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Europe
Brussels venue de-platforms Al-Jazeera-funded conference over Hamas leader participation
2024-10-12
[Jpost] Majed Al-Zeer, who was designated by the US earlier this week, was set to lead an event at the private-owned Brussels Press Club with his lobbying organization, EUPAC.

A conference funded by Al-Jazeera and led by Hamas officials in Europe was deleted by its Brussels host venue’s website following a recent US treasury designation.

The event was organized by the European Palestinian Council for Political Relations (EUPAC), a Belgium-registered lobbying organization led by two Hamas officials in Europe, chairman Majed Al-Zeer and deputy chairman Mohammad Hannoun, both designated only this week by the US treasury as officials in Hamas who raised millions of dollars for the benefit of the terror group.

The conference was supposed to take place on October 14, yet now the invitation has been taken off the venue’s website, and a different event appears on that same date. It was originally titled "The Genocidal War in Gaza One Year On: Humanitarian, Legal and Political Implications in the European Context", and was supposed to feature members of the European Parliament, including Lynn Boylan (Ireland), Daniel Attard (Malta) and Vicent Marzà Ibáñez (Spain), with aforementioned EUPAC chairman Majed Al-Zeer as a key speaker. Despite this, as of now, the decision to freeze the conference altogether has not yet been taken, and it is unclear whether the conference will take place at the venue or at a different location.

THE AL-JAZEERA-HAMAS CONNECTION
As mentioned, the conference, which is meant to host a designated Hamas official, was funded by Al-Jazeera, a fact which may further highlight the relations between Hamas and the Qatari outlet.

Hamas, a terrorist organization designated by the EU, Canada, the US, and many other nations, defines itself as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political and social movement that was founded almost a century ago in Egypt and seeks to establish an Islamic state with Sharia as its law. Other tributaries of the Muslim Brotherhood include Al-Qaeda and ISIS, both of which are part of the Salafi Jihadist stream of the movement.

Qatar, who owns the Al-Jazeera network, is known as one of the major patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood, promoting its branches across the globe with funding and moral support. In Israel, local courts argued that Hamas views Al-Jazeera as their propaganda and intelligence arm, and indeed on many occasions the Qatari-owned channel publishes exclusive footage and first-hand statements and information originating from Hamas and its militia, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

The new US designation, which was published on the one year commemoration of the October 7th Massacre, stressed that other parties are prohibited from providing funds, goods or services for the benefit of the newly recognized Hamas officials, warning of ‘secondary sanctions’ to those who engage in “certain transactions.” However, it is unclear whether Al-Jazeera would also be subject to those sanctions in the case of funding this event.

ACTIVISTS AND POLITICIANS ENCOURAGE PRESS CLUB TO FREEZE THE EVENT
Michael Freilich, a member of the Belgian Parliament, encouraged the Press Club to freeze the conference, adding: “I urge the Press Club to adhere to the US designation and freeze the event. However, regardless of the outcome, nothing would absolve Belgium of its responsibility. The urgent need to shut down EUPAC, freeze its assets, and expel its leaders back to the West Bank cannot be ignored. With the U.S. Treasury's recent designation of this organization’s leaders, it is clear that the time for decisive action is now. The current Belgian government must prioritize this issue, especially given the disturbing tendency to blur the line between legitimate support for the Palestinian people and tacit acceptance of Hamas's violent agenda. This is not a matter of diplomacy, but of national security and moral clarity.”

A spokesperson for IMPAC, a Brussels-based not-for-profit engaged in promoting democratic values and countering radicalization, who highlighted Al-Zeer’s designation, commended the decision to take the event off the Press Club’s website, adding: “A swift and clear cancellation of the event would be a positive outcome that reflects the Brussels Press Club’s dedication to upholding its standards and ensuring that its premises are not exploited by individuals with ties to terrorist organizations. This would send a clear message that terrorism has no place in our public forum.”

Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum, commented: “Common sense must prevail. It is inexplicable that on the anniversary of 12 months since the Hamas slaughter, the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, that anyone would contemplate even for a moment, to provide a platform to a Hamas-designated terrorist. The Press Club must implement a more stringent review process for future events and speakers, to ensure space is not provided to designated terrorists and individuals inciting racial hatred."
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Britain
Manchester Arena attack, day 4: more raids, more arrests, no more info shared with leaky U.S.
2017-05-25
Key points from the Telegraph liveblog as of 8:47 a.m. local time:
German intelligence sources said Salman Abedi was in Dusseldorf four days before the attack.

