Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

India-Pakistan

Rahul Hobnobbing With People Funded By George Soros: Smriti Irani

2023-06-29

[OneIndia] Union Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his alleged links with George Soros

...either Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Auric Goldfinger come true...
, Hungarian-born American financier, and activist whose success as an investor made him one of the wealthiest men in the world.

She has also accused Gandhi of meeting people who are funded by Soros. "...The question that has been left unanswered by the Congress party is - Is it true that Rahul Gandhi met Sunita Vishwanath during his trip to the US?...When it is clear to every Indian what George Soros intends to do, why is Rahul Gandhi hobnobbing with those who are funded by Soros?" she questioned.

Indian-American activist Sunita Viswanath has worked in women's and human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
organizations and is the co-founder of the human rights organizations Women for Afghan Women, Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, and Hindus for Human Rights.

The BJP minister said it is also evident that this is not the only Soros connection. Even in 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' in Karnataka, the Global Vice President of the Open Society Foundation funded by George Soros was found accompanying Rahul Gandhi.

"What is extremely distressing is the link with the Islamic Circle of North America.

...one of the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.S. and Canada...

Those in the public domain who will research how the registration process for NRI interaction with Rahul Gandhi in New York ensued will find contact of Tazeem Ansari - he has an organizational link with Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
," Irani, who had defeated Rahul in Amethi Lok Sabha
...After the Libyan Civil War, Sabha grew in importance as a slave auctioning town. However, an investigation by the National Commission for Human Rights in Libya (NCHRL) revealed that while there was illegal slavery, reports were exaggerated, as slave auctions were rare and not made public. This was a great comfort to everyone but the slaves peddled in secret. The city was later seized by forces loyal to the Libyan National Army (LNA) and its leader Khalifa Haftar in January 2019, probably for its collection of MiG-25 aircraft....
seat, said.

WHO IS GEORGE SOROS?
With a net worth of USD 8.5 billion, Soros is the founder of Open Society Foundations, which gives grants to groups and individuals that promote democracy, transparency and freedom of speech.

According to his website, "he has given away more than USD 32 billion of his personal fortune" to fund the Open Society Foundations' work around the world. He has been accused of using his wealth and influence to shape politics and funding regime change. In 2020, he pledged USD 1 billion to fund a new university network to tackle the spread of nationalism.

Earlier this year, he hit the headlines after attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Adani issue. Soros in his speech at the Munich Security Conference said the turmoil at Adani may open the door to a democratic revival in the country.

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India-Pakistan

Congress says party's official account blocked by Twitter

2021-08-13

[GREATERKASHMIR] The Congress Party on Thursday alleged that the party's official Twitter account as well as that of a large number of its leaders and workers have been blocked by the microblogging site.

This comes close on the heels of the blocking of party leader Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account after he shared pictures of the family of the nine-year-old alleged rape and murder victim last week in violation of the law.

Congress social media department head Rohan Gupta said the party's official Twitter account and around 5,000 accounts of its top leaders and workers have been blocked by Twitter.

He alleged that Twitter is acting against Congress leaders under pressure from the government.

"Twitter is clearly acting under government's pressure, as it did not remove the same pictures shared by the Twitter accounts of National Commission for Scheduled Castes for a few days," Gupta said.

The Twitter accounts of AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, K C Venugopal, Ajay Maken, party's whip in Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore, Assam in-charge and former Union minister Jitendra Singh and Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev have also been locked, the party said.

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India-Pakistan

'If this is how India behaves with its own, what expectation can Pakistan have?' asks FM Qureshi

2019-08-25

[DAWN] Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi

...a Pak political shape-changer. He is undistinguished except for his habit of periodically needing to have his lips reattached...
on Saturday drew attention to the increasingly apparent divisions within India after an 11-member contingent of its opposition parties was prevented from visiting Srinagar, questioning what can realistically be expected in terms of a dialogue over the disputed territory of Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
"This is the true face of the Indian government which the world is witnessing today," said the foreign minister as he addressed a presser in Islamabad.

