The Mufti, 1947

Posted on February 2, 2015February 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

An anniversary was remembered last week of the Holocaust. As anti-Semitism continues to mount in the Middle East at the hands of Iran, it festers in Europe without explanation considering history. Haj Amin El Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem had a proven hand in the Holocaust which was revealed at the Nuremberg trial. Today, the mission to destroy the Jews in Israel continues at the hands of Iran and the Palestinian Authority. It defies logic that the P5+1 would even negotiate with Iran on their nuclear weapons program and that the United Nations continues to work for the sake of the Palestinian Authority.

In case you are confused or have any questions, watch this short documentary for understanding. *** For more perspective:

The Palestinian Muslim Who Inspired Hitler’s Final Solution

By: David Bedein

The 27th day of Nisan year marks the day when the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began against the Nazis in 1943. The 27th of Nisan was therefore selected as Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day in Israel, the day on which Israel would remember the mass murder of Jews in World War II, not only as a day of mourning and remorse, but also as a day to remember those who fought back against the Nazis and their allies. To paraphrase the question asked on Passover two weeks ago, people often ask why this persecution of Jews in Christian countries was different than other persecutions? After all, Jews had suffered persecution in Christian lands over the centuries.

The answer: This time, Nazis incorporated the Moslem idea of Jihad — the impulse for total destruction and complete annihilation in the spirit of a Holy War. The Moslem cleric who inspired Adolf Hitler with the idea of Jihad was none other than the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El Husseini, who did not want masses of exiled Jews to wind up in the land of Israel, which he claimed as a future Arab Palestine, devoid of Jews. Indeed, in 1936, the Mufti welcomed Hitler’s deputy, Adolf Eichmann, to his office at the Supreme Islamic Council based at the Palace Hotel in the center of Jerusalem, where Eichmann kept meticulous records of his meetings with the Mufti, where the Palestinian Arab leader of that generation taught Eichmann about the philosophy of Jihad. Journalist Maurice Pearlman, who reviewed the records of Eichmann’s meetings with the Mufti at the trials for Nazi leader in Nuremberg, wrote a book entitled The Mufti of Jerusalem, published in 1947, in which Pearlman noted that the Mufti instructed Eichmann that the way in which the Nazis could best persecute the Jews was to do so slowly and in stages, so as to catch them unaware of the next stage of persecution. Eichmann offered reciprocal hospitality for the Mufti in Nazi Germany. In 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, the British government, then presiding over the mandatory government in Palestine, expelled the Mufti, who chose to travel to fascist Italy and then to Berlin, where he remained for the remainder of World War II.

Adolph Hitler provided the Mufti with a radio station in Berlin from where he propagated the Nazi message in the Arabic language, and the Mufti was assigned the task of organizing a Moslem contingent of the Nazi murder machine which killed Jews throughout Yuogoslavia.

v The Mufti obtained Hitler’s assurance in November 1941 that after dealing with the Jews of Europe, Hitler would treat the Jews of the Middle East similarly. Husseini promised the support of the Arabs for the Nazi war effort.

In Berlin, Husseini used the money confiscated from Jewish victims, to finance pro-Nazi activities in the Middle East and to raise 20,000 Muslim troops in Bosnia, in the Hanjar Waffen SS, who murdered tens of thousands of Serbs and Jews in the Balkans and served as police auxiliary in Hungary. Heinreich Himmler, the chief administrator of the Nazi death machine, brought the Mufti on numerous tours of the death camps. Most recently, a book was written about the ZunderKommandos, whose task it was to remove the dead Jews from the crematoria. One of those ZuderKommandos remarked in an interview with a researcher that he witnessed a man with a turban whom the Nazi camp commandant brought to witness the gassing of the Jews and the removal of the bodies from the gas chambers, the stripping of their valuables and the burning of their remains. The Nazi told the ZunderKommando that this was the Mufti of Jerusalem.

During the final months of the war, the Mufti actually lived in Hitler’s bunker. Although arrested by the French army, the Mufti was somehow able to escape to Cairo. The Mufti was later sentenced to death in absentia in Yugoslavia. After Adolf Eichmann was abducted and brought to Jerusalem for trial in 1961, Golda Meir, then the foreign minister of Israel, demanded that the Mufti also be brought to trial for the same crime of genocide against the Jewish people. The Mufti’s legacy did not stop when he escaped a defeated Nazi Germany. Upon arrival in Cairo, he resumed the role that he had left, as the spiritual leader — in exile — of the Palestinian Arab community.

v The Mufti played a key role in the decision of the Arab League to reject the UN Paritition plan in 1947 to declare a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine. Instead, the Mufti rallied Arabs throughout the Arab world to apply Hitler’s concept of the final solution to wipe out the Jews in their nascent state of Israel.
The Mufti then worked to raise a new generation of young Palestinian Arabs to form a new Moslem brotherhood to take up the cause of a lifelong effort to eradicate the Jewish state.

v The Mufti also became a surrogate father to a young man who took upon the name Yassir Arafat, a name given to him by the Mufti in memory of Yasser bin Ammar, a celebrated Muslim warrior and companion of the prophet.

