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ROBERT S. WISTRICH: IRAQ’S KRISTALLNACHT, 70 YEARS LATER

Islamic Jew hatred. What's old is new again.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) marks the 70th anniversary of the Farhūd (June 1, 1941), the Iraqi Arab equivalent of the mass violence on Kristallnacht.

Below is a piece about the Farhūd by the pre-eminent author, historian and scholar Prof. Robert Wistrich, in which he explains how the event exposed just how vulnerable the Jews in Arab lands really were, and how the reinforcement of a strong Israel was and still remains the only viable long-term answer to the repetition of such horrific atrocities in the future.

While most news outlets will be focusing on Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), it is important that this insufficiently acknowledged part of the history of the Holocaust finally receives the attention it deserves.

Photo: Nation Associates Arab Higher Committee, its origins, personnel and purposes 1947 PG scan
 
Iraq’s Kristallnacht: 70 Years Later By Robert S. Wistrich

Seventy years ago, on June 1, 1941, the most dramatic and violent pogrom in the Arab Middle East during World War II took place in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Known in Arabic as the Farhūd, this devastating pogrom left approximately 150 Jews dead, hundreds more wounded, and led to the ransacking of nearly 600 Jewish businesses. The grim events of June 1-2, 1941 were the Iraqi Arab equivalent of the mass violence on Kristallnacht, which had taken place some two and a half years earlier across Nazi Germany. The anti-Jewish riots were mainly led by Iraqi soldiers (bitter and frustrated by their defeat at the hands of the British Army), some members of the police and young paramilitary gangs, swiftly followed by an angry Muslim population that went on the rampage in an orgy of murder and rapine.
           
The pogrom struck at what was the most prosperous, prominent and well-integrated Jewish community in the Middle East – one whose origins went back more than 2,500 years – long before there was any Arab presence in the country. The 90,000 Jews of Baghdad, it should be said, played a major role in the commercial and professional life of the city. However, in the 1930s they already found themselves confronted by an increasingly virulent anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist propaganda in the Iraqi press and among nationalist political groups. This agitation treated the intensely patriotic Iraqi Jews as an alien, hostile minority who had to be ejected from all the social, economic and political positions it held in the Iraqi state.
 
            Iraqi Arab nationalists, like their counterparts in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, had been much influenced in the 1930s by the rise of Nazi Germany. Hitler’s National Socialism attracted them as a spectacular, authoritarian model for achieving Iraqi national unity and a wider union of Arabs in the region. It was no accident that the pro-German ideologue of pan-Arabism, Sati al-Husri, exerted a major influence on Iraqi education after arriving in Baghdad in 1921, or that Michel Aflaq, the chief theoretician of the Iraqi and Syrian Ba’athists had also absorbed German national-socialist ideas while studying in Paris between 1928-1932. The Director General of the Iraqi Ministry of Education in the 1930s, Dr. Sami Shawkat, was another fanatical ideologue, especially active in instilling a military spirit (resembling the German Nazi model) in Iraqi youth. He also developed radically anti-Jewish ideas which were heavily indebted to Nazi anti-Semitism. In a book published in Baghdad in 1939, These Are Our Aims, Shawkat openly called for the annihilation of the Jews in Iraq, as a necessary prerequisite for achieving an Iraqi national revival and fulfilling the country’s ”historical mission” of uniting the Arab nation.
           
Significantly, it was also in Baghdad that the first official Arabic translations of parts of Hitler’s Mein Kampf appeared in 1934. In order not to offend Arab sensibilities the final translation “edited” out Hitler’s racial theories about inferior “Semites” – making it clear that anti-Semitism related only to Jews, not to Arabs. The Iraqi translator of Hitler’s “magnum opus” was Yūnus al-Sab’āwī, a young Nazi enthusiast and extreme anti-Semite. A close confidant of nationalist officers in the Iraqi army, Al-Sab’āwī came to play an important role in Iraqi politics. From April to June 1941 he even served as Iraqi Minister of Economics. Al-Sab’āwī was indeed one of the architects of the Farhūd in which his anti-Semitic para-military youth group also took part. Al-Sab’āwī had earlier established a close connection with Nazi Germany’s Ambassador to Iraq in the late 1930s, Dr. Fritz Grobba. The latter was a distinguished Orientalist (fluent in Arabic, Persian and Turkish) who eventually convinced Hitler that helping Arab nationalists to throw off British control of Iraq should be part of German strategy. Grobba also contributed much through the networks he had established in Iraq, towards spreading the idea that Iraqi Jews were a “fifth column” of Great Britain – sworn enemies of Germany and of the Arab nation. Equally, Palestinian nationalists, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini (who had had fled to Baghdad in the late 1930s), conducted an especially vicious campaign to incite a jihad among the local Arab population against Great Britain, Zionism and the Jews of Iraq. The Mufti – a close ally of Hitler during the four years he spent in Berlin between 1941 and 1945 – would also exert a particularly toxic influence on the pro-Nazi politician Rashid Ali al-Kailani, whose successful anti-British coup had forced the unpopular Hashemite Regent Abd al-Ilāh to flee the country. The coup brought to power on April 1, 1941 some of the most rabid Jew-baiters in Iraq. Anti-British and anti-Semitic propaganda now reached a zenith that greatly contributed to the violence that burst forth two months later.
           
