Category Archives: Insurgency

Iran’s History on Shipping Weapons

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Could this be accurate? Historical patterns says yes.

In part and translated: Sources said that the ship, which arrived at the port carrying military equipment up to more than 180 tons of weapons and military equipment, the second after he arrived late in February last ship to the port of Hodeidah coming from Ukrainian and is loaded with Russian arms shipment and quality related to aviation and the air force.

Observers believe that enhanced houthis weapons indicates that there is a future in Yemen battle, especially after huthi achieved their desire to grab the second largest port in Yemen to be the now full control only in the North Sea port to Iran of supporting the huthis with arms through the port to receive huge ships from Iran carrying all kinds of massive uncontrolled weapons.

Iranian ship unloads 185 tons of weapons for Houthis at Saleef port

Friday, 20 March 2015

An Iranian ship unloaded more than 180 tons of weapons and military equipment at a Houthi-controlled port in western Yemen, Al Arabiya News Channel reported on Friday, quoting security sources.

The ship had docked at al-Saleef port northwest of the al-Hodeida province on Thursday, the sources said.

The Houthi militias reportedly closed the port and denied entrance to employees there. Al-Saleef port is considered the second most vital in Yemen.

The news follows last week’s economic partnership agreements between Iran and the Houthis, including a deal that promises a year’s worth of oil supply from Iran.

Iran has also agreed to provide Yemen with a 200 megawatt power plant, according to Yemeni news agency Saba.

Yemen is torn by a power struggle between the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in the north, and the internationally-recognized President Abedrabbu Mansorur Hadi, who has set up a rival seat in the south with the backing of Sunni-led Gulf Arab states.

The Shiite Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in September last year before tightening their grip and prompting President Hadi to submit his resignation. Their rise to power has deepened division in Yemen’s web of political and religious allegiances, and left the country increasingly cut of from the outside world. *** Then there was a very similar shipment in 2013.

Yemen says intercepted ship carrying weapons was Iranian

Feb 2 (Reuters) – Yemen confirmed on Saturday that a ship intercepted last month off its coast was an Iranian vessel trying to smuggle explosives and surface-to-air missiles to the country, the state news agency Saba reported.

Officials in Washington said earlier this week that the seizure of the ship on January 23 had been coordinated with the U.S. Navy and that the intercepted shipment was believed to have been from Iran and destined for insurgents, likely to be Shi’ite Muslim Houthi rebels mainly based in northern Yemen.

Saba quoted a source at Yemen’s higher security committee as saying the weapons including Russian-designed SAM 2 and SAM 3 anti-aircraft missiles, were hidden inside four containers concealed by a diesel tank with a capacity of 100,000 litres.

“The source said that the ship, with its cargo, was handed over to eight Yemeni crew in Iran to deliver it to the Yemeni shores,” Saba said.

The agency said the weapons were now being unloaded and sorted and the crew questioned.

“The results will be published after the contents of the ship are unloaded and sorted,” it added.

Gulf Arab governments and Sunni clerical allies accuse regional Shi’ite Muslim power Iran of backing co-religionist communities around the region, and Sanaa has also accused Iran of trying to meddle in Yemeni affairs.

Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi snubbed a visiting Iranian envoy last year to signal “displeasure” after Sanaa said it uncovered an Iranian-led spy ring in the capital.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the seizure of the ship demonstrates “ever pernicious Iranian meddling in other countries in the region”.

Iran denies any interference in Yemen’s affairs.

Analysts and diplomats believe the Houthis, named after their leaders’ family, have turned Yemen into a new front in a long struggle between Iran and Western powers and the Arab regimes they support.

Earlier in January, the U.S. envoy to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, was quoted as accusing Iran of working with southern secessionists seeking to restore the country that merged with North Yemen in 1990. Yemen is also grappling with an al Qaeda insurgency in the centre and south of the country.

Its location flanking top oil producer Saudi Arabia – Iran’s Sunni Muslim regional adversary – and major shipping lanes have made restoring its stability an international priority.

Yemen’s government said in a statement issued by the Yemeni embassy in Washington last Monday that the shipment was intercepted in Yemeni waters, close to the Arabian Sea. It said Yemeni Coast Guard officials boarded the vessel, which flew multiple flags and had eight Yemeni crew members on board.

“Authorities are continuing to investigate the vessel’s shipping route by analysing navigation records found on board the ship,” the statement said. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari, writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Jason Webb)

POTUS Admin Loyalty to Islam and Iran

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General Petraeus penned an Op-Ed today declaring that Iran is a worse enemy than Islamic State. So it defies explanation that the Obama regime would cozy up to Iran and continue his loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood without media notice.