The relationship between the Mufti and Arafat was related by Arafat’s brother Fatchi to the HaAretz newspaper in December, 1996. The Mufti died in July 1974, one month after the PLO National Council met and ratified the Mufti’s “strategy of stages,” to conquer Palestine in phases, as the strategic methodology that the PLO uses to this day. With the outbreak of the Palestinian Arab rebellion known as the Second Intifada in October 2000, a theme that repeated itself over and over on the official Palestinian television station overseen by Arafat was the use of an academic lectures, broken up by martial music, to highlight the comparison between Yasser Arafat and the late Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. Listeners were told how Husseini opposed the Jews (al-Yahoud) in Jerusalem and how he stood up to then-world power Great Britain, as a model for Arafat’s struggle in the modern era.

Cold War Turning Hot, 90 Miles from our Shore.

Posted on February 2, 2015February 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Old news is new again when it comes to the relationship between Cuba and Russia. The Cold War is turning hot at the hands of the generosity of Barack Obama normalizing the relationship between the United States and Cuba. How can it be?

Back in 1964, Cuba had an agreement with Russia which allows Moscow to maintain a signals intelligence facility near Havana at Torrens [23°00’01″N 82°28’56″W], also known as Lourdes, which is the largest Russian SIGINT site abroad. The strategic location of Lourdes makes it ideal for gathering intelligence on the United States. It has been reported that the Lourdes facility is the largest such complex operated by the Russian Federation and its intelligence service outside the region of the former Soviet Union. The Lourdes facility is reported to cover a 28 square-mile area with 1,000-1,500 Russian engineers, technicians, and military personnel working at the base. Experts familiar with the Lourdes facility have reportedly confirmed that the base has multiple groups of tracking dishes and its own satellite system, with some groups used to intercept telephone calls, faxes, and computer communications, in general, and with other groups used to cover targeted telephones and devices.

According to American intelligence, an unusually large number of Soviet ships delivered military cargoes to Cuba beginning in late July 1962, to support the construction of a variety of military activities, including setting up facilities for electronic and communications intelligence. In the area just south of Havana city, a number of farms were evacuated and the boys’ reformatory at Torrens, two and one half miles on the road to San Pedro from Havana, was converted for living quarters for numbers of foreign personnel. The numerous Soviet personnel who moved in early in August 1962 wore casual, dirty, civilian clothes.

The SIGINT facility at Lourdes is among the most significant intelligence collection capabilities targeting the United States. This facility, less than 100 miles from Key West, is one of the largest and most sophisticated SIGINT collection facilities in the world. It is jointly operated by Russian military intelligence (GRU), FAPSI, and Cuba’s intelligence services. The Federal Agency for Governent Conununications (FAPSI) evolved in the early 1990’s from the former KGB’s SIGINT service. According to Russian press sources, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) also has a communications center at the facility for its agent network in North and South America.

The complex is capable of monitoring a wide array of commercial and government communications throughout the southeastern United States, and between the United States and Europe. Lourdes intercepts transmissions from microwave towers in the United States, communication satellite downlinks, and a wide range of shortwave and high-frequency radio transmissions. It also serves as a mission ground station and analytical facility supporting Russian SIGINT satellites.

The facility at Lourdes, together with a sister facility in Russia, allows the Russians to monitor all U. S. military and civilian geosynchronous communications satellites. It has been alleged that the Lourdes facility monitors all White House communications activities, launch control communications and telemetry from NASA and Air Force facilities at Cape Canaveral, financial and commodity wire services, and military communications links. According to one source, Lourdes has a special collection and analysis facility that is responsible for targeting financial and political information. This activity is manned by specially selected personnel and appears to be highly successful in providing Russian leaders with political and economic intelligence.

*** Then in 2014, and while Putin was in Cuba, he agreed to forgive 90 percent or $32 billion of Cuba’s Soviet-era debt. This move is now being interpreted as a quid pro quo for reopening the spy base at Lourdes.