Greater Manchester Police have stopped sharing security information about the Manchester attack with the US following a series of leaks, it was reported today.

Two men were arrested this morning in connection with Monday's terror attack in Manchester as investigators probed a "network" linked to the suicide bomber. One man was arrested after a property was searched in the Withington area of Manchester, while another was detained elsewhere in the city, Greater Manchester Police said.

The arrests take the total number of men in custody to eight after a series of raids across Manchester, Wigan and Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

A woman had also been arrested in Manchester last night during an armed raid on a block of flats in Blackley but was later released without charge.

The latest arrests came after detectives carried out a controlled explosion as they searched a property in the Moss Side area of Manchester in the early hours of Thursday.

Abedi's parents were so worried about him being radicalised in Manchester that they got him to join them in Libya and confiscated his passport. It was returned when he said he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The jihadi clan: Is Manchester bomber's family part of global terror network? Killer is linked to Paris and Brussels attackers, his Libyan rebel father is an al-Qaeda supporter and brother 'was plotting own ISIS atrocity'

[DailyMail] BLUF: The Abedi family is seriously connected, and all known wolves -- or should have been.

Papa Ramadan Abedi lists on his resume the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group and the Salafi Jihadi movement (the most extreme sect of Salafism, from which Al-Qaeda and ISIS hail), and openly supported Al Nusra on his Facebook page. He returned to Libya after Khaddafy was killed in 2011, but while in England worked in airport security.

Mama Samia Tabbal, a nuclear scientist, is a close friend of the wife of Abu Anas al-Libi, an Al-Qaeda veteran who was snatched off the streets of Tripoli in 2013 by US special forces. Al-Libi was involved in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa and died in U.S. custody in 2015.

Younger brother Hashem Abedi was active on ISIS-supporting sites. The Libyan security force said Hashem had links to Islamic State and was planning to carry out a terror attack in Tripoli.

Older brother Ismail Abedi, who was arrested on Tuesday, was once reported to a counter-terrorism unit after concerns were raised by members of the Muslim community.

Various people who knew Salman -- classmates, a neighbour, relatives, and members of the Muslim community -- reported him to the authorities as a terror threat over the past five years.

The three men arrested together early yesterday are Adel Forjani, 47, uncle of the ISIS-inspired killer, and two men thought to be his sons.

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that there were two separate bomb factories, with the chemicals mixed in the rented Airbnb flat in Granby Row before the bomb itself was assembled elsewhere. It was not clear if the second flat had been discovered.

Authorities tell ABC News they found a kind of bomb-making workshop in Salman's home and he had apparently stockpiled enough chemicals to make additional bombs
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
The game with Hamas has changed
2016-10-09
[Ynet] Analysis: Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", high value targets were hit following the rocket attack on the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday; hit with heavy, precision munitions, these attacks represent a change in IDF policy--immediately hit Hamas hard and fast after any rocket attack.

When the IDF hit high value targets in the Gazoo Strip following a rocket attack on Sderot Wednesday, Israel was continuing its strategic policy as laid out by new Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman--hit Hamas targets along the border with tanks as quickly as possible after a rocket attack (sometimes less than a minute later), while managing to bomb quality Hamas targets from the air within hours.

This is different than the former policy, where by the IDF would wait until nightfall to carry out its retaliatory attack, causing little damage. Even then, most of the attacks were on missile launch sites, sites which were dismantled anyway by the time the jets came to hit them.

By contrast, on Wednesday the Israeli Air Force hit Hamas targets with heavy bombs all throughout the afternoon. The Arclight airstrikes were exact, surgical, massive, and destroyed Hamas offensive strategic capabilities--capabilities that Hamas has been preparing since the end of the last war in preparation for the next one.

The IDF is currently evaluating the results of Wednesday's attacks on Gazoo. The air force hit targets including warehouses used for storing weapons equipment stores used by Hamas naval commandos.