Recently, an interesting article in US Military by Sasha Toperich at the Center for Transatlantic Relations (Johns Hopkins), noted how “skeptics in North Africa are now convinced the Arab Spring was nothing but a Western conspiracy to divide and fragment the Middle East and give authority to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean, one can see how the Obama administration’s actions may appear to support these claims.

US-sponsored Muslim Brotherhood ‘Democracy’

In Libya for example, despite citizens voting them out of office in June 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to hand power over to the new internationally recognized government in Tobruk in eastern Libya.

Both US and UK seem to back the Brotherhood and blocked the government’s request to ease an arms embargo after ISIS slaughtered 21 Egyptian Christians, while Britain’s UN representative credited the Brotherhood-backed Fajr Libya as the only group fighting ISIS despite heavy Libyan army losses.

Meanwhile Qatar and Turkey continue to supply arms to the Brotherhood-backed Libya Dawn militia battling the Libyan government for power, even as the latter is bogged down in joint military operations with Cairo to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups.

In Egypt, now an embattled al-Sisi faces ISIS and terrorism both in its eastern Sinai flank and the western Libya flank, but the Obama administration continues to embargo desperately needed military aid in Cairo’s hour of need, despite supplying aid to Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi when he was in power.

The sense of betrayal is further deepened when after Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, State Department hosted a Brotherhood delegation that two days later called for war against fellow Egyptians.

Likewise in Syria, the Brotherhood has hijacked Syria’s revolution with the most dominant profile in the Syrian National Council (SNC) supported by US, and especially Turkey and Qatar that also back Hamas.

Now in Israel, while the Muslim Brotherhood may not replace Prime Minister Netanyahu, perhaps Bibi’s concerns regarding foreign meddling to topple the Likud government for regime change have some merits.

Media reports abound that Obama deployed his campaign strategist Jeremy Bird and his team to Israel to run an anti-Netanyahu election campaign, reinforced by Biden and Kerry’s s meeting with and endorsement of Herzog on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, while boycotting Netanyahu’s visit to the US in March.

It is well known President Obama prefers a more pliant regime for the next two years that is amenable to making concessions with the Palestinians, and perhaps open to have Turkey and Qatar weigh in.

Ankara and Doha are seen as important regional players as they host US military bases in the fight against ISIS, and given their influence over Hamas, Secretary Kerry had endorsed an Ankara-Doha ceasefire plan during Operation Protective Edge.

With Obama appointing Robert Malley as new middle east envoy, known for his support of the Brotherhood and Hamas, this option of being open to Turkey and Qatar’s role in the peace talks is a nonstarter should Prime Minister Netanyahu remain in power.

So with the US seemingly backing the Muslim Brotherhood in the region, quo vadis the Middle East?

Ironically, it is Russia and China that are arising to stem the expansion of the Brotherhood–backing Assad in Syria, supplying arms and investments to al-Sisi in Egypt–and calling US out in its foreign meddling with Beijing accusing US of using “democracy” and “human rights” as fig leaves for regime change, while Putin calls US-sponsored regime change as “missile-bomb democracy.”

And when the Obama administration criticized China for not backing western blueprints for regime change in Syria, a Chinese ambassador questioned US wisdom and influence in the mideast and retorted ‘you cannot even protect your own ambassador,” following US-sponsored regime change in Libya and the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Security is a human right, not just free election and political expression

Beijing and Moscow may have a point in prioritizing security and stability over western “democracy” and “human rights.” In the Mideast, living in security is a basic human right.

China, for example, is a successful economic powerhouse soon to surpass the US because the regime understands that security and maintaining stability (维稳 weiwen) are the sine qua non to foster trade, commerce and ultimately economic development, with eventual spillovers to the social and political sectors.

Although the US often condemns Beijing for lack of democracy and human rights defined narrowly by free election and political expression, looking at US attempts to promote democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya where ISIS and jihadi groups run rampant, this is not an attractive option for a country of 1.36 billion people.

Moreover, China’s protests that it does support human rights by preserving stability and lifting 700 million Chinese citizens out of poverty deserve some credit. A country traumatized by its history of violent instability that killed millions of Chinese—estimated 3.5 million in the Chinese civil war, 30 million in the Great Leap Forward, 1.5 million in the Cultural Revolution—stability and gradual economic and social development, rather than western model of instant democracy, is the rightful path for the Chinese people.