Ironically enough, it was the decisive victory of the British and the return of the Regent on June 1 that immediately provoked the pogrom, an act of unparalleled revenge by the Muslim masses against the Jews of Baghdad that expressed their deep disappointment at the fall of the popular Rashid Ali regime. The British Army, now encamped on the outskirts of Baghdad, could easily have intervened but it chose not to do so, dubiously claiming this would have damaged the prestige of the (pro-British) Regent in the eyes of his own people. The British behaved in a similar fashion on several occasions in Mandatory Palestine, in Libya (November 1945) and in Aden (December 1945) – standing by as Arab mobs killed defenseless Jews. In fact, for most Iraqi Muslims in 1941, the British were perceived as oppressive colonizers, the Jews as their “agents” and the German Nazis as “anti-imperialist” saviors! But German military assistance, when it finally came, was too little and too late to save the Rashid Ali regime.
           
The Farhūd has been incomprehensibly ignored or downplayed both in Zionist historiography and even more in general histories of the Middle East. Arab historians have been silent or else falsified the facts and there are even Israeli and Jewish writers who have unconvincingly tried to dismiss its importance. Yet this traumatic event was indeed of seminal importance. It proved beyond reasonable doubt the strength of Arab nationalist anti-Semitism and of Nazi-style incitement on a Muslim population that had come to see in its patriotic Jewish minority “the enemy within.” The Jews of Iraq, seventy years ago, suddenly found themselves in the crossfire of three converging forms of murderous anti-Semitism – that of the German Nazis, the Palestinian exiles in Baghdad led by Amin el-Husseini, and Iraqi pan-Arab nationalists. Ten years later, the government of Iraq under the pro-British Nuri es-Said, expropriated, dispossessed, disenfranchised and brought about the forced emigration of nearly 120,000 Iraqi Jews, thereby cruelly terminating the oldest of all Diaspora histories. This was not only a crime against humanity but an insufficiently acknowledged part of the history of the Holocaust. The Farhūd exposed with shocking clarity just how vulnerable the Jews in Arab lands really were and what their fate was likely to be under any decolonized Arab regime in the future, especially if there was a breakdown of law and order.
 
Despite the “Arab Spring” not much has changed for other minorities in the Middle East in the last 70 years. As for the Jews, from Morocco to Iraq and Iran they would be “ethnically cleansed” after 1945 by their Muslim rulers. The Farhūd already represented the writing on the wall for those willing to read it. The reinforcement of a strong Israel was and still remains the only viable long-term answer to the repetition of such horrific atrocities in the future.
 
Prof. Robert S. Wistrich is the director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/) and the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, January 2010).  This article is a condensed version of a recent lecture on the 1941 pogrom in Baghdad hosted by the Center in Jerusalem.

PAMELA GELLER, WND: FACEBOOK FASCISTS SHUT DOWN DISSENTERS

Please check out my second weekly column running over at World Net Daily:

Facebook fascists shut down dissenters Pamela Geller, WND

There is a deeply disturbing development going on now at Facebook: Its management is dismantling groups, eliminating their memberships with an "upgrade" that is only available to some groups. And there is every indication Facebook is using political criteria to determine which groups get the upgrade and targeting conservative groups for elimination.

In mid-May, my group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) had this warning plastered across the top of our Facebook group page, which we use to keep in touch with our members, notifying them of rallies, events, conference, and various other initiatives:

This group is scheduled to be archived

Over the next few months, Facebook will be archiving all groups created using the old groups format. Moving forward, you can create groups using the new groups format, which makes it easy to share with the important groups in your life.

Understand that some groups are given the option (a link) to upgrade. If your group page has this link, you can upgrade and keep all your members.

