Turkey Partially Deals with Hamas, Terror

If the United States knows the top Hamas terrorist and where he is, then why not detain him? While Secretary of State, John Kerry has failed miserably at dealing with all the terrifying issues with Iran, at least some pressure was placed on Turkey to get rid of the top Hamas leader, but Hamas in general is allowed to continue operations in Turkey. It is twisted for sure.

Hamas is a terror organization and responsible for deadly conflicts and hostilities on a constant basis in Israel.

This condition as explained below, describes how convoluted diplomatic objectives are with respect to how the Obama administration functions, rather, malfunctions.

Top Hamas Terrorist Leaves Turkey After Pressure From U.S., Israel

TheTower: Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas leader who manages the terrorist group’s operations in the West Bank, was reportedly expelled from Turkey under pressure from the United States and Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.

According to the Post, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal agreed that al-Arouri would “voluntarily” depart the country and not return, though Hamas would be allowed to continue operations on its soil. Erdogan’s ongoing support for the terror group remains a stumbling block in efforts to restore diplomatic relations between Anakara and Jerusalem.

Earlier this month, Erdogan said that reconciliation between Israel and Turkey would benefit the entire region. The two countries reached a preliminary deal to restore diplomatic relations late last week. Israel agreed to compensate the families of crew members killed during the IDF’s 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara, which attempted to breach Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but refused to end its blockade of the territory, despite Erdogan’s demands.

In Where the Shadiest Players Find a Home, which was published in the September 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Schanzer explored the extent of Turkey’s recent support for Hamas:

But Turkey’s support for Hamas remains strong. Just how strong? We don’t know. In December 2011, Palestinian news sources reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “instructed the Ministry of Finance to allocate $300 million to be sent to Hamas’ government in Gaza.” Both Turkey and Hamas denied this, but Reuters and Haaretzpublished subsequent reports citing this number. …

Then there is the presence of the aforementioned Saleh al-Arouri. The Israeli news website Ynet reported last year that Arouri “operates out of Turkey, with the backing of the Turkish government.”…

Arouri is also believed to be in charge of Hamas’ operations in the West Bank. In January, a senior Israeli military official confirmed this when he told Israel Hayom that Hamas’ recent West Bank operations are “directed from Gaza via Turkey.” More recently, in August, the Israelis announced that Arouri was at the center of a plot to bring down the Palestinian Authority government of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Arouri recruited the leader of the operation, according to reports. …

Arouri is not the only Hamas figure in Turkey. In 2011, Israel released 10 Hamas operatives to Turkey as part of the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas that secured the release of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit. Among the Hamas figures believed to have gone to Turkey include Mahmoud Attoun and Taysir Suleiman. Both were sentenced to life terms in Israeli prison for murder. Both men today appear on television and lecture about the merits of Hamas in Turkey and around the Arab world.

YNet: Israel established al-Arouri’s expulsion from the country as a condition for achieving full reconciliation between Ankara and Jerusalem. Al-Arouri’s “voluntary” departure was agreed upon during the meeting between Hamas’ political chief, Khaled Mashal and Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last Saturday.

Nevertheless, Erdogan clarified to close associates that he had no intention of closing Hamas’ offices in Turkey and would not stop his financial and moral support of Hamas, as Israel requested.

Moreover, Turkey is adamant regarding its request that Israel remove the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and Israel refuses to do this. Turkish officials claim that Israel agreