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Australian Federal Police arrest Ahmed Talib in Melbourne, March 25, 2021. (Australia Federal Police) Australian who worked with Al Qaeda was also involved with Islamic extremists in the violent 2010 Gaza flotilla incident. By World Israel News Staff A Melbourne man arrested for allegedly recruiting jihadist terrorists and who was involved in the violent Mavi Marmara incident is on the U.S. terror watch list, the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) reported on its website. Australia citizens Ahmed Luqman Talib and Gabriel Crazzi were arrested by Australia Federal Police and face numerous charges related to recruiting people and trying to send...

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos intercepted a flotilla of six ships sailing toward Gaza with the stated intention of breaking an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory, ruled by the terrorist Hamas organization. Activists aboard five of the six ships passively surrendered their vessels. As a result, nobody was injured. But aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, events took an ugly turn. As Israeli commandos rappelled from a hovering helicopter onto the top deck of the ship, they were set upon by a band of extremists, who attacked them with axes, metal bars and other makeshift weapons. One or...

Turkish anti-terror police on Tuesday raided the offices of an Islamic charity which has been accused of trying to ship arms to neighboring Syria. Police searched the premises of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) in southern town of Kilis near the Syrian border, the charity’s vice president Huseyin Oruc told AFP. […] The IHH, which is considered close to the Turkish government, organized the flotilla of ships carrying aid to Gaza that was raided by Israeli commandos in 2010. …

-Libyan-flagged vessel used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighter- A Libyan-flagged vessel which last year was used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation in supplying a lifeline to rebels in Misurata, has been implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters, which may also be linked to murdered US ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi last month. The ship 'Al Entisar' which was chartered last year by I-Go Aid Libya, then run by businessman Mario Debono, has been reported to be linked to last September's attack on...

It may not be the reunion fans were hoping for, but Pink Floyd have come together to support a pro-Palestinian activist group. The Women’s Boat to Gaza is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. It contains 13 women, including the 1976 Nobel peace laureate from Northern Ireland, Mairead Maguire, and it journeyed from Barcelona to Gaza in September in order to bring attention to the Israeli’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The organization posted on its website that they lost contact with the boat on October 5th, and presume that the Israeli Occupation Navy has surrounded it in international...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodogan said Jan. 31 that the Gulenists in the country, which he dubs “the parallel structure,” have joined forces with the Israeli intelligence service. “The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see with whom this structure is cooperating with,” Erdogan said, while addressing a meeting of the All Industrialist and Businessmen’s Association (TUMSİAD) in Istanbul. “Shame on them if they still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,” he said. Erdoğan accuses the followers of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen for illegal wiretappings and a “coup attempt,” starting from the revelation...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on September 11, 2011. Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan: The measures we have taken are only the beginning. As you know, we have taken five measures, and we will see the results of these measures in the days, weeks, and perhaps months to come. Israel must realize that it is accountable for its actions, past and present. It will realize this. We have seen that Israel has never observed any of the resolutions issued by the UN General Assembly or Security Council. Israel...

In the midst of ongoing normalization talks with Israel, Turkey is planning to invest $5 billion in reconstructing the Hamas stronghold of Gaza including a seaport - which Israel has fiercely opposed due to the blatant threat of weapons smuggling. The Turkish Hurriyet Daily News on Friday reported that a team of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) announced the expensive rebuilding plan, which is being prepared by the Center for Multilateral Trade Studies at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV). The plans to reconstruct the Hamas-held region came after meetings with Palestinian Authority...

A new twist has appeared in the legal attempts to attack the IDF for defending the maritime blockade of Gaza in the infamous 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, as radical activists sued Israel for "breaching US territory" in the raid. Three Americans and a Belgian who took part in the breach of the naval blockade launched a civil suit to a US federal court on Monday in Washington, reports The New Arab on Wednesday. The blockade is a legal measure according to international law meant to prevent the influx of weapons to Gazan terrorists. Aside from suing the Israeli government for...

A statement from the Turkish government promises “unprecedented and incalculable reprisals” against Israel for the Israeli Navy’s seizure of the Marmora, a Turkish vessel, which was leading a fleet of ships through the Gaza blockade over the weekend. The statement has received the support of Hezbollah, an arm of the Iranian government, and Hamas, the Palestinian network. Such measures will not be confined to diplomatic censure. Reports from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, state that the government, which remains under the control of the Justice and Democratic Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP), is planning to continue pounding the Israeli blockade...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn’t the only loser in last Sunday’s elections. President Obama had made Erdogan a focus of his policy. The voters in that troubled NATO country voted against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and in so doing, slapped President Obama. President Obama went to Ankara in April, 2009, for an early edition of his Apology Tours. He spoke to the Turkish Parliament assuring deputies there that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.” Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic...

Members of Turkey’s Jewish community attend the reopening ceremony of the Great Synagogue in Edirne on March 26 after a five-year government restoration project. REUTERS Photo Just a week before Passover, Turkish Jews woke up to a morning full of excitement and hope. They got on the buses waiting to take them to Edirne, to the city that their families once had to leave following the Thrace pogroms in 1934. It was the reopening day of the Great Synagogue, which had been left in ruins for decades. “I was the last rabbi that had served in the synagogue,” said David...

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the euro zone, it could always look elsewhere for help. "What we want is a deal. But if there is no deal - hopefully (there will be) - and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source," he told Greek television show that ran in to early Tuesday. "It could the United States at best, it could be Russia,...

Greece's new nationalist defense minister prompted Greece's perennial rival Turkey to scramble jets on Friday, just days after he took office, by flying over uninhabited islets off the Turkish coast that nearly triggered a war in 1996. Turkish fighter jets entered Greek airspace and were intercepted by Greek jets as Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and military chiefs flew by helicopter to the islet of Imia to drop wreaths in memory of three Greek officers killed nearby in a helicopter crash 19 years ago, the Greek Defence Ministry said. Kammenos heads the small, right-wing, Eurosceptical Independent Greeks party, and the episode...

A Greek politician who claimed that Jews “don’t pay taxes” has been elected as Defense Minister, Greek media reported Thursday night, amid already-high concerns over rising anti-Semitism in the country that is only expected to worsen following recent elections. Panos Kammenos of the Syriza party made the comments during an interview with Greek Ant-1 TV, according to New Greek TV, on December 18—just days after the drive-by shooting at the Israeli Embassy in Athens. Local Jewish leaders were outraged at the comments. “It is a disgrace that a leader of a party in Parliament does not know that Greek Jews...

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the euro zone, it could always look elsewhere for help. "What we want is a deal. But if there is no deal - hopefully (there will be) - and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source," he told Greek television show that ran in to early Tuesday. "It could the United States at best, it could be Russia,...

Greece’s new Prime Minister reportedly assures the Israeli ambassador that Greek-Israeli relations will not change following his election. Greece’s new Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, has assured the Israeli ambassador to Athens that Greek-Israeli relations will not change following his election, Kol Yisrael radio reported on Friday. According to the report, Tsipras met this week with the Ambassador, Irit Ben-Abba, and made clear to her that his government is determined to combat anti-Semitism in Greece and that it will continue to prosecute the leaders of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. The meeting comes amid concerns among Greek Jews that the election...

Turkish leaders have said protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission for them, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bluntly warning any attack against the 8th-century al-Aqsa Mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. “The Israeli administration has to stop this despicableness, this barbarity; what would it say if this kind of attack had been launched against synagogues? The Masjid al-Aqsa is not only a shrine for Palestinians, but is the shrine of all Muslims,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on Nov. 7 during an official visit to...

One of the Islamist “activists” who attacked IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010 has reportedly been killed in a US airstrike in Syria, as he was fighting alongside Islamist terrorists. 40-year-old Bulent Alniak was killed in a US airstrike in Idlib, northwestern Syria, on a target identified as belonging to the “Islamic State” terrorist group (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), according to the Turkish World Bulletin website. According to that report, Alniak was carrying out “aid work” ahead of the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. But other sources have suggested a somewhat less peaceful...

A Turkish court has ordered the arrest of four Israeli commanders who were allegedly involved in the raid on the the Mavi Marmara aid ship off Gaza in 2010. The Istanbul 7th Court of Serious Crimes also decided May 26 to request an Interpol Red Notice for the arrest of former Israeli Chief of Staff, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, former Naval Forces Cmdr. Eliezer Alfred Marom, former Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlinir and former Air Forces Intelligence head Brig. Gen. Avishai Levi, who are all being tried in absentia. The court argued that an arrest warrant had become necessary...