But what happens when a Facebook group doesn't get offered the upgrade option and instead gets archived? You lose your members, that's what. The Facebook notice explained that "when your old group gets archived, it will be converted to the new groups format. Almost everything from your old group will be available in the archived group, with a few exceptions." Casually tossed in among those "few exceptions" was "the members of your old group."

Don't miss Pamela Geller's timely and urgent battle cry: "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America"

That means that with this upgrade, Facebook can wipe out networks some people have been painstakingly building for years and make them have to start from scratch.

Our SIOA group has well over 15,000 members – but they will not be migrated to the "new group."

So who gets the upgrade option and why? Who decides? Here is a short list of some of the groups not given the option; therefore, they will lose all their members: Americans Calling for Impeachment of Obama; International Burn a Quran Day; Rally Point For Victims of FB-Jihad; Anti-CAIR; CAIR Observatory; World Wide Elimination Of Sharia Law; and The Order of The Burning Quran.

Meanwhile, groups that are not to be archived and will keep their membership include Americans Against Islamophobia; Islam … religion of peace; the Cordoba Initiative (that is, the group planning to build an Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero); Mosque); and LoonWatch.

Neil Munro over at the Daily Caller has picked up on the story and done some digging. He points out that the Coalition to Save Marriagein New York, which tried to stop a gay-marriage initiative in New York's State Assembly, didn't get the upgrade, but the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which has fewer members than the Save Marriage group, got the upgrade with no problem. Jason McGuire of the Coalition to Save Marriage in New York commented: "Nobody else that I know got one. You do have to wonder if Facebook is leaning towards liberal positions, instead of being on open format."

Read the rest.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Wednesday, June 01, 2011 at 01:37 AM in Atlas Articles, FACEBOOK CENSORSHIP, WND Geller Columns | Permalink | Comments (7) ShareThis

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Wednesday, June 01, 2011

AUSTRALIA: MUSLIM GETS FIVE YEARS FOR MULTIPLE SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON VICTIMS AS YOUNG AS 13

A Libyan Muslim student who sexually assaulted seven girls (as young as 13) and women in Melbourne has been jailed for five years (he'll be out in three). Here again, the media describes the assailant by his country of origin. This is irrelevant -- sort of like describing the color of his socks. Women are meat for the taking under Islam, under the sharia -- just as this 12-year-old rape victim was told by her Muslim rapist in Norway (where all rapes in the past five years have been committed by Muslims): "He said he had the right to do exactly as he wanted to a woman." "Why?" "Because that is how it was in his religion. Women did not have rights or opinions, he was in charge." And he was from Pakistan. The rapist below was from Libya. What is it that they have in common? Gender apartheid in Islam.

And just like the cases in Norway, western female law enforcement made some disgusting, feeble excuse for the brutal and unspeakable violence and degradation of the girls, by blaming the "traumatized country" the rapist came from. Sick? the sickest.

In this case in Australia, the female judge said, "It seems you were very ill prepared to deal with cultural differences." As if being human is a cultural thing. Maybe she should have been one of his victims, to know what the women truly suffered.

Aussie News has clip and pics here...

Libyan Almahde Ahmad Atagore jailed for string of Melbourne sex assaults The Herald (hat tip Doug)

A LIBYAN student who sexually assaulted seven girls and women in Melbourne has been jailed for more than five years.

Almahde Ahmad Atagore, 28, had been in Australia only a month and was having trouble adapting to the Australian culture when he committed the attacks, a court heard.

Atagore, who is a Muslim, was upset and sexually aroused at the way women in Australia dressed and behaved, the Victorian County Court heard today.

Between August and September last year Atagore, who was in Australia on a Libyan government scholarship, embarked on a string of sexual assaults over four days in Mentone and at Flinders Street railway station.

His youngest victim was just 13.

Sentencing Atagore, Judge Margaret Rizkalla said she accepted there was a link between the cultural issues, along with Atagore's depression, and the offences.

"It seems you were very ill prepared to deal with cultural differences," she said.

The judge is depraved.

Judge Rizkalla said the assaults required strong condemnation, as they occurred when the victims were simply walking in a public area.

She jailed Atagore, who pleaded guilty to assault with intent to rape, committing an indecent act with a child under 16 and five counts of indecent assault, for five years and three months.

Atagore must serve a minimum of three years in prison before being eligible for parole.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Wednesday, June 01, 2011 at 03:02 AM in The Truth About Islam, Women and children | Permalink | Comments (8) ShareThis

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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

US TAXPAYER $$ FUND PRO BIN-LADEN RALLY IN GAZA STRIP: "[OSAMA BIN LADEN] IS THE MAN WHO SHATTERED THE CROSSES; THAT IS THE MAN WHO BROUGHT THE AMERICANS TO THEIR KNEES"

While your kids go hungry or take loans for college or work at dead-end jobs because of a government that is starving the private sector with overly burdensome government controls, regulations and taxation -- your hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to fund these savages whose sole objective is to destroy you and enslave your children.