Furthermore, human rights should also encompass the right to live in security and freedom from fear of terrorist attacks.

In the West, a false dichotomy has arisen between the need for security and the protection of human rights within the context of the fight against terrorism. However, security itself is a fundamental human right, and as former UK Home Secretary David Blunkett argued: “I believe in civil liberties—I believe in the liberty of the individual to walk freely on the streets, and to be safe in their homes.”

A later Home Secretary Jacqui Smith similarly argued that the first freedom is “the freedom that comes from security,” something that Egypt’s al Sisi and Israel’s Netanyahu deeply understand.

Indeed Bibi deserves much credit for maintaining security in a volatile region and preserving a stable economy, despite criticism that he focused on security issues to the detriment of economic concerns.

One ponders how well an economy will perform when 3,500 rockets are raining down within one month, or if additional missiles fired at population centers in Israel come from the West Bank in addition to Gaza.

Similarly, al Sisi also understood Morsi’s collaboration with Sinai jihadi groups threatened Suez Canal stability that is key to Egypt’s economic future, and took over the reins in order to secure and stabilize the region.

With Egypt earning $5 billion a year in Suez Canal revenues, al Sisi is now enlarging the Canal to increase revenues to $13 billion by 2023, a vital source of hard currency for a country that has suffered a slump in tourism and foreign investments since 2011.

And despite the Obama administration’s good intentions of promoting ‘democracy’ by defining it narrowly as free elections, it seems to operate with a blind spot to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate agenda towards an undemocratic theocracy under Shariah law.

As Turkey’s President Erdogan had declared, “democracy is a train that you get off once you reach your destination.” Egypt’s Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood indeed sought to enshrine Islamic Shariah law in its new constitution after gaining power by democratic elections, and it is difficult to see how encroaching on women, religious, and other minority rights under Morsi’s constitution would have advanced democracy or human rights.

Thus regardless of who wins the election on 17 March, the Obama administration should reset US-Israel relations and fully support Israel, as well as Egypt and Jordan’s fight against radical Islam in the region.

President Obama already missed a chance to stand with the free world in the Paris unity march. Rather than focusing solely on regime change to install the Muslim Brotherhood that is destabilizing the mideast, Obama now has a second chance to stand with regional allies in their battle against terrorism, and have US stand on the right side of history.

Courtesy of Times of Israel.

 

Update on those Bosnians in St. Louis

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February: Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s office accused three St. Louis-area residents and three others from around the country, all originally from Bosnia, of supplying money and military equipment to terrorists overseas, including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida in Iraq.

The Islamic Community of North American Bosniaks, an umbrella organization that consists of Bosniak-based communities throughout the continent, have issued a statement, noting that they condemn “any activity that promotes extremism and terrorism of any kind.”

“We are very shocked that a few individuals of Bosnian descent who live in the United States have recently been arrested and charged because of their support of terrorist activities,” read Monday’s statement.

“These communities teach authentic Islamic values … Muslims from all corners of the world find in Islam a faith that teaches good character and devotion, not one that calls towards hatred or any kind of injustice to another human being.”

The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis also issued a statement this week condemning “the involvement of any individuals associated with terrorism or violence.”

“We are saddened to hear the accused were from the local St. Louis community. The actions of any terrorist organizations or its supporters do not represent the tenets of Islam or the values of our local Muslim community.”

Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, 40, his wife, Sedina Unkic Hodzic, 35, and Armin Harcevic, 37, all live in St. Louis County, prosecutors said. The others indicted were Nihad Rosic, 26 of Utica, N.Y.; Mediha Medy Salkicevic, 34 of Schiller Park, Ill.; and Jasminka Ramic, 42 of Rockford, Ill.

The indictment claims that the conspiracy began by at least May 2013. *** Today:

US WOMAN ACCUSED OF SUPPLYING TERRORISTS APPEARS IN COURT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An Illinois woman who federal investigators say helped five other Bosnian immigrants funnel money and military supplies to terror groups in Iraq and Syria made her first court appearance Thursday in Missouri after being arrested in Germany.

Jasminka Ramic, 42, of Rockford, Illinois, was given a copy of the indictment against her during a five-minute hearing in St. Louis. She was assigned legal counsel and ordered to remain in custody, pending an arraignment and detention hearing Monday.

Ramic and five co-defendants were indicted last month on charges of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists, as well as with actually supplying support to terrorists. One co-defendant lives in Illinois, three in Missouri and one has resided in New York.

Ramic’s court-appointed attorney, J. Christian Goeke, told The Associated Press after Ramic’s court appearance that he had not yet had a chance to review the indictment and could not comment.