These targets were identified months ago through the joint efforts of the Shin Bet and Israeli Military Intelligence. Destruction of these targets was enabled as a result of the "window of opportunity" provided by the rocket launch from Gazoo, and due to the IDF's newer, harsher policies regarding keeping Hamas from building up its offensive attack capabilities.

According to Israeli security assessments, Hamas is not interested in an escalation of violence, as it is fighting against the Salafi Jihadist organizations in the Strip, which are trying to undermine Hamas's power.

Israel is also uninterested in an escalation, despite the large scale of recent attacks. In fact, Israel wants to mitigate any chance of an escalation, especially in light of the High Holy Days, during which huge numbers of Israelis travel to the south of the country.

As such, it seems that the IDF isn’t focusing its military efforts on small terror cells that launch rockets of their own accord, thereby leaving these terror cells more or less intact. This despite the fact that Sderot has been hit four times since the end of Operation Protective Edge.

However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
 according to IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, the IDF's number one target is uncovering and destroying the Hamas "terror tunnels" that cross into Israel. Hamas allocates the majority of its budget to the construction of these tunnels. IDF efforts to mitigate the threat posed by them can be seen with new technology currently being developed and used to locate these tunnels, along with the continuing efforts of Israeli intelligence to locate and destroy these underground threats.

All this notwithstanding, though, the IDF's new method of hitting high quality Hamas targets in real time may bring about a new threat: namely, that the Hamas military wing might start a new war sooner rather than later.
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Home Front: Politix
Salafists
2015-01-17
[RANTBURG]
46.87% of Qataris and 44.8% of Emiratis are Salafis. 5.7% of Bahrainis are Salafis and 2.17% of Kuwaitis are Salafis.

Salafis are the "dominant minority" in Saudi Arabia. There are 4 million Saudi Salafis, with that country's population being described as 22.9% Salafis while most of the rest as a separate "Wahhabi" category.

The Salafi movement is often described as synonymous with Wahhabism, but Salafists consider the term "Wahhabi" derogatory. Observers differ over whether Salafi are the same as Wahhabis or not. At other times, Salafism has been deemed a hybrid of Wahhabism and other post-1960s movements.

Salafism has become associated with literalist, strict and puritanical approaches to Islam -- and, particularly in the West, with the Salafi Jihadis who espouse offensive jihad against those they deem to be enemies of Islam as a legitimate expression of Islam.
The West, in attempting to defend itself against exploding Islamists, is usually accused of being at war with Islam itself. Certainly the actions of "a few" -- actually a pretty hefty minority -- have succeeded in making many of us in the West come to despise Moslems in the abstract. No one wants to be around them for fear they'll murder everyone around them and then explode. They're the only religion that requires that sort of periodic human sacrifice in the name of Allah the Merciful.

Salafism is the particular strain of Islam that has declared war to the death (our death) against the West. It's been joined by a few allies along the way, like the Deobandis, but the takfir wal hijra doctrine comes from salafism. The takfiris are the ones who're murdering everyone in sight in Syria and Iraq -- and in France.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
No Islamic State In Gaza, Says Hamas Despite Menacing Fliers
2014-12-05
[Israel] Hamas denied the presence of the Islamic State terror group in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, after fliers signed by the jihadist organization have emerged in the Palestinian territory in recent weeks, threatening women and intellectuals.

?We would like to reassure everyone that ISIS does not exist in the Gaza Strip, and the security agencies are in full control of the situation,? Iyad Al-Bozum, a spokesman for Hamas?s interior ministry in Gaza, told Lebanese news channel Al-Mayadeen.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is the former name of the Islamic State, a jihadist offshoot of Al-Qaeda headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which has succeeded in gaining control of large swaths of land in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq in recent months.

On Monday, reports of a flier signed by ?ISIS ? Gaza Province? emerged on social media websites, warning 18 Gaza-based writers to repent within three days ?for offending the tenets of Islam? or face the death penalty for apostasy. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority unity government of Rami Hamdallah rushed to condemn the communique, calling it ?a dangerous precedent that must be stopped immediately.?

Another pamphlet, dated November 29 and titled ?The hijab, the hijab? (the Islamic veil), instructed Gaza?s women to cover their heads ?in accordance with Sharia? or face an Islamic trial.