Pro Bin-Laden Rally In Gaza Strip: '[Osama Bin Laden] is the Man Who Shattered the Crosses; That is the Man Who Brought the Americans to Their Knees' MEMRI

Speakers at Pro-Bin Laden Rally in Gaza Strip: 'That is the Man Who Shattered the Crosses…That is the Man Who Brought the Americans to Their Knees'

Following are excerpts from footage from pro-Osama bin Laden rallies in the Gaza Strip, which was posted on the Internet on May 20, 2011: 

At Gaza Rally: "America is the Enemy of Allah"

Crowds: "There is no god but Allah. 

"America is the enemy of Allah." […]

At Rafah Rally: "Osama Destroyed America"

Crowds: "Our souls and our blood we will give for you, oh Osama. 

"Our souls and our blood we will give for you, oh Osama. 

"Our souls and our blood we will give for you, oh Osama." 

Demonstrator: "There is no god but Allah." 

Crowds: "There is no god but Allah." 

Demonstrator: "Sheikh Osama is loved by Allah." 

Crowds: "Sheikh Osama is loved by Allah." 

Demonstrator: "There is no god but Allah." 

Crowds: "There is no god but Allah." 

Demonstrator: "Sheikh Osama is loved by Allah." 

Crowds: "Sheikh Osama is loved by Allah."

Demonstrator: "Osama destroyed America…"

Crowds: "Osama destroyed America…" 

Demonstrator: "…using a civilian plane." 

Crowds: "…using a civilian plane." 

Demonstrator: "Say: 'Allah Akbar.'" 

Crowds: "Allah Akbar!" 

Demonstrator: "Beware, oh Pakistan…" 

Crowds: "Beware, oh Pakistan…" 

Demonstrator: "…of the soldiers of Taliban." 

Crowds: "…of the soldiers of Taliban."

"Khaybar, Khaybar, Oh Jews, the Army of Muhammad Is Returning" 

Demonstrator: "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews…" 

Crowds: "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews…" 

Demonstrator: "…the army of Muhammad is returning." 

Crowds: "…the army of Muhammad is returning." […]

Sheikh Munir Al-'Aydi: "This blessed man, Osama, Allah's mercy upon him, has given his money and his soul for the Jihad for the sake of Allah. At a time when real men are few, he united the nation around monotheism. Allah's mercy upon you, oh Osama. You were good in your life, and you were good in your death. That man Osama thwarted the American plan in this region, and did what no man has ever done before, especially in our times. He is not a man like all men. He is a man who was true to the pledge he made before Allah. 

"That is the man who said: 'I pledge before Allah that America and its people will enjoy no security before we enjoy true security in Palestine.' He was always devoted to the land of Palestine. He was always devoted to the liberation of the holy places. He was always devoted to the instating of the law of Allah. […] 

"Today, this proud lion has been dumped in the sea by the country of heresy and prostitution, America. They wanted him dead or alive. […] 

"That is the man who brandished his weapon to fight the enemies of Allah. He led the Global Front for Jihad against America and its allies, the worshippers of the cross. He rightfully earned the title of the imam of our times."

Sheikh Munir Al-'Aydi: Bin Laden Is "The Man Who Shattered the Crosses"

Demonstrator: "Say: 'Allah Akbar.' 

Crowds: "Allah Akbar!" 

Demonstrator: "Say: 'Allah Akbar.'" 

Crowds: "Allah Akbar!" 

Demonstrator: "Say: 'Allah Akbar.' 

Crowds: "Allah Akbar!" 

Sheikh Munir Al-'Aydi: "That is the man who shattered the crosses. That is the man who brought the Americans to their knees. That is the man who humiliated the hypocrites in the East and West. That man through whom Allah distinguished men of truth from men of falsehood.  […] 

"In the days of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, when there were claims that the Koran was man-made, the scholars of those times would say that you could distinguish between a man of truth and a hypocrite by his love for Imam Ahmad. In our times, we too say that you can tell a believer from a hypocrite by his love for Osama bin Laden." 

Crowds: "Allah Akbar! 

"Allah Akbar! 

"Allah Akbar! 

"Allah Akbar!" 