"Today the fascist
fascist

...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
attitude of the Modi administration was demonstrated at the Srinagar airport," he said, referring to the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders being barred from entering Srinagar shortly after they landed.

"I call upon democratic nations of the world to view that footage [of the airport]. When they treat their own this way, what expectation can we [Pakistain] have from holding a dialogue with them?" said Qureshi.

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India-Pakistan

India promises easing of restrictions, food for occupied Kashmir residents for Eidul Azha

2019-08-12

[DAWN] Authorities in Indian Kashmir
Kashmir

...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
e say that restrictions ‐ that had been in place since last week ‐ have been eased in most parts of Srinagar ahead of the Eidul Azha festival following India's decision to strip the region of its constitutional autonomy.

Magistrate Shahid Choudhary in a tweet says that more than 250 ATMs have been made functional and bank branches have opened for people to withdraw money ahead of Monday's Eidul Azha, that falls on Monday.

There has been no immediate independent confirmation of reports by authorities on Sunday that people are visiting shopping areas for festival purchases as all communications and the internet remain cut off.

The Kashmir Media Service, however, has reported that the curfew is still in place and the occupied region continues to face a blackout for the seventh day.

Gov Satya Pal Malik said in interviews with television networks that there would be easing of restrictions and adequate essential supplies for Monday's Eidul Azha festival.

His comments came as India's main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, on Saturday demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the situation in occupied Kashmir, saying there are reports of violence and people dying.

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India-Pakistan

Rahul Gandhi, leader of India’s opposition Congress party, said he had asked party bosses to find a successor

2019-07-04

[TWITTER]

Rahul Gandhi, leader of India’s opposition Congress party, said he had asked party bosses to find a successor after he took responsibility for losing a general election that has left the party in crisis.https://t.co/BXnEB8zIK6
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) July 3, 2019

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India-Pakistan

Sonia Gandhi elected leader of Congress lawmakers in Lok Sabha

2019-06-02

At the rate they’re going, it’s like being leader of Israel’s Labour party or Britain’s Tories.

[DAWN] United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi was elected the leader of 52 Congress politicians in Lok Sabha, Hindustan Times reported on Saturday.

According to Hindustan Times, the decision was announced at a parliamentary party meeting of the Congress held a week after Rahul Gandhi announced his decision to quit the post following the debacle he faced in the general election that saw the Narendra Modi-led NDA coming to power with 352 of the 542 seats polled.

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India-Pakistan

Gandhi-Nehru brand tainted by new election humiliation

2019-05-25

[DAWN] A second straight landslide election defeat for opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised serious questions on Friday about his leadership and cast a damaging shadow over one of the world's most prominent political dynasties.

Gandhi, who even lost the family constituency seat to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of arch-rival Narendra Modi, will have to face the music at a meeting of party leaders in coming days.

The election results made grim reading for Congress barons who have relied for generations on the talismanic Nehru-Gandhi name ‐ which rivals the Kennedy clan in the United States and the Bhuttos in Pakistain ‐ to provide electoral success.

The tarnished party was predicted to get about 50 seats, barely improving the historic low 44 it won in Modi's last landslide in 2014. Congress failed to get a single seat in 13 of the country's 29 states.

When asked about responsibility for the loss, Rahul Gandhi told a presser late Thursday: "This is between my party and me. Between me and the Congress Working Committee."

Party spokesmen have insisted the 48-year-old son, grandson and great-grandson of Indian prime ministers would not resign and that strategy was to blame for the defeat.

"We have to go back to the drawing board," Congress front man Salman Soz told AFP.

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India-Pakistan

Learn lessons from rout: Sonia

2014-05-25

[The Peninsula] Congress President Sonia Gandhi, re-elected chairperson of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) yesterday, asked party leaders not to indulge in "public acrimony" over the party's worst Lok Sabha results for which appropriate lessons need to be learnt.

Addressing a meeting of CPP, she acknowledged "there was widespread anger against us which we failed to adequately gauge" and asked party MPs to be "vigilant watchdogs" in their role in the opposition.

Party leaders said Gandhi will soon decide the names of leaders of opposition in the two houses of parliament.

