US State Dept details Iran's 2011 terror record

The US State Department puts out an annual review of worldwide terrorism. Here is what their latest country report has to say about Iran as a state sponsor of terror:

IRAN

Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran remained an active state sponsor of terrorism in 2011 and increased its terrorist-related activity, likely in an effort to exploit the uncertain political conditions resulting from the Arab Spring, as well as in response to perceived increasing external pressure on Tehran. Iran also continued to provide financial, material, and logistical support for terrorist and militant groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Iran was known to use the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and terrorist insurgent groups to implement its foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and support terrorist and militant groups. The IRGC-QF is the regime's primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.

In 2011, the United States discovered that elements of the Iranian regime had conceived and funded a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States in Washington D.C. Mansour Arbabsiar, an Iranian-born U.S. dual-national working on behalf of the IRGC-QF, was arrested in September 2011 for his role in the plot; also indicted in the case was an IRGC-QF officer who remains at large. Arbabsiar held several meetings with an associate whom Iranian officials believed was a narcotics cartel member. This associate, in fact, was a confidential source for U.S. law enforcement. The thwarted plot underscored anew Iran's interest in using international terrorism ' including in the United States ' to further its foreign policy goals.

Despite its pledge to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iran continued to provide lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi Shia militant groups targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as civilians. Iran was responsible for the increase of lethal attacks on U.S. forces and provided militants with the capability to assemble explosives designed to defeat armored vehicles. The IRGC-QF, in concert with Lebanese Hizballah, provided training outside of Iraq as well as advisors inside Iraq for Shia militants in the construction and use of sophisticated improvised explosive device technology and other advanced weaponry.

Qods Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and rockets. Since 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives. Iran has shipped a large number of weapons to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in particular, aiming to increase its influence in this key province.

During the wave of pro-democracy demonstrations in Syria, Iran provided weapons and training to assist the Asad regime in its brutal crackdown that has resulted in the death of more than 5,000 civilians. Iran also continued to provide weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iran has assisted in rearming Hizballah, in direct violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hizballah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of Hizballah fighters at camps in Iran.

In 2011, Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior AQ members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody. It also allowed AQ members to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iranian territory, enabling AQ to carry funds and move facilitators and operatives to South Asia and elsewhere.

Since 2009, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has called for its members and the international community to institute countermeasures to protect their respective financial sectors as well as the global financial system from the risks ' in particular the terrorist financing threat ' posed by Iran. In October 2011, the FATF strengthened its language and again called for countermeasures against Iran. Iran has had some limited engagement regarding anti-money laundering/counterterrorist finance and has responded to overtures by multilateral entities such as the UN's Global Programme against Money Laundering, but it has failed to criminalize terrorist financing and require that financial institutions and other obliged entities file suspicious transaction reports. It has not engaged with FATF and is not a member of a FATF-style regional body.

It is easy to forget how integral Iran is to world terrorism, both Shiite and Sunni. But this sums it up nicely.

Sudanese TV preacher: Jews are tearing apart the world

From MEMRI, naturally:



Now, if we own the world, why would we want to tear it apart?

We must be building a new, goy-free planet in its place!

Christians are leaving Palestinian lands because of...Jewish graffiti?

This has to be one of the most stupid articles every written about the Middle East, by Ali Khaled in The National.

After a number of wholly inconsequential prose, we get to the point of the piece:

Palestinian Christians have shared their Muslim compatriots' pain in the past 64 years, increasingly marginalised in a land they have inhabited for over 2,000 years. Across the region, dwindling Christian communities are often blamed on the rise of Islamists but this is an oversimplification and, in Occupied Palestine, almost wholly a mistake.

Certainly some Islamist groups, heavy on ideology and light on political nous, have been their own worst enemies. Hamas is not blameless in its treatment of Gaza's Christian minority. ...