Sheikh Munir Al-'Aydi: "You are not dead, oh Osama. You live on in the hearts of us all. Osama lives on in the heart of every man. All our sons are Osama. Our entire nation is Osama." […]

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 08:27 PM in "Palestinian" aka Fakestinian: Islamic Jihad | Permalink | Comments (4) ShareThis

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TWO IRAQI MUSLIMS LIVING IN KENTUCKY INDICTED ON WMD CHARGES

Of course, when the left reports about these soldiers of Allah planted in the US, their country of origin is germaine, when in fact it is irrelevant. Sort of like saying, both jihadis were wearing red pants. It is of no import.

The motivation is all that matters. Islam. These two Muslims had a history of jihad and aiding and abetting al-qaeda (whose goal is Islamic global domination), but still David J. Hale, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, was compelled to prostrate himself for Islam in declaring, "Let me be clear that this is not an indictment against a particular religious community or religion. Instead, this indictment charges two individuals with federal terrorism offenses." Such submission and stupidity is beneath our contempt.

How did these Iraqi Muslims, guilty of targeitng and attacking our soldiers in Iraq over eight years, get into this country?

Two Iraqis Living in Kentucky Indicted on WMD Charges hat tip John B

Two Iraqi nationals living in Western Kentucky were indicted Tuesday on charges of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, reports the Associated Press. The 23-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Bowling Green accuses 30-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan and 23-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi of providing support to Al Qaeda in Iraq and plotting to transport Stinger missiles outside of the U.S.

Federal prosecutors identified Alwan as a former member of the Iraqi insurgency responsible for planting improvised explosive devices intended to kill U.S. troops. Hammadi's charges are similar. According to the Bowling Green Daily News "The men were arrested May 25 in Bowling Green. The FBI set up a mobile command center behind the Bowling Green Police Department headquarters last week, where FBI agents in camouflage, body armor and suits could be seen moving between the mobile command center and the BGPD." According to the Department of Justice, Alwan enlisted Hammadi in his mission to give support to Al Qaeda. The news release from the DoJ says Alwan's fingerprints were found on parts of an IED recovered in Iraq. Depending on their sentencing, the men could serve life in prison.

Here's a copy of the news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office:

BOWLING GREEN, KY -- An Iraqi citizen who allegedly carried out numerous Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and another Iraqi national alleged to have participated in the insurgency in Iraq have been arrested and indicted on federal terrorism charges in the Western District of Kentucky.

The arrests in Bowling Green, Ky., and the criminal complaints and indictment unsealed today were announced by Todd Hinnen, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security; David J. Hale, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky; Elizabeth A. Fries, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Louisville Division; and the members of the Louisville Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).

Waad Ramadan Alwan, 30, and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 23, both former residents of Iraq who currently reside in Bowling Green, were charged in a 23-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Bowling Green on May 26, 2011. Alwan is charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals abroad; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against U.S. nationals abroad; distributing information on the manufacture and use of IEDs; attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to al-Qaeda in Iraq; as well as conspiracy to transfer, possess and export Stinger missiles. Hammadi is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as conspiracy to transfer, possess and export Stinger missiles.

Alwan and Hammadi were arrested on May 25, 2011 on criminal complaints and made their initial appearances today in federal court in Louisville, Ky. Each faces a potential sentence of life in prison if convicted of all the charges in the indictment. Both defendants were closely monitored by federal law enforcement authorities in the months leading up to their arrests. Neither is charged with plotting attacks within the United States.

"Over the course of roughly eight years, Waad Ramadan Alwan allegedly supported efforts to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, first by participating in the construction and placement of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and, more recently, by attempting to ship money and weapons from the United States to insurgents in Iraq. His co-defendant Mohanad Shareef Hammadi is accused of many of the same activities. With these arrests, which are the culmination of extraordinary investigative work by law enforcement and intelligence officials, the support provided by these individuals comes to an end and they will face justice," said Todd Hinnen, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

"The filing of these charges in Bowling Green, Kentucky, underscores the readiness of federal law enforcement authorities and our partners in the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to effectively pursue and prosecute terrorists wherever in the United States they may be found," said David J. Hale, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. "Whether they seek shelter in a major metropolitan area or in a smaller city in Kentucky, those who would attempt to harm or kill Americans abroad will face a determined and prepared law enforcement effort dedicated to the investigations and prosecutions necessary to bring them to justice.The dismantling of terrorist networks is the first priority of this office and the Department of Justice."

"These arrests were the culmination of extremely well-coordinated, diligent and tireless efforts by the FBI and our law enforcement partners working on the JTTFs. My thanks to all those who assisted in this case," said Elizabeth A. Fries, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Louisville Division. "I want to remind the public that the FBI is responsible for protecting the civil rights of all persons in our communities. Just as we vigorously investigate terrorism cases, the FBI will vigorously pursue anyone who targets Muslims or their places of worship for backlash-related threats or violence in the wake of these arrests."