One of the defendants, 40-year-old Ramiz Hodzic of St. Louis County, is accused of using Facebook, PayPal, Western Union and the U.S. Postal Service to coordinate shipments of money and supplies through an overseas intermediary. The indictment accuses Hodzic – charged along with his wife, Sedina – of making 10 wire transfers totaling $8,850, and arranging two shipments of military supplies valued at $2,451. Sedina Hodzic is accused of aiding one of those transfers and shipping six boxes of military supplies.

The indictment alleges the Hodzics, who have pleaded not guilty, were helped by Abdullah Ramo Pazara, another Bosnian immigrant who left St. Louis in May 2013 to fight in Syria and whom authorities say died there.

The Hodzics have been living in the U.S. as refugees for nearly two decades, according to the indictment.

 

Kerry’s Diplomacy Could Not Save Yemen?

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130 killed and more than 300 wounded.

ADEN, Yemen — Quadruple suicide bombers on Friday hit a pair of mosques controlled by Shiite rebels in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, unleashing blasts through crowds of worshippers that killed at least 137 people and wounded around 350 others in the deadliest violence to hit the fragile war-torn nation in decades.
A group claiming to be a Yemeni branch of the Islamic State group said it carried out the bombings and warned of an “upcoming flood” of attacks against the rebels, known as Houthis, who have taken over the capital and much of Yemen. The claim, posted online, could not immediately be independently confirmed and offered no proof of an Islamic State role.


If true, Friday’s bombing would be the first major attack by IS supporters in Yemen and an ominous sign that the influence of the group that holds much of Iraq and Syria has spread to this chaotic nation. The claim was posted on the same web bulletin board where the Islamic State affiliate in Libya claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s deadly attack on a museum in Tunisia.
A significant presence of Islamic State group supporters would add an alarming new element to the turmoil in this fragmenting nation. Yemen is already home to the most powerful branch of the al-Qaida network — which is a rival of IS. On Friday, al-Qaida militants seized control of a southern provincial capital, al-Houta, in the group’s most dramatic grab of territory by the group in years.
Meanwhile, the Shiite rebels’ capture of the capital and a large swath of the country — at least nine of its 21 provinces — has raised fears of a civil war tinged with sectarianism. The government of the internationally backed president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has fled to the southern port city of Aden, where it battled on Thursday with supporters of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has allied with the Houthis.


Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni branch is called, has also been battling for months against the Houthis in various parts of the country. But the group issued an official statement denying it carried out Friday’s bombings, pointing to earlier instructions from the terror network’s leader Ayman al-Zawahri not to strike mosques or markets.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. had seen no indications of an operational link between the Islamic State group and Friday’s attacks. He said the U.S. was investigating to see whether the IS branch in Yemen has the command-and-control structure in place to substantiate its claim of responsibility.
Earnest said it was plausible that IS was falsely claiming responsibility for the incident. “It does appear that these kinds of claims are often made for a perception that it benefits their propaganda efforts,” Earnest said.
In past months, there have been several online statements by individual Yemeni militants declaring allegiance to the Islamic State group. The IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, formally accepted their oaths and declared a “province” of IS in Yemen in November. He and his deputies in Iraq have vowed to strike against the Houthis in Yemen. That has raised questions whether direct operational links have also arisen. For example, In Libya, where IS also declared official “provinces,” fighters and officials are known to have been sent from the group’s core to build the local branch.




Friday’s bombings left scenes of bloody devastation in the Badr and al-Hashoush mosques, located across town from each other in Sanaa. Both mosques are controlled by the Shiite Houthis, but they also are frequented by Sunni worshippers. Footage from the al-Hashoosh mosque, showed screaming volunteers using bloodied blankets to carry away victims, with a small child among the dead lined up on the mosque floor.
Two bombers hit each mosque during midday Friday prayers, when large crowds turn out to attend weekly sermons. The rebel-owned Al-Masirah TV channel said the casualty figures had reached 137 dead and 345 injured. A prominent Shiite cleric, al-Murtada al-Mansouri, and two senior Houthi leaders were among the dead, the TV channel reported.
It also reported that a fifth suicide bomb attack on another mosque was foiled in the northern city of Saada — a Houthi stronghold.