It is likely that Russia was motivated to reopen the surveillance station in part because of the Edward Snowden leaks about the U.S. National Security Agency’s extensive spying operations. In addition, Ivan Konovalov, head of the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Trends Studies, told Reuters: “One needs to remember that Russia’s technical intelligence abilities are very weak. This will help.” In addition, U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated sharply since Putin returned to the presidency for a third term in 2012. In fact, U.S. sanctions over the conflict in the Ukraine have led some senior legislators in Russia’s State Duma to advocate withdrawing from the New START nuclear reduction treaty.

During his Latin America trip, Putin also signed agreements with Argentina, Brazil and Cuba to open more positioning stations for Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system. *** Then still old news is current news. Nothing has changed in Cuba and why should it when it has worked and fills the pockets of the Castro clan.

When foreign tourists bask in the sun at a Sol Melia or Club Med beach resort in Cuba, get away to one of the island’s remote pristine keys on commuter airline Aerogaviota, visit Havana’s famed Morro Castle, enjoy typical Cuban cuisine at a restaurant, or indulge in a Cohiba cigar after dinner (1), they are also unwittingly contributing to the bottom line of the Cuban military’s diverse business ventures that bring in an estimated US$1 billion a year. (2)

The armed forces are involved not only in the international tourist industry but in the lucrative domestic economy as well. The military-owned retail chain TRD Caribe S.A. operates more than 400 locations throughout the island and caters to Cubans with U.S. dollars. “TRD” is an acronym for “Tiendas de Recuperacion de Divisas,” or foreign currency recovery stores. Employing a Wal-Mart-like strategy, TRD Caribe distinguishes itself from other state-owned competitors by “continuously offering discounts” on Chinese-sourced consumer goods that it reportedly “buys cheap and makes a resale kill” on. (3)

GAESA, or Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A. (Enterprise Management Group Inc.), is the holding company for the Cuban Defense Ministry’s vast economic interests. Among its more visible subsidiaries are Gaviota S.A., which directly controls 20-25 percent of Cuba’s hotel rooms in partnership with foreign hoteliers, and Aerogaviota, a domestic airline that carries tourists on refurbished Soviet military aircraft flown by Cuban air force pilots. Under GAESA’s management team, Cuba’s military-industrial complex — the Union de la Industria Militar (Defense Industry Group) — provides outsourcing services, such as rental car maintenance and tour bus repairs, to foreign companies and joint ventures on the island.

The man behind the transformation of Cuba’s Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR) into a major economic force is Gen. Raul Castro, Cuba’s defense minister and designated successor to elder brother Fidel. Beginning in the late 1980s, as materiel and subsidies from Moscow progressively dwindled, Raul Castro introduced the “Sistema de perfeccionamiento empresarial (SPE),” or enterprise management improvement system, that streamlined the Cuban military’s operations. With the disappearance of the Soviet bloc by 1991 and the ensuing severe economic crisis that threatened the regime’s survival, the younger Castro went further and established state corporations like the Gaviota tourism group for joint ventures with foreign capital. Today, the military is not only a largely self-financing institution but a major player in the overall Cuban economy.

Raul Castro entrusts a military managerial elite for the day-to-day oversight of the FAR’s business empire. Vice minister of defense, General Julio Casas Regueiro, and Maj. Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, son-in-law to Raul Castro, serve as GAESA’s chairman and CEO, respectively. Key money-making enterprises are also headed by high-ranking officers, as in the case of Gaviota whose CEO is Brig. Gen. Luis Perez Rospide.

The military managerial elite surrounding Raul Castro extends its reach far beyond GAESA’s direct holdings. An increasing number of senior military leaders have taken over civilian-run ministries and industries. Former Interior Ministry (state security) head and newly-appointed member of Fidel Castro’s ruling Council of State, Comandante Ramiro Valdes Menendez, has been at the helm of the electronics industry since becoming president of the Grupo de la Electronica in 1996. General Ulises Rosales del Toro was assigned to the strategic Sugar Ministry (MINAZ) in 1997. A second civilian ministry with close ties to the military is Basic Industries (MINBAS). Led by engineer Marcos Portal Leon, another of Raul Castro’s confidants, MINBAS oversees state energy, mining, and pharmaceutical sectors that are second only to tourism in foreign exchange earnings.

Given Fidel Castro’s rapprochement with Beijing since the demise of Soviet communism, several Cuba analysts see parallels between Cuba’s FAR and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), particularly with the PLA’s “bingshang,” or military officers turned businessmen, and their pivotal role in the Chinese authoritarian transition to a limited market-oriented economy. “China offers an interesting case,” argues professor Frank Mora, “because it is comparable to Cuba in terms of revolutionary experience and government and as a model of party/civil-military relations, economic reform…and institutional involvement in the civilian economy.” (4)

In November 1997, Raul Castro went to China “to learn more about China’s experience in economic construction.” (5) According to Domingo Amuchastegui, formerly with Havana’s Higher Institute of International Relations, “when Raul Castro went to China [in 1997], he spent long hours talking to Zhu [Rongji, Chinese premier and architect of economic reforms under Jiang Zemin] and invited [Zhu’s] main adviser to Cuba. This famous adviser went to Cuba, caused a tremendous impact, talked to [military] leaders and executives for many hours and days…” However, adds Amuchastegui, “there was one person who refused to [listen to Zhu’s economic adviser]: Fidel Castro.” (6)

While supporting the militarization of the Cuban economy, Fidel Castro is opposed to any economic liberalization in the island. The elder Castro, on his recent visit to China in February 2003, seemed bewildered by the capitalistic changes in the People’s Republic: “I can’t really be sure just what kind of a China I am visiting,” confessed Castro, “because the first time I visited [in 1995], your country appeared one way and now when I visit it appears another way.” (7)

Libya: Hillary’s Gift to Herself and Qatar

Posted on February 2, 2015February 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Libya was designed by Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State. She manufactured the crisis and worked countless back-channels to remove Qaddafi for the sake of her ties to Qatar. The al Thani clan has years of ingratiating itself within the circles of power in the Obama administration while back scratching was done in covert circles. Hillary is an accessory to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens of three others of the diplomatic security services.

Barack Obama bought into the plot along with those of the National Security Council when the Pentagon fought back hard against the early part of Hillary’s mission but to no avail. Congressman Kucinich worked diligently to get facts from several placeholders in the Middle East as at the time, no Republicans were in power in Congress. There was never any authorization for war in Libya.

Of particular note, the weapons Hillary Clinton in cadence with Qatar were not bound and did not in any quantity end up in Syria. Sadly, they ended up in several other locations, but not Syria as widely chattered and believed.

Part 1 of 3 of the WT Hillary Clinton Libya matter is found here. The recorded tapes can be heard here as part of 2 of 3 of the Washington Times expose on Hillary and Libya. Part 3 of 3 is below. It is an intensive read but cannot be missed.

In the documents and separately recorded conversations with U.S. emissaries, Libyan officials expressed particular concern that the weapons and training given the rebels would spread throughout the region, in particular turning the city of Benghazi into a future terrorist haven.

Those fears would be realized a little over a year later when a band of jihadist insurgents attacked the State Department diplomatic post in Benghazi and a related CIA compound, killing four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Today, more than three years after Gadhafi fell from power and was killed, Benghazi and much of the rest of Libya remain in chaos, riddled with violence among rival tribes and thriving jihadi groups.

Mrs. Clinton, now considering a run for president, was the moving force inside the Obama administration to encourage U.S. military intervention to unseat Gadhafi in Libya. The latest documents and audio recordings are likely to give her Republican critics on Capitol Hill fresh ammunition to question whether she had an adequate plan and whether her efforts led to the tragedy in Benghazi a year later and the general lawlessness and chaos that have gripped Libya since. The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support the story that Mrs. Clinton used to sell the war in Libya, mainly that there was an imminent danger of a genocide to be carried out by the Gadhafi regime. The intelligence community, in fact, had come to the opposite conclusion: that Gadhafi would not risk world outrage by killing civilians en masse even as he tried to crush the rebellion in his country.

The Times also reported that the Pentagon and a key Democrat so distrusted Mrs. Clinton’s decision-making on Libya that they opened their own secret diplomatic conversations with the Gadhafi regime, going around the State Department.

In one conversation recorded in summer 2011 between Libyan officials and an intelligence asset dispatched by the Pentagon as a back-door channel, the asset told Mr. Ismael, who served then as Gadhafi’s chief of staff, that U.S. officials were considering taking some of the Libyan dictator’s frozen money assets and sending it to the rebels.

“I’m in contact with some of the people over in Benghazi and they’ve told me point blank that their first use of this money is, is to buy military training, weapons and mercenaries,” the Pentagon intelligence asset told Mr. Ismael on July 24, 2011.

In a separate conversation with Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat serving in the House, Gadhafi’s eldest son, Seif, told the congressman that Libyan intelligence had observed Qatar, a major U.S. ally in the region, facilitating weapons shipments. Qatar has steadfastly and repeatedly denied arming the rebels.