?The veil must be broad and loose, neither tight nor transparent. It must not draw attention by its beauty or perfume,? the statement read. ?Warning: the Islamic State allows one week to adhere by the Islamic veil. Any transgression will subject the woman and her guardian to an Islamic tribunal.?

Jerusalem-based daily Al-Quds tried to investigate on Tuesday whether the messages were authentic. It interviewed two Gaza-based militant Salafi leaders who have spent years in Hamas prisons. The two men, Abul-Aynaa? Al-Ansari and Abu-Nur Al-Maqdisi, rejected the notion that jihadist organizations had issued the announcements.

?All of our fighters in Aknaf Bait Al-Maqdis [the Islamic name used for Israel and the Palestinian territories] support the Islamic State in every move it takes, but so far there has been no real bay?ah [Islamic pledge of allegiance] to the leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. In other words, there is yet no province in Gaza belonging to the Islamic State.?

Ansari insisted that the fliers were fabricated, pointing to the name ?Islamic State in Iraq and Syria? which is no longer used by the organization. Al-Maqdisi accused ?collaborators with the occupation? of circulating the fake communiques in order ?to tarnish the name of the Islamic State.? He argued that relations between Gazas Salafis and Hamas have improved over the past year, following mediation efforts by a number of Arab clerics.

Salafi Jihadist activity is not unknown to the Gaza Strip. In August 2009, Hamas security forces stormed the Salafi Ibn Taymiya mosque and killed jihadist preacher Abdel Latif Moussa who had declared Gaza an ?Islamic emirate.? In April 2011, four Salafi activists kidnapped and killed Italian journalist and activist Vittorio Arrigoni. The four were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor in September 2012.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Palestinian security arrests 20 Salafists in W.Bank
2013-12-02
[Al Ahram] Paleostinian security forces have locked away
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
 20 Salafists
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
 in a series of raids across the West Bank, a security source said on Sunday, denying any of them had ties to Al-Qaeda.

"In the last few days, around 20 people were arrested in Nablus, Jenin and Qalqilya," the senior Paleostinian security source told AFP on condition of anonymity, saying those tossed in the clink
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
 "embrace the Salafi ideology but are not affiliated with Al-Qaeda."

His remarks were made a day after as a Gazoo-based group affiliated with Al-Qaeda confirmed it was operating in the West Bank for the first time, saying three Paleostinians killed by Israel near Hebron last week were its operatives.

"The global jihadi doctrine has reached the bank of pride, the West Bank," the group said in a statement released late on Saturday.

"Those brothers and that cell (..) are only the tip of the iceberg."

But the Ramallah-based official denied that Death Eaters with Al-Qaeda ties were working out of the West Bank, which is ruled by the Western-backed Paleostinian Authority.

"There are no Al-Qaeda affiliated groups operating in the West Bank but there are a few Salafi Jihadi groups," the source said.

Those arrested were all former members of the Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement which rules Gazoo, he said, noting that they "embrace the global Moslem Brüderbund ideology that produces ideologically extreme groups."

"These men are connected locally through technology, but are unarmed," he said.

"They are not members of Al-Qaeda and they don't receive any instructions or weapons from it."
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Africa Subsaharan
'Nigerian Islamists force Christian women to convert'
2013-11-26
[JPOST] The al-Qaeda-linked Islamic group Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
 unleashed a new tactic in its war to obliterate Christianity in northern Nigeria: convert or die.

Two gunnies from Boko Haram kidnapped Hajja, a 19- year-old Christian in July as she picked corn near her village in the Gwoza hills, a remote part of northeastern Nigeria where a six-month-old government offensive is struggling to contain an insurgency by Boko Haram.

"If I cried, they beat me. If I spoke, they beat me. They told me I must become a Mohammedan but I refused again and again," Hajja told Rooters in an interview.

The Islamists threatened her with a knife pressed to her throat and said her options were to convert to Islam or die.

Aaron Jensen, a front man for the United States government's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, "We have seen reports of forced conversion and enslavement.

The United States strongly condemns any acts of forced conversion or enslavement if true. These alleged actions violate fundamental human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
, including the right to freedom of conscience."