In the Badr mosque, the first bomber was caught by guards searching worshippers at the gate, where he detonated his device. In the ensuing panic, a second bomber entered the mosque and blew himself up amid the crowd, according to the official news agency SABA.
“I fell on the ground and when I regained consciousness I found myself lying in a lake of blood,” one survivor, Ahmed al-Gabri, told the AP. Two worshippers next to him were killed in the explosions, then another died when one of the mosque’s large glass chandeliers fell on him, al-Gabri said.
Another survivor, Sadek al-Harithi, said the explosions were like “an earthquake where I felt the ground split and swallow everyone.”
In the al-Hashoosh mosque, one witness said he was thrown two meters away by one of the blasts and found the floor strewn with body parts.
“Blood was running like a river,” Mohammed al-Ansi said.
In an online statement, a group calling itself the media office of Islamic State’s “Sanaa Province” claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the four Sanaa suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of Houthis.
“This operation is just a glimpse of an upcoming flood, God willing,” the group said in the statement. “We swear to avenge the blood of Muslims and the toppling of houses of God.”
“The soldiers of the Islamic State … will not rest until we have uprooted (the Houthis), repelled their aggression, and cut off the arm of the Iranian project in Yemen,” it said, referring to claims that Shiite powerhouse Iran is backing the rebels.
In a further sign of the country’s chaos, al-Qaida’s branch of the country took control of the southern city of al-Houta on Frida, Yemeni security officials said. Al-Qaida militants driving pickup trucks and flying black flags swept through the city, which is the capital of Lahj province. They took over the main security barracks, the governor’s office, and the intelligence headquarters, which houses prisons with al-Qaida detainees, the officials said.
Most of the security forces in the city — loyalists of the former president, Saleh — surrendered to the militants without resistance. The militants killed 21 members of the security forces who resisted at the governor’s office, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Operation Bishop, Palestinians in Texas Arrested

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Operation Bishop investigators raided an arcade Wednesday privately located behind a small shopping center in
Brownsville.
District Attorney investigators received a tip on its operation, and several weeks of surveillance found that owners at the establishment were paying in cash prizes exceeding the legal limit.
The motherboards of 42 machines were seized; $920 in U.S. currency; and several electronics. The establishment was  located at the 300 block of Kings Hwy.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A raid at an underground casino allegedly operated by two Palestinian men located near the Texas border resulted in the arrest of the two managers as well as the seizure of 18 machines and over two thousand dollars in bulk cash. Breitbart Texas reporter Ildefonso Ortiz was embedded with the law enforcement officials during the raid and captured the photographic information shown below.

The raid was the result of an investigation by the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office which has taken a hard stance against the underground establishments since they act as a magnet for criminal activity, the agency’s spokeswoman Melissa Landin said to Breitbart Texas.

Official arrested Ismail Abu Assad Abdel Aziz, 41, and Fayez Z. Rafidi, 39. The two men were charged with Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, Gambling Promotion, Displaying a Coin Operated Machine with Tax Due, and Operating without a License or Registration Certificate.

The illegal casino was located in the 3500 block of Southmost Road in Brownsville, Texas. Cameron County officials told Breitbart Texas they seized a total of 24 gambling machine motherboards, $2,171 in cash and a 2006 Ford van..

“We had been here before, our investigators regularly check places with a history of this kind of activity to make sure they don’t open up again,” Landin said.

The arcade machines lined the wall of a small wooden home that had been turned into a makeshift casino that according to patrons was being run by Palestinians. Breitbart Texas was given access to the underground establishment as the investigators raided the place. The house was right behind a gas station which is where the first casino had been at. Several patrons covered their faces in order to not have their faces photographed during the raid. Investigators detained five patrons and released them after giving them a gambling citation; however the two managers of the place were not so lucky.

“No pictures, do not take my picture,” one of the men screamed as he was being hauled away by cops. One of the patrons described the two managers as Palestinians.

While underground gaming parlors appear to be benign and are frequented by elderly people, those types of businesses have been used for money laundering by people tied to criminal organizations, Landin said.

“They also attract other criminal activity,” she said. “There have been armed robberies that have gone unreported because they don’t want to alert us about the activity inside. This is not a safe place for grandma to be playing at.”

As a response to what had been rapid increase in the number of underground casinos along the Texas border and the crime they brought along with them including possible ties to Mexican cartels, the Cameron County  DA’s Office teamed up with various state and federal agencies to crack down on them in what has been called Operation Bishop.

So far Operation Bishop has been responsible for more than 40 raids at underground casinos near the Texas border, multiple arrests and more than $150,000 in seized bulk cash; other assets are still being fought in court in forfeiture proceedings.

At the end of the raid, investigators stapled a series of signs around the property showing that buildings were in the process of being seized.