According to the charging documents, Alwan entered the United States in April 2009 and has lived in Bowling Green since his arrival. Hammadi entered the United States in July 2009 and, after first residing in Las Vegas, moved to Bowling Green.

Prior Activities in Iraq

In September 2009, the FBI launched an investigation into Alwan. Later, the FBI began using a confidential human source (CHS) who met with and engaged in recorded conversations with Alwan, beginning in August 2010, and with Hammadi, beginning in January 2011. In a number of meetings with the CHS, Alwan allegedly discussed his prior activities as an insurgent in Iraq from 2003 until his capture by Iraqi authorities in May 2006, including his use of IEDs and sniper rifles to target U.S. forces and details about various attacks in which he participated.

For example, in recorded conversations with the CHS, Alwan allegedly stated that he used to procure explosives and missiles while an insurgent in Iraq; that his insurgent group conducted strikes daily; and that he used IEDs in Iraq hundreds of times. At one point, Alwan allegedly drew diagrams of four types of IEDs for the CHS and provided verbal instructions on how to build these devices. He also discussed occasions in which he had used these types of IEDs against U.S. troops. Asked whether he had achieved results from these devices in Iraq, Alwan allegedly replied, "Oh yes," mentioning that his attacks had "f--ked up" Hummers and also targeted Bradley fighting vehicles.

According to the charging documents, the FBI has been able to identify two latent fingerprints belonging to Alwan on a component of an unexploded IED that was recovered by U.S. forces near Bayji, Iraq. Alwan had allegedly advised the CHS that he lived in that area of Iraq and worked at the power plant in Bayji. Alwan had also allegedly told the CHS how he had used a particular brand of cordless telephone base station in IEDs. Alwan's fingerprints were allegedly found on this particular brand of cordless base station in the IED that was recovered in Iraq.

In additional conversations with the CHS, Alwan also described IED attacks on U.S. troops that he participated in with others, including an associate whom Alwan said had lost an eye when an IED exploded prematurely. According to the charging documents, U.S. forces recovered an unexploded IED near Bayji from which a latent fingerprint belonging to this associate was later recovered. The charging documents allege that this associate was detained by U.S. troops in June 2006 and had a false eye.

The charging documents also allege that Hammadi has discussed his prior experience as an insurgent in Iraq and has told the CHS about prior IED attacks in Iraq in which he participated. In one conversation with the CHS, Hammadi allegedly described how he had been arrested in Iraq, explaining that authorities captured him after the car he was driving in got a flat tire shortly after he and others had placed IEDs in the ground.

Activities in the United States

According to the charging documents, beginning in September 2010, Alwan expressed interest in helping the CHS provide support to terrorists in Iraq. The CHS explained that he shipped money and weapons to the mujahidin in Iraq by secreting them in vehicles sent from the United States. Thereafter, Alwan allegedly participated in operations with the CHS to provide money, weapons - including machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Stinger missiles, and C4 plastic explosives - as well as IED diagrams and advice on the construction of IEDs, to what he believed were the mujahidin attacking U.S. troops in Iraq.

For instance, in November 2010, Alwan allegedly picked up machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers from a storage facility in Kentucky and delivered them to a designated location believing they would be shipped to al-Qaeda in Iraq. In January 2011, the charging documents allege, Alwan recruited Hammadi to assist in the material support activities. Alwan allegedly described Hammadi to the CHS as a relative of his whose work as an insurgent in Iraq was well known.

Later that month, Alwan and Hammadi allegedly delivered money to a tractor-trailer, believing the money would ultimately be shipped to al-Qaeda in Iraq. In February 2011, the pair allegedly assisted in the delivery of additional weapons, including sniper rifles and inert C4 plastic explosives, to a tractor-trailer believing that these items would be shipped to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Finally, in March 2011, Alwan and Hammadi allegedly picked up two inert Stinger missiles from the storage facility and delivered them to a tractor-trailer believing these items would be shipped to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Neither the Stinger missiles nor any of the other weapons or money delivered by Alwan or Hammadi in connection with the CHS in the United States were provided to al-Qaeda in Iraq, but instead were carefully controlled by law enforcement as part of the undercover operation.

In closing, Mr. Hale noted, "Let me be clear that this is not an indictment against a particular religious community or religion. Instead, this indictment charges two individuals with federal terrorism offenses."