Boko Haram is generally translated as "Western education is sinful." In a telephone interview with the Post about Boko Haram and radical Islamist groups, David Cook, a professor of religious studies at the Houston-based Rice University, said Boko Haram's methods are "part of a pattern you can find in a lot of groups, Salafi Jihadists, for example, in Syria."

Cook, a leading expert on Boko Haram, estimates core membership to be a few thousand to perhaps as many as 5,000.

Tiffany Lynch, senior policy analyst at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, told the Post by email that "Boko Haram's stated goal is the implementation of Shari'a nationwide and in 2012 called on all Christians to leave northern Nigeria. With this goal, Boko Haram attacks churches during worship services to maximize its killing, kills individual Christians, forces Christians to convert to Islam or die, kills persons engaged in what it believes is 'un-Islamic' behavior, and kills Mohammedan critics."

Lynch added that from January 1, 2012 through July 31, 2013, USCIRF found that Boko Haram had initiated religiously motivated attacks on 50 churches that were "bombed, burned or attacked, killing at least 366 persons." She continued that there were 31 seperate attacks on Christians or southerners perceived to be Christian, "killing at least 166 persons."

Lynch added that "23 targeted attacks on holy mans or senior Islamic figures critical of Boko Haram" resulted in the killing of at least 60 persons.

Hajja said, "I can't sleep when I think of being there," about her captivity during the three month period of forced slavery.

She had watched Boko Haram members slit the throats of prisoners that were captured.

The US designated Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization in November. The United Kingdom outlawed the organization in October. Neither the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 nor Canada have placed Boko Haram on their terrorism lists.

Hajja, whose last name cannot be disclosed because of remaining family members in northern Nigeria who could face retaliation from Boko Haram, currently lives in the capital Abuja.
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Terror Networks
The Evil of Global Jihad
2013-09-24
[NATIONALREVIEW] ... Yet modern Salafi Jihadism takes this dynamic to an unprecedented level. It has the instinctive reflex toward unrestrained brutality. Gratuitous violence guarantees attention. Think about the Iraq war. The image of masked assailants sawing off the heads of bound and terrified prisoners is seared indelibly into our memory.

Of course, this raises a key question: How do the jihadists excuse their atrocities?

In the blend of theocratic absolutism and perverse consequentialism. From the jihadist perspective, their violence is justified in the service of God's intrinsic will.

Grappling with this notion of ordained will is crucial. It affords us insight into the existential rigidity with which these terrorists regard the world. In short, Salafi Jihadists claim that the price of peace is our non-interference -- they hint that our acquiescence will buy us our safety. They're lying.
I'm glad that the writer uses the term "Salafi Jihadism," even though it's kind of unwieldy. The enemy isn't so much Islam as it is Salafism, not just the murderous bastards on active jihad, but also the "political" Salafists (and their inbred Deobandi country cousins). They're the ones who riot at the drop of a hat, blow up Sufi shrines, and bully their neighbors because they're not devout enough. Then he waters his arguments down with the obligatory
Just as we must guard against those who would use atrocities to spread bigotry, so must Salafi Jihadism meet our unhesitating resolve...
The "bigotry" has already spread. Everybody who pays any attention at all already holds Islam in contempt. It's the sea in which the jihadi krazed killer swims. It's global jihad's cheering section. It's the essence of rationality to despise such an abomination.

Instead, we get all worked up about the brutes caged in Guantanamo. All of them but the ones kept for intel value should be dead. The only way to defeat terrorism is to make its would-be practitioners too afraid for themselves to put on the damned turbans.

Count the number of prisoners the jihadis have taken who've gotten away with their lives.
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Africa North
Gunmen Attack Sinai Checkpoints Close To Israel Border
2013-07-08
[Ynet] As situation in Sinai deteriorates, Islamists attack military checkpoints. Islamist group issues statement saying 'current events ravaging the country' affecting Sinai

Armed men launched a series of attacks on Sunday on security checkpoints in the North Sinai towns of Sheikh Zuweid and El Arish close to the Egyptian border with Israel and the Gazoo Strip, and one soldier was killed.

Gunmen in pickup trucks exchanged gunfire with soldiers and police in Sheikh Zuweid in the early hours of the morning, but there were no casualties, security sources said.

In two separate attacks by armed assailants on Sunday evening in El Arish, one soldier was killed and a police officer maimed, security sources added.