Gandhi's remarks about the need for the partymen to stop bickering through media comes against the backdrop of a blame game in the party over its worst electoral defeat -- with its tally reduced to only 44 seats while it did not win a single seat in some states - with some leaders taking potshots at "Team Rahul Gandhi".

Her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi led the Congress campaign in the election. In her speech, Sonia Gandhi said she was asked by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to take all steps necessary to revamp the organization at all levels.

"Your inputs, your experience and your assessment of our strengths and weaknesses, rather than public acrimony, will be critical to the exercise," she said.

In an apparent message to party parliamentarians, including her own son who was also present at the meet, Sonia Gandhi said that being in the opposition means regular attendance, more hours inside the house and more study of subjects.

"It means asking more questions, raising more issues, initiating more debates, always being the vigilant watchdog and defending principles of the Congress."

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India-Pakistan

Rahul Gandhi compares BJP's Modi to Hitler

2014-03-12

[DAWN] Rahul Gandhi, the heir to the dynasty that leads India's ruling party, on Tuesday compared opposition leader Narendra Modi to Adolf Hitler
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like...
- his sharpest attack yet on a rival who is forecast to beat him in an upcoming general election.

Modi, the pro-business candidate for prime minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has topped several opinion polls as the most popular choice to head the next government.

He has electrified the campaign with promises of getting India out of its economic downturn and creating jobs for its burgeoning young population.

But Modi's rivals say the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat
...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime...
is an autocrat who failed to stop religious riots in his state in 2002, in which more than 1,000 people,mostly Mohammedans, were killed.

He has denied wrong doing and India's Supreme Court did not find enough evidence to prosecute him.

In a speech in Modi's home state, Gandhi criticised the Hindu nationalist's development record and contrasted him with the type of leader who had founded modern India.

"There is another type of leader," Gandhi said, after describing independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

"The biggest example is Hitler. Hitler, who believed that there was no need to learn from the people and who thought whatever happened in Germany was done by Hitler and that the people had nothing to do with it."

India's ruling Congress party has lost popularity after a decade in power marred by corruption. In recent weeks a string of leaders have compared Modi's rise to the emergence of fascism
...a political system developed in Italy symbolized by the Roman fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about...
in Europe.

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India-Pakistan

Some Muzaffarnagar riot victims depose: Lashkar men, including arrested imams, came to recruit us

2014-01-07

[India Express] Two Haryana imams incarcerated
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
last month for their suspected links to Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
, and another LeT operative, had allegedly visited relief camps of victims of the Muzaffarnagar communal riots and sought to recruit men to their module.

Some of the men who were allegedly approached refused to join hands with the Pakistain-based terror group and instead informed the Special Cell of the Delhi Police.

On Monday, they recorded their detailed statements under section 164 CrPC in the chamber of a city magistrate at the Patiala House court. The sealed statements are now admissible as evidence in court.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had at a rally in Indore in October claimed that vested interests were behind the Muzaffarnagar riots and that an intelligence officer had told him that Pakistain's ISI was trying to recruit disgruntled youths.

The statement had sparked a furore with the BJP, Moslem groups and even some victims living in the relief camps strongly criticising Rahul for his claim.

Sources said the men who recorded their statements in court and have turned witnesses against the imams were living on the fringes of relief camps in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

They are believed to have told Sherlocks that the two imams from Mewat - Hafeez Rashidi and Shahid - allegedly made numerous visits along with a senior LeT operative, currently on the run.

They allegedly tried to radicalise the victims by encouraging them to be loyal to their religion and join hands with the Lashkar operatives for a good cause. They were apparently promised a good lifestyle and money for their families, but the victims refused and chose to approach the police, sources said.

Sources said the victims had claimed that the operatives had also approached other displaced people living near the camps but those people refused to come forward and give a statement in court.

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India-Pakistan

India's ruling party stumbles as opponent Modi marches on

2013-12-10

[Pak Daily Times] India's ruling Congress party has a very big problem, and his name is Narendra Modi.

With no more than five months to go before nearly 800 million people choose their next leader, the prime ministerial candidate for the main opposition party has seized the initiative through rabble-rousing speeches at huge rallies across the country.

