to a bottle of cologne
Runner-Up - Heathrow Airport for quarantining a quantity of green tea
Most Annoyingly Stupid Award
Winner - T-Mobile (UK) for pointless and idiotic financial security measures
Runner-Up - Bay Area Rapid Transport (Bart) for closing its restrooms.
Most Flagrantly Intrusive Award
Winner - Delta Terminal at JFK Airport for forcing a nursing mother to drink her own breast milk
Runner-Up - Carson City Correctional Facility, Michigan for forcing women visitors to wear bras.
Most Stupidly Counter Productive Award
Winner - San Francisco General Hospital for blind idiocy in its identity checking procedures
Runner-Up San Francisco International Airport for endangering the public
Dishonourable Mention
The New Yorker Hotel, New York for aggressive, unnecessary and meaningless security measures.
1999 blown up apartment houses in Russia & Litvinenko:
http://eng.terror99.ru/explosions/
http://eng.terror99.ru/updates/
http://eng.terror99.ru/resources/timeline/
August 8, 1999: Basaev's forces enter Dagestan.
August 9, 1999: Little known FSB chief Vladimir Putin is named Prime Minister.
August 31, 1999: A bomb explodes in Manezh shopping center in Moscow. 1 person is killed, 40 are injured.
September 4, 1999: A bomb explodes in military housing in Buinaksk. 64 people killed, 133 are injured.
September 9, 1999: A bomb explodes in an apartment building in Moscow, on Guryanov street. 94 people are killed, 249 are injured.
September 13, 1999: A bomb explodes in an apartment building in Moscow, on Kashirskoye Shosse. 118 are killed.
September 16, 1999: A bomb explodes in an apartment building in Volgodonsk. 18 are killed, 288 injured.
September 22, 1999: A bomb is found in Ryazan, timer set for 5:30 a.m. Authorities first claim that a terrorist act has been averted; and later call the incident FSB's training exercises.
September 23, 1999: Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin orders the bombings of Chechnya.
October 5, 1999: Russian armed forces enter Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
December 31, 1999: President Boris Yeltsin resigns, naming Vladimir Putin acting President.
March 26, 2000: Vladimir Putin is elected Russian President.
Today: The war in Chechnya continues...
http://eng.terror99.ru/documents/
Groups in U.S., some are under names new to me:
http://www.cromwell-intl.com/security/netusers.html
see: Vermont [above]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070218/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/kitchen_sink_bombs
FBI defends against 'kitchen sink bombs'
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer Sun Feb 18, 1:18 PM ET
QUANTICO, Va. - Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the
FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.
a useful site of links to terror articles, info. Be sure to see the timeline link at top of page:
http://www.mahk.com/
Global Incident Map:
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
Sunday Times, 18 February 2007
"We are happy to make it clear that Ms Svetlichnaja has never worked
for a
state-owned Russian company and we accept that she was not part of any
Kremlin-inspired campaign to discredit Mr Litvinenko. We apologise for
any
distress our report caused her."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1400785.ece
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/eventdetail.php?ID=1870
Type Biological Incidents/ Threats/ Anthrax Hoaxes etc Date Time 2007-02-18 00:00:00
Country RU City Moscow
Latitude 55.750 Longitude 37.700
URL http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11680578
Description
[Interfax] RUSSIA - Bird flu outbreak near Moscow might be act of bio-terrorism - veterinary official
" Bio-terrorism must not be discarded as a cause of an outbreak of bird flu at Moscow's poultry market, but this should be tackled by the Federal Security Service and other law enforcement services," chief veterinary official of the Moscow region, Valery Sitnikov, told Interfax on Sunday"
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11680578
See also http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp?ccode=ENG4&newscode=152766
Map Editors Note - Be sure to regularly check our bird flu incident map at http://birdflu.globalincidentmap.com
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