Hardline Islamists have launched sporadic attacks in North Sinai since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
 in 2011 created a security vacuum in the region.

On Sunday, the Salafi Jihadi group, one of the biggest Sinai-based Islamist bully boy groups, issued a statement on a jihadist website saying that "current events ravaging the country" were affecting Sinai.

It also threatened attacks on the "repressive practices" of the police and military forces on people in Sinai.

The group has issued statements threatening attacks on Israel previously, but this was the first known direct threat they have issued against Egyptian security forces.
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Africa North
Salafi Jihad movement allies with hardline Ismalist parties for elections
2013-02-26
[Egypt Independent] The Salafi Jihad Movement announced that it's political arm, the Islamic Party, would run in the upcoming House of Representatives elections in alliance with Jama'a al-Islamiya, the Nation Party, Hazemon and the Salafi Front.

The alliance plans to meet on Tuesday to determine which candidates each movement would field for the joint electoral list.

Mohamed Abou Samra, the Islamic Party's secretary general, said the party would field 2 percent of the candidates on the alliance's list, or 29 candidates total. They would run for election in 10 governorates: Cairo, Alexandria, Sharqiya, Minya, Giza, Fayoum, Beni Suef, North Sinai and South Sinai.

The percentage is so low because most members of the movement are ineligible to run for election due to court rulings issued against them, Abou Samra told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

He stressed that the party is running on a platform of a strict enforcement of Sharia and the establishment of the "Islamic Caliphate."

Abou Samra rejected the opposition's call to boycott the elections, claiming that those who refuse to participate are writing their political death certificates.
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Africa North
Egypt: Terrorists call army raid 'barbaric'
2012-09-20
Islamic hard boyz in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula have accused the army of acting in a "barbaric, inhumane way" during a raid this week that turned deadly in a local village.
 
In a new statement, the Salafi Jihad in Sinai said it fought back when troops raided the village last Sunday. It accused forces of shooting at civilians.
The poor darlings, what on earth did they expect?
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Africa North
Commander: Egypt army will not back down in Sinai
2012-08-21
[Ma'an] The Egyptian army will not back down from fighting militancy in Sinai, a senior military commander said Saturday, warning that the peninsula could become more dangerous than Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Egyptian army led by (President) Muhammad Mursi will not back down from hitting terrorism in Sinai and will prove that the Egyptian government and people will keep every inch of Egypt," the commander told Ma'an.

The military leader said Egyptian troops had uncovered terrorist groups from Afghanistan, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
, Yemen, Pakistain, Paleostine's Army of Islam and some Egyptian hard boyz in Sinai.

Without Egyptian military control of the area, "Sinai may turn into a more dangerous area than Afghanistan or Iraq," he added.

He also questioned Israel's response to Egypt's crackdown in Sinai, that followed an attack on a police barracks near Rafah in which 16 Egyptian officers were killed.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Thursday that Egypt had violated the terms of the Camp David agreement, which limits Egyptian military activity in Sinai.

Egypt increased its military presence in Sinai after the attack, and sent tanks and aircraft to the area without seeking Israeli permission first, the report said.

According to Haaretz, Israel decided not to respond to the violations of the accord in order to avoid a confrontation. Israeli defense officials told Haaretz they were in regular contact with their Egyptian counterparts.

The Egyptian military commander said that although Israel had called for a crackdown on militancy in Sinai, it later demanded that the Egyptian army withdraw from the area.

"Does Israel have a scenario that it wants to implement in Sinai where it would reoccupy it under the cover of eliminating terrorism?" he asked.

Disorder has been spreading in turbulent North Sinai, a region awash with guns that has felt neglected by the central government since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
 last year in a popular uprising. Mubarak's government had worked closely with Israel to keep the border region under control.

Egypt blamed the Aug. 5 border attack on "Islamic bully boys" and has launched a joint army-police operation that has raided bully boy hideouts, tossed in the calaboose
You have the right to remain silent...
 their members and seized weapons.

A Sinai-based Islamist bully boy organization, the Salafi Jihadi Group, warned the Egyptian army last week that the crackdown on jihadis in the area would force it to fight back.

There have been frequent reports of attacks on police and army checkpoints since the crackdown began, but often without casualties.
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