Results from local elections in four states, announced on Sunday, suggest Modi, chief minister of economic powerhouse Gujarat
...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime...
in the west of the country since 2001, has helped galvanise his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP retained Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and ousted Congress in Rajasthan. In Delhi, the BJP was the biggest party, with Congress pushed from first to third place by an impressive debut from the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party.

The outcome represented a vote of no-confidence in Congress as much as one of confidence in Modi, but it was a humiliating blow that the opposition candidate will ruthlessly exploit. Congress has floundered in the face of the Modi phenomenon. It is unsure how seriously to take him, undecided on what to do next and hampered by a presumptive leader who has lacked his challenger's charisma, leaving the party drifting at a crucial juncture.

Senior figures within Congress - in power for the last nine years, and historically the dominant force in Indian politics - have long dismissed Modi as irrelevant. "Modi has come in a flash and will go in a flash," said one influential party member in a recent interview.

"Congress has been here for 128 years and will survive god knows how many hundreds of years more," he added, in a now-familiar refrain from the party's top brass. That argument is becoming harder to sustain.

But as Congress fumbles for a response, one name dominates debate at the party's slightly shabby headquarters in the leafy centre of the capital: Rahul Gandhi. Vice president of Congress and scion of a dynasty that has towered over Indian politics since independence, the 43-year-old is the obvious choice to rally his party and unite voters by playing up its secularist agenda and social welfare schemes.

Rahul's mother, Sonia, Congress president and the power behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will also play a key role in the party's election strategy and campaigning, although younger leaders see Rahul as their figurehead.

If only it was that simple.

Congress insiders familiar with Rahul's thinking have expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
over his preoccupation with long-term reform of the party, something they say is important and necessary but could prove costly given the more pressing matter of elections. "My frustration is that he is too forward-looking," said Jairam Ramesh, minister of rural development and one of the most outspoken figures in the Congress leadership.

"He's talking of structure, systems; he's talking of building up Congress in the long term, whereas we are now faced with fighting an election in the short term," he told Rooters last month.

However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
even if they could persuade Rahul to focus fully on the 2014 vote, party officials wonder if pitting him against the crowd-pleasing Modi in a one-on-one contest would be wise.

Even if Congress wins, the 81-year-old Singh is expected to step down as prime minister after the election.

Modi has deliberately sought to turn the 2014 election into a presidential-style race between himself and Rahul by projecting his personal achievements and convictions over those of the BJP, and by mercilessly goading the Gandhis.

In his speeches, Modi ridicules Rahul by calling him "shehzada", or "prince", highlighting his opponent's privileged upbringing that contrasts strikingly with his own roots as the son of a tea-seller.

There is method in his mockery. Congress has traditionally enjoyed support among the poor, due to farm subsidies and food handouts, and so Modi is targeting its core vote.

Rallies and media debates have been light on policy so far.

Modi has highlighted his pro-business credentials in Gujarat, and sees his economic record as a way of tapping into India's aspirational masses who are growing impatient over what they see as stagnation, complacency and endemic corruption under Congress-led governments since 2004.

Both Gandhis have boasted of their successes in welfare. But they have avoided playing one potentially strong card for fear of appearing to exploit mistrust among India's sizeable religious minorities of Modi's Hindu nationalism.

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India-Pakistan

Who really benefits from terror?

2013-08-09

[Dawn] THE Indo-Pak whodunit has been getting clichéd, so much so that you can almost predict the pattern of events before they play out.

Take two examples. The then foreign minister of Pakistain was visiting Delhi in November 2008 when the Mumbai terror attack was staged. Now it turns out the Indian and Pak prime ministers were preparing to meet in New York next month when a mysterious incident occurred on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmire on Monday.

Not for the first time Indian soldiers were reported to have been killed in a bizarre attack that, relying only on Indian headlines, throws up a familiar, overdone narrative.

It is not unusual for terror attacks to come at a moment when mutual bonhomie looks nigh in South Asia. Is Pakistain's deep state the only beneficiary of these disruptions?