“The Qataris have spent more than $100 million on this, and they have an agreement with the rebels that the moment you rule Libya you pay us back,” Seif Gadhafi told Mr. Kucinich in a conversation recorded in May 2011.

“So, it’s your position that your government has been trying to defend itself against an insurrection brought about by jihadists who were joined by gangsters, terrorists and that there’s basically about 1,000 people who were joined by NATO?” Mr. Kucinich asked. Attempts to contact the Qatari Embassy in Washington for comment Sunday were unsuccessful, but the classified Libyan intelligence report indicates that Qatar sent tanks, missiles, trucks and military advisers to the rebels.

Distrust between Libya and Qatar had simmered for years before the civil war in Libya erupted. Mr. Ismael told The Times in an interview that the Qataris had a grudge against the Gadhafi regime because it did not give them natural gas and oil concessions that were promised in 2007.

The Libyan intelligence reports provided to the Pentagon’s emissary detailed specific weapons shipments they said came from Qatar.

“On 15th of March the ship loaded with arm[s] arrived to the seaport of Tobruk. On 4th April 2011 two Qatari aircraft laden with a number of tanks, [ground-attack] missiles and heavy trucks was arranged. On 11th April 2011 a number of boats departed Benghazi for Misrata, the shipment comprised assistance including SAM-7 [anti-aircraft] missiles. On 22nd April 2011, 800 rifles were sent from Benghazi to Misrata,” the report said.

Whether such shipments were supposed to stay with NATO or go to the rebels remains in dispute. But academic analysts say the Libyan concerns that arming the rebels would benefit terrorists were shared widely.

NATO allies knew of the dangerous jihadi elements operating in Benghazi before the 2011 intervention began, according to Noman Benotman, president of the British-based Quilliam Foundation, a think tank dedicated to combating Islamic extremism.

Mr. Benotman also was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but left the organization prior to the 2011 revolution.

“You’re saying that this relates to internal matters, matters internal to the region relating of a power struggle in which they then turned their attention to Libya to try to engulf Libya in their own desire for increasing their power?” Mr. Kucinich asked.

“For the Qataris, they are doing this with every country, with every country,” Mr. Gadhafi said. “This is their plan, I mean in public. This is their own agenda. I mean, it’s not something hidden, or something, you know, private. But now, we have, and plus the French and British have also have their own agenda, you know, commercial interests, political interests, they have their own interests. They told us, especially the French, and the Qataris and the British: We want those people to share the power with you, our own people, the heads of rebels.”

The recorded conversations also included concerns that the U.S. might try to arm the rebels despite a U.N. arms embargo on Libya.

On March 27, 2011, days after the intervention began, Mrs. Clinton argued that the arms embargo could be disregarded if shipping weapons to rebels would help protect civilians, but defense officials in the United Kingdom disagreed with her interpretation of international law.

“We’re not arming the rebels. We’re not planning to arm the rebels,” British Defense Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC the day Mrs. Clinton hinted otherwise.

Likewise, Qatari officials sent a letter Feb. 2, 2012, to the United Nations about the Libyan uprising, “categorically” denying that they had “supplied the revolutionaries with arms and ammunitions” as some had reported. Attempts to contact the Qatari Embassy in Washington for comment Sunday were unsuccessful, but the classified Libyan intelligence report indicates that Qatar sent tanks, missiles, trucks and military advisers to the rebels.

The Libyan intelligence reports provided to the Pentagon’s emissary detailed specific weapons shipments they said came from Qatar.

Mr. Benotman also was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but left the organization prior to the 2011 revolution.

“A lot of jihadists that had been locked up by the regime were released after the revolution started. They picked up many of the guns that were coming into the country and fought, but they were not fighting for democracy — they were fighting their own revolution, trying to build a state based on a vicious, violent, radical, Islamic ideology. They took advantage of the situation,” he said. “There were pro-democracy demonstrators participating in the revolution, of course, but there was also crystal-clear evidence of jihadists and jihadist tactics in Benghazi before the NATO intervention started, so no one can say there were no jihadists there,” he said. *** Thank you Washington Times.

Afghanistan Conditions with Taliban/al Qaeda

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Has anyone talked to Ashraf Ghani about the Taliban or the 5 detainees released from Guantanamo and handed over to Qatar? What is the near future for Afghanistan with the Talibans’ recent terror attacks? There is and remains a military stalemate between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. Perhaps the agreement signed with Afghanistan is a clue.

We conclude that the security environment in Afghanistan will become more challenging after the drawdown of most international forces in 2014, and that the Taliban insurgency will become a greater threat to tan’s stability in the 2015–2018 timeframe than it is now.