In truth, however, Hamas has neither the desire inside Gaza, nor the influence outside of it, to truly marginalise Palestinian Christians. The Christian Palestinian population has suffered, less visibly, just as Muslims have. Christians now account for only 4 per cent of the West Bank population and less than 10 per cent of Palestinians in Israel.

Over the last year in particular, attacks by Israeli extremists on Christians have increased. A Christian cemetery on Mount Zion has been desecrated and two churches vandalised (one of them, Jerusalem Baptist Church, had already suffered arson twice since 1982). "Death to Christianity", "We will crucify you" and "Jesus son of Mary the whore" graffiti stain the walls. That defilement would cause outrage in almost any country, but not in Israel.

It is in Bethlehem, birthplace of Christ, where the exodus has been most pronounced, with more than 10 per cent of Christians leaving just in the past decade.

Vandalism against churches is reprehensible. But is it enough to cause an entire population to disappear?

In the mind of author, perhaps. But there are a few little things that the author is ignoring.

Like how the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem have accelerated since 1995 - when the city came under PA control.

Like in 2005, when Muslims were seizing Christian lands in the West Bank. When the two teenage Amr sisters were raped and murdered. When Christian women near Hebron were sending their daughters abroad so as to avoid them being harassed daily by Muslim. When 17 year old Rawan William Mansour was raped by members of Fatah who were never prosecuted.

In September, 2006, seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza were firebombed after Pope Benedict made remarks about Mohammed that offended Muslims.

In 2007, attacks by Muslims to the Christian community in the territories increased. Christians were afraid to complain because of fear of being labeled "collaborators" with Israel. So they left. Christians were beaten by Muslims, their land fenced off by Muslims.

Christians are so afraid of their Muslim neighbors in the PA territories that they are more likely to blame publicly Israel for their troubles.

Even today, the tolerant and peaceful PA is arresting Christians who are eating in public during Ramadan, with a Muslim cleric saying, quite clearly, that "our streets are Islamic."



But lets see more idiotic articles that say that Christians aren't leaving because of documented cases of Muslim attacks, firebombs, rapes, murders and threats. No, the reason must be because of Jewish graffiti.

(h/t Clark)

Arab press roundup

Unity:

Unidentified assailants on Wednesday morning assaulted senior Fatah leader Yahya Rabah in the Gaza Strip, according to relatives.

Rabah was leaving a restaurant in Gaza City when unidentified men approached him and beat him with bats. Rabah was transferred to hospital for treatment of bruises and wounds. His condition is stable, relatives say.

De Nile:

Israel said Tuesday it had received a letter from Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi indicating he wanted to work for peace in the Middle East, but Mursi's office later denied sending it.

"The letter that the media reported to have been sent from President Mursi to Israel was fake. President Mursi has not sent anything to Israel," spokesman Yasser Ali told Reuters.

An official from Peres' office said the letter was authentic.

"It was received by the Egyptian ambassador and handed over (to Peres's office). The denial was to be expected, given the letter's high publicity in Israeli and Egyptian media," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Peres's office had distributed a copy of the letter to media, as well as a copy of an Egyptian embassy message sent along with it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Fatah and an Islamist group clash in the Lebanese Ain al Hilweh camp; one was killed and five injured.

Al Ahram has an investigative piece showing that Hamas is behind the massive weapons smuggling operation through Egypt and in the Sinai.

The Aqsa Foundation released a pretty boring 13 minute video showing Israeli excavations in the Kotel courtyard, some tunnels adjacent to the Temple Mount, some Israelis peacefully visiting the Temple Mount, an Arab riot there, and the "Children are Ready" video, all in one mishmash intended to incite:



Salam Fayyad is proud that British media, in their Olympics sites, called Jerusalem the capital of "Palestine."

According to the "Morsi Meter," in his first 30 days in office Mohamed Morsi has kept only one out of 64 campaign promises.

Turkey has not yet fulfilled its promise to reduce Iranian oil imports by 20%. It is still importing 167,000 barrels per day of oil from Iran.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia cannot keep the lights on.