Or is there someone rejoicing in the Indian establishment too when militarism, buoyed by terrorism, is accorded the front row in our daily lives regardless of the prohibitive costs?

It is of course a given that Pakistain's army has a stake in keeping several quarries off balance. These may include the Americans and the Indians, but they do not exclude the civilian rulers at home.

The deep state, as the army and its intelligence apparatus is often called in Pakistain, is self-confessedly anti-Indian. That is the nature of the beast.

Therefore, it is plausible that the men from whichever Islamist bad turban outfit are said to have attacked the Indian patrol this week, were not hindered by the security establishment.

One likely trigger for the LoC incident could be that the country's civilian commanders are more ready to give India a greater role in Afghanistan than the generals may be willing to grant.

In an interview to Voice of America, Pakistain's foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz uncharacteristically stressed and also welcomed India's role in Afghanistan's future reconstruction.

Is that what was shot down, or was sought to be derailed, on the LoC? Or, as some news reports suggest, the killing of five Indian soldiers may be linked to a recent incident in which a clutch of Pakistain-based bully boyz were ambushed by Indian forces as they tried to sneak into Indian Kashmire.

In the big picture too the Pak security establishment gains from any windfall of tensions with India, but increasingly this has less to do with its traditional interests in reheating the Kashmire issue. Its current drive is tethered to the elusive "strategic depth" in Afghanistan, if Afghans will permit such a concept.

Who are the Indians that benefit from, say, a Mumbai-like attack or from the latest LoC incident? I think at the current count, perverse though it may sound, there are more political beneficiaries in India from any incident involving Pakistain than Pakistain can ever have.

As of now, to the best of my knowledge, there is hardly a political group in Pakistain -- from Prime Minister

Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
's party to the PPP, from Imran Khan

... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
's group to the MQM -- to benefit from whipping up anti-India sentiments. In India, on the other hand, even the leftist parties are often seen following right-wing jingoists in the nationalist pursuit.

Take Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh with his unflinching support of Indian Moslems. He rarely spares an opportunity to berate Pakistain. As a former defence minister he may have other constituencies to look after too.

The fact that harmless-looking Rahul Gandhi can readily recall, apropos of little electoral gain, how his grandmother, the late Indira Gandhi, broke Pakistain into two, reflects his eagerness to keep pace with the holy cow called the national interest.

The other day he was applauding the paramilitary forces for keeping democracy alive in India, insisting it was they that crushed the Sikh militancy in Punjab.

The communist-led Left Front on its part has been so badly trounced in recent village-level elections by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerji, the lady who has pulled the Moslem vote from under the Left's feet, that the Marxists seem to have surrendered their traditional tempered tone on Pakistain. Count it as an erroneous attempt to compensate for the electoral losses.

The irony is that the best chance that peace ever had with Pakistain came from the Hindutva banner of India's Bharatiya Janata Party.

True to form though, it was Hindutva's recklessness that was equally eager to start a dangerous war with Pakistain in May 2002. Atal Behari Vajpayee sought peace but he also nearly led us to a nuclear exchange.

The wide spectrum of political support that India thus offers to unbridled jingoism is matched by its largely opaque intelligence set-up. This aspect of India's own 'deep state' is just getting to be somewhat discussed in the newspapers. Still, very few Indians see their external or internal spy agencies, much less the military, as a source of concern.

The Congress party, led by then head of the opposition Manmohan Singh, had asked some searching questions of the Hindutva rulers when parliament was mysteriously attacked in December 2001. But the party chose to remain silent when the war drums came on.

Today the Congress' defence minister is on the mat for suggesting that the men who attacked the Indian soldiers on the LoC may have been Islamist bully boyz in army fatigues.

The BJP wants his head for not directly naming the Pakistain Army. The truth is that, with the nod of the intelligence set-up, the BJP is trying to nip any peace talks with Pakistain before the coming elections.

The prime ministers of India and Pakistain plan to meet in New York to discuss many issues.

Do they have the courage to take on their respective deep states though? At least then we can know the real truth about terrorism and its strange beneficiaries.

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