The insurgency has been considerably weakened since the surge of U.S. and NATO forces in 2009, but it remains a viable threat to the government of Afghanistan. The coalition’s drawdown will result in a considerable reduction in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations by Afghan, U.S., and NATO forces. History suggests that the Taliban will use sanctuaries in Pakistan to regenerate their capabilities as military pressure on the movement declines. In the 2015– 2016 timeframe, we assess that the Taliban are likely to try to keep military pressure on the ANSF in rural areas, expand their control and influence in areas vacated by coalition forces, encircle key cities, conduct high-profile attacks in Kabul and other urban areas, and gain leverage for reconciliation negotiations. In 2016–2018, once the insurgency has had time to recover from the last several years of U.S. and NATO operations, a larger and more intense military effort will become increasingly likely.

We conclude that a small group of al Qaeda members, many of whom have intermarried with local clans and forged ties with Afghan and Pakistani insurgents, remains active in the remote valleys of northeastern Afghanistan. However, as a result of sustained U.S. and Afghan counterterrorism operations, this group of al Qaeda members does not currently pose an imminent threat to the U.S. and Western nations. Further, so long as adequate pressure is maintained via U.S. and Afghan counterterrorism operations, the group is unlikely to regenerate the capability to become a substantial threat in the 2015–2018 timeframe.

We conclude that, in the likely 2015–2018 security environment, the ANSF will require a total security force of about 373,400 personnel in order to pro- vide basic security for the country, and cope with the Taliban insurgency and low-level al Qaeda threat.

***

The United Nations provided a report in December of 2014 that in part reads: The present report provides an update on the situation since the fourth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team was submitted to the Committee on 30 April 2014 (S/2014/402). The inauguration of the new President of Afghanistan on 29 September marked the first democratic and peaceful transition of executive authority in the history of Afghanistan. This was achieved despite intensive efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the second round of the presidential elections on 14 June 2014. The Taliban also exploited the political uncertainty following the elections until a government of national unity was formed in September 2014. Consequently, 2014 saw a significantly elevated number of Taliban attacks across Afghanistan, marking an increase in their activity.

Although the current fighting season has not yet concluded, the prospects of the Taliban breaking the strategic stalemate look slim despite the almost complete withdrawal of international combat troops. The most intensive military onslaught of the Taliban during the 2014 fighting season resulted in several district centres in the south and the east being overrun, but only briefly, as the government forces proved resilient and were able to recapture them within days. Meanwhile, an intensive Taliban effort to take control of Sangin district in Helmand Province failed.

On the political front, the Taliban leadership remains largely opposed to reconciliation, despite some elements that argue in favour. Hardliners from the “Da Fidayano Mahaz”1 (not listed), the “Tora Bora Mahaz” (not listed) and other affiliates push for renewed military efforts and argue that a campaign of attrition will wear out government forces and institutions over a period of several years. Meanwhile, the pragmatists associated with the Mu’tasim Group argue for a negotiated settlem ent, which they believe could be to the Taliban’s advantage.

Stability in Afghanistan in 2015 and beyond will depend on two essential factors: the sustainability of external economic assistance, which is crucial to supporting the Government of Afghanistan and the national security forces and their continued development, and the persistence of Afghan confidence in government institutions and security forces, which is crucial to maintaining morale.
Regrettably, the Monitoring Team continues to receive a steady — albeit officially unconfirmed — flow of media reports indicating that some listed individuals have become increasingly adept at circumventing the sanctions measures, the travel ban in particular. Continuing to raise awareness with all stakeholders of the central role of the sanctions measures and their implementation as part of the wider political strategy of the international community remains one of the key tasks of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1988 (2011) and the Team. *** Al-Qaida associates
There was a distinct increase in the activities and the visibility of Al-Qaida- affiliated entities in Afghanistan in 2014 (see annex II for an overview of the various Al-Qaida entities active in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region and of how they relate to one another). Although geographically removed from Afghanistan, the recent events in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, specifically the success of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), currently listed as Al-Qaida in Iraq (QE.J.115.04), present a challenge to the Taliban as a movement. In January 2014, the Afghan security forces seized propaganda material originating from an Iraq-based Al-Qaida affiliate in north-eastern Afghanistan. According to official information provided by Afghan officials to the Team, in mid-2014 the Taliban leadership was concerned that the success of ISIL in parts of northern Iraq would draw young people who were potential Taliban recruits to join ISIL in Iraq.