Mr. Hale commended the investigative efforts of the Louisville Division of the FBI and the Louisville JTTF, which is comprised of the following full-time member agencies: Louisville Metro Police, Kentucky State Police, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service. Also assisting were full-time members of the Lexington JTTF, which includes the University of Kentucky Police and Lexington-Fayette County Police. The U.S. Department of Defense also provided assistance in this investigation, as well as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Bowling Green Police Department.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 07:08 PM in Jihad in America: Enemy in our Midst | Permalink | Comments (6) ShareThis

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PAMELA GELLER, BIG GOVERNMENT: STAND AGAINST HONOR KILLING
AUGUST 24TH IN JERUSALEM: DEDICATION OF AQSA PARVEZ GROVE

The grove that the Atlas activists planted in honor of Aqsa Parvez and honor killing victims worldwide will be dedicated in American Independence Park in Jerusalem on August 24th.

Please check out my latest article on this much-needed memorial over at Big Government here.

Stand Against Honor Killing Pamela Geller 

On August 24th, we will be dedicating the Aqsa Parvez Grove in American Independence Park in Jerusalem, Israel. If you can be in that part of the world, join me.

Non-Muslims have begun to take note of the victims of Islamic honor killing, and to serve notice to their killers that the victims will not be forgotten, or their murders ignored. Americans have seen a spike in the brutal murder of Muslim girls under Islamic law.

Remember Aqsa Parvez? She was brutally murdered by her father and brother in December 2007 for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf. But that was only the beginning: the abuse and dehuminaization of this girl continued. She was buried in an unmarked grave. Her family refused to acknowledge her life, as she had "dishonored" them. In defiance of her devout father and brother, she had refused to live under the suffocating dictates of Islamic law. The eleventh grade student began taking off her hijab, a traditional Islamic headscarf, when she went to school, and would put it back on when she returned home. Her dad would go to her school during school hours and walk around trying to find her, trying to catch her not wearing Islamic garb, talking to boys or hanging out with "non-Muslims". "She wanted to dress like us," said one friend of Aqsa. "To be normal." For this, her family prefers that she be forgotten -- unknown, unloved, unmourned.

In December 2008, when I read that Aqsa lay in an unmarked grave, I was beside myself. I started a memorial fund at Atlas to get her a headstone. But I had no idea how difficult and ugly it would be simply to honor a teenage girl in Canada who just wanted to live free -- and how eagerly Western non-Muslims would aid and abet the family's efforts to dishonor her in death as they did in life.

Readers of my weblog, AtlasShrugs.com, opened their hearts and their wallets, and contributed $5,000 for a headstone for Aqsa. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch joined the effort, and we approved a design for a headstone that read, "In loving memory of Aqsa Parvez, Apr. 22, 1991-Dec. 10, 2007 -- Beloved, remembered and free." All was going according to plan until, after much silence, Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton, Ontario, where Aqsa is buried, advised me that the family (yes, the family that murdered her) had refused to "sign off" on the headstone. The director of the cemetery said: "The family wants changes and is planning on coming in to see me. They did not book an appointment yet but I hope to see them soon."

Of course, the family never came, and when we inquired as to purchasing a plot near Aqsa's body, we could not. Not a tree. Not a rock. Not a bench. All the plots were owned by the Islamic Society of North America. I tried to contact the family at that time, but they would not take my calls -- I spoke to the them once, but they pretended not to speak English. And they were adamant: the family refused to allow the headstone to be put on Aqsa's grave, and according to the cemetery, could remove it if it were placed there by others.

But those of us who had contributed to the Aqsa Memorial Fund were determined to make sure that Aqsa would be memorialized. We checked into other locations, made plans, only to see them canceled at the last minute out of ... fear. We checked into the arboretum at the University of Guelph in Ontario, but a university official wrote me to say that "no matter how worthy, a memorial to Aqsa Parvez would draw much public attention and would thus be inconsistent with current use of The Arboretum."

But not everyone was ready to cower before Islamic anti-woman violence.

Considering the fact that Islamic honor killings were a global problem (over 90% of honor killings worldwide are Islamic), I approached the JNF and worked to plant the Aqsa Parvez Grove in American Independence Park in Jerusalem, Israel, where the plaque before the grove will read: "In Loving Memory of Aqsa Parvez and All Victims of Honor Killings Worldwide." I loved the idea of a grove of trees that would continue to live and grow for decades in their name.

The memorial in Jerusalem is recognition of this horror and the first indication that in the Free World we are not going to stand by silently while the Islamic world brutalizes women and treats them as property and worthless trash. It is but a small, respectful step toward widespread resistance against honor killing in the West and elsewhere.