Although this did not happen, apparently because of how difficult it is to travel to Iraq, the Monitoring Team has received a steady stream of as yet unconfirmed reports and press articles pointing to the existence of direct contacts between individuals associated with the Taliban and individuals associated with ISIL. For example, it has been reported in several Afghan media articles that the current ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, listed as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai (QI.A.299.11), lived in Kabul during the Taliban regime and cooperated closely with Al-Qaida groups in Afghanistan at the time.28 In addition, Taliban splinter groups such as the Da Fidayano Mahaz and the Tora Bora Mahaz continue to regularly report on and glorify ISIL activities on their websites.29 The Team will continue to monitor this situation and report to the Committee once it is able to present an official confirmation.

Currently, two prominent supporters of ISIL from the Afghan Taliban — Mawlavi Abdul Rahim Muslimdost (not listed), who is a leader of the “Jama’at al Da’wa ila al-Qur’an wa Ahl al-Hadith” (not listed) in Kunar Province, and Mawlavi Abdul Qahir (not listed) — have endorsed the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.30 Most other leaders of the Jama’at al Da’wa ila al-Qur’an wa Ahl al-Hadith had sworn allegiance to Mullah Omar’s “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” in 2010.31

The Tora Bora Mahaz is a militant group operating in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, that is reportedly under the operational control of the Taliban and its leader Anwar al-Haqq Mujahid (not listed), son of Yunus Khalis (not listed), who served as a Taliban shadow provincial governor. The group has primarily been attacking government forces in Nangarhar Province (see S/2014/402, para. 21). It publishes a magazine, Tora Bora, and maintains a website, on which it regularly cross-posts videos produced by ISIL.

At the individual level, some Arab nationals affiliated with Al-Qaida in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area remain in touch with those who left for Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic. When in July a drone strike killed six Al-Qaida-affiliated individuals in North Waziristan, Abdul Mohsen Abdallah Ibrahim al Charekh (QI.A.324.14) — currently serving with the Al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant (QE.A.137.14) — expressed grief over the loss of his friends.

A militant group calling itself “Al-Tawhid Battalion in Khorasan” (not listed) pledged allegiance to ISIL. The Abtalul Islam Media Foundation posted a statement from the group using its Twitter account on 21 September 2014. In the message, the leader of the Al-Tawhid Battalion, Abu Bakr al-Kabuli (not listed), pledged loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and asked him if the group should fight in Khorasan or wait to join the ranks of ISIL, whether in Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan or Pakistan.33 The position of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (QI.H.88.03), the leader of the Hizb-I- Islami Gulbuddin, concerning the political situation in Afghanistan remains contradictory. On the one hand, he is seeking an enhanced political role for Hizb-I- Islami Gulbuddin in post-NATO Afghanistan. Some leading members of his party are involved in intense negotiations with the President, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and with Abdullah Abdullah to explore options for future cooperation that include the possibility of joining the new Government.34 Hekmatyar has also supported the holding of an intra-Afghan dialogue without foreign interference.35 On the other hand, Hekmatyar has criticized the signing by Afghanistan of a bilateral security agreement with the United States and claimed that a continued foreign presence means nothing but war. He has also lashed out at Iran (Islamic Republic of) and Pakistan for supporting the deal.

The Reason for Boehner’s Invitation to Netanyahu

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Having some clarity about future threats that include nuclear weapons, ICBM’s and genocide is clearly required. If it has to be the voice of Benjamin Netanyahu, then so be it as the threats against Israel are shared by allied countries to the United States.

Why Netanyahu, The Churchill Of Our Time, Must Speak Before Congress

It is fitting and proper–indeed essential for our very security–that Speaker John Boehner has extended an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to address Congress on Iran and its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them anywhere in the world. The invitation has bipartisan support because many members on both sides of the aisle recognize the fundamental threat to world peace that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose. Like Winston Churchill in the 1930s with Nazi Germany, Netanyahu has been sounding the alarm about Iran’s ominous nuclear and terrorist activities.

It’s a message much of Europe and even segments of the US, particularly in the Obama administration, don’t want to hear. The President has made clear his intense dislike of Israel’s prime minister and his refusal to keep quiet about Obama’s desire to conclude a Neville Chamberlain-like deal with Teheran. In a flagrant interference in another country’s election, Obama operatives are working hard in Israel to help bring down the courageous Prime Minister.

Congress needs to hear first-hand the truth about what Iran is doing and the dreadful implications of those activities.

Thanks to US leadership, the ever-harder sanctions imposed over the years had taken a politically damaging toll on the Iranian economy. The mullahs agreed to sit down with the US and Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany to come up with an agreement ostensibly to get Iran to back off its nuclear ambitions. Iran’s agenda was simple: get the sanctions eased, and then with a loophole-ridden treaty, get them removed altogether.

The basic problem is that the Obama administration wants a deal–any deal–with Teheran and the other parties to the talks are willing to go along in order to snag business contracts with Iran, oblivious to the implications of a radical regime that will be in the position to get the Bomb any time it wants.

Appeasers argue that containment will work with a nuclear-armed Iran just as it did with the old Soviet Union during the Cold War and thus there is nothing to really worry about. Israel and other Mideast nations know better.

The Iranian government, despite the immense corruption of many of its leaders, is a revolutionary regime. Its actions over the years demonstrate that the rhetoric of its officials is more than just hot air. Iran is terror central. It bankrolls and provides arms to Hamas, Hezbollah and all sorts of Islamic terrorists organizations. If the US tacitly concedes its resignation to Iran becoming a nuclear power, then other countries will follow suite in creating their own nukes, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

That kind of proliferation enormously increases the chances of a nuclear war. We saw in 1914 how the then-center of civilization plunged into a catastrophic war. Even during the Cold War, Washington and Moscow went to the brink of a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (President John Kennedy was acutely aware during those fraught days of how events in 1914 ran away from European leaders.) With nukes in so many unstable hands, a disaster is almost a certainty. Moreover, the widespread knowledge of how to make the Bomb will certainly fall into terrorist hands, which is why the US must prevent this nuclear proliferation in the first place.

Ominously Iran has apparently developed an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach not only Israel but also Europe. It won’t be many years before the mullahs can aim nuclear tipped missiles against the US. No surprise, the current negotiations don’t cover Iranian missile development.

Another factor Obama and his appeasement-minded minions willfully ignore is the existential threat Iran poses to Israel. Given the size of the Jewish state, it has no room for error. A nuclear-armed Iran will put Israeli leaders in a dangerous, hair-trigger situation. Israel is a crucial US ally, strategically and morally. It is the only durable democracy in the Mideast. With only 8 million people, Israel has surpassed the European Union, with a population of over 400 million, in high technology, rivaling Silicon Valley. It was born from the ashes of the Holocaust. The destruction of Israel would mean, ultimately, the end of Western civilization; the moral rot that would permit such an event would be just about impossible to surmount.

It is not only Israel that is appalled by what Iran is up to. When Israel very nearly undertook preemptive action against Teheran in 2012, countries such as Saudi Arabia were remarkably open about their support for Israeli military actions that would destroy or cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities.

President Obama is either oblivious to all this or feels that in his perverted worldview, these things don’t much matter. Iran knows Obama desperately wants an agreement. It figures that the more it refuses to accept Obama’s willingness to surrender, the more concessions he will offer.

And spin to the contrary, an agreement will be a surrender. For all intents and purposes, Iran will be allowed to make a nuclear device any time it wishes. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will proclaim that if Teheran goes to make the Bomb, the US will have plenty of time to stop them before the Iranians can actually do it. Nonsense. It is has already crossed a very difficult threshold on uranium enrichment. The mullahs are moving ahead on the plutonium front. Teheran has brazenly blocked the International Atomic Energy Agency from access to its nuclear installations.

Congress is considering legislation proposed by Sen. Robert Menendez (D., NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) that would impose stiff sanctions on Iran if an agreement is not reached by the deadline of June 30. Twice before, negotiation deadlines have been extended. This would effectively tell Iran, put up or shut up. Obama is naturally opposed. He wants nothing that might jeopardize his dangerous course of abject appeasement of an evil regime. The President outrageously dragooned British Prime Minister to play the role of unregistered lobbyist to call Senators to block the Menendez-Kirk bill.

Which gets to why Speaker John Boehner was well within his bounds to extend that invitation to Netanyahu. Such a momentous treaty with Iran as desired by Obama must, under the Constitution, be submitted to the US Senate for ratification. Obama has trampled on the Constitution time and again–making laws and changing laws at will–and wants no Congressional involvement precisely because the resultant debate would glaringly show what a dangerously miserable deal he had cut. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, recently declared: “The more I hear from the Administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Teheran.” When President Obama declared in his State of the Union Address that Iran has “halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material,” the guffaws could be loudly heard from every intelligence agency in the world.

Congress is a separate branch of government. Hearing directly from Netanyahu is well within its prerogatives, especially on a matter as critical as this. By the way back in 2011, Speaker Boehner attempted to coordinate a Netanyahu invitation with the White House. Naturally Obama gave Boehner the back of his hand by ignoring this courtesy.