I was told that the grove would be planted and the memorial plaque would be up late 2011. I had inquired recently if it could be up in late August, as we are traveling there for Glenn Beck’s rally in Jerusalem on the 24^th. Imagine my happiness and excitement when the JNF told me they could accommodate my request. How wonderful.

On August 24, 2011, join us when we dedicate the Aqsa Parvez Grove at American Independence Park in Jerusalem, and remember the girls and the women who died brutal deaths merely because they wanted to be free. Please join us. It will be a very special event. Specific details will follow.

Meanwhile, please join us in Tampa on June 10 for AFDI/SIOA's Rally for Justice for Fatima Abdallah, at 2PM on June 10 at Lykes Gaslight Park in front of Tampa Police Headquarters. The Rally will include a news conference. We will call upon State Attorney Mark Ober, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Tampa City Council Members to recognize the numerous anomalies in the Tampa Police Department report that ruled Fatima Abdallah’s death a suicide, and to open a genuine investigation into the possibility that she was murdered in an Islamic honor killing.

The Tampa Police report claims that Abdallah committed suicide by repeatedly striking her head against a coffee table. The idea defies logic, belies reality. The Rally for Justice for Fatima Abdallah will feature a great deal of evidence that the Tampa Police investigation was drastically flawed, and that the Police Department and Medical Examiner ignored numerous indications that Fatima Abdallah did not commit suicide, but was brutally assaulted. Then when challenged, their explanation only exposed more inconsistencies and raised more questions.

Fatima Abdallah was a Muslim woman shunned by her devout Muslim family for her "shameful" divorce – and hence a possible victim of Islamic honor killing, in which a woman who has brought “shame” to the family is murdered in order to preserve family “purity.” Neighbors reported that Fatima Abdallah was abused by her family, but that they had been too frightened themselves of the abusers to report it.

Please read the rest here.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 05:07 PM in Aqsa Parvez Memorial, Atlas Articles, Honor Killings: Islam Misogyny | Permalink | Comments (11) ShareThis

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"BARACK OBAMA'S DECISION TO PLAY GOLF ON MEMORIAL DAY WAS DISRESPECTFUL AND HARDLY PRESIDENTIAL"

Now we have the Brits schooling O on patriotism. It's one embarassing fumble after another. If America makes it through this presidency undamaged, it will be by the grace of G-d.

Every time O opens his mouth ........ I wince.

Barack Obama's decision to play golf on Memorial Day was disrespectful and hardly presidential  By Nile GardinerWorld (hat tip Van)

Barack Obama has played golf 70 times (Photo: AFP)

Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.

Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog. Here’s Koffler’s report:

The business of memorializing our war dead done, President Obama headed out to the Fort Belvoir golf course today, finding his way onto the links for the ninth weekend in a row.

Obama earlier today laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and met with families of those killed in battle. But he emerged from the day’s solemnity to go golfing for the 12th time this year and the 70th time of his presidency.

The decision to golf on Memorial Day invites comparison with President George W. Bush, who gave up the game early in his presidency and said he did it out of respect for the families of those killed in Iraq.

Does it matter if the president chooses to play golf on Memorial Day, and for the second time in his presidency (he did so as well in 2009)? I think it does, and it displays extraordinarily bad judgment, not only by Obama himself but also by his advisers. His chief of staff for example should have firmly cautioned against it. President Obama is not just any American but Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces. The United States is currently engaged in a major war in Afghanistan with over 100,000 troops on the ground, and more than 1,500 have already laid down their lives for their country.

The least the president can do on Memorial Day is spend the whole day with veterans and servicemen’s families while acknowledging their sacrifice. As Koffler points out above, President George W. Bush stopped playing golf out of respect for the families of Iraq War dead. This demonstrated not only good judgment but humility and respect for the men and women who keep America safe. It is little wonder that, as Gallup reveals in a new poll, US military personnel and veterans give Barack Obama lower marks for his job performance than members of the general public. The president’s actions smack of poor taste, as well a lack of empathy and support for the US military, hardly the kind of leadership the White House should be projecting at a time of war.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 02:19 PM in President Hussein | Permalink | Comments (38) ShareThis

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PHOTO: MUSLIM GIRL STONED TO DEATH FOR PARTICIPATING IN BEAUTY CONTEST, "JUSTIFIED UNDER ISLAM"

Katya Koren, 19, was stoned to death under 'Sharia law' after taking part in a beauty contest in Ukraine.

Muslim girl, 19, "stoned to death after taking taking part in beauty contest," Muslim Youths killed her Claiming Death was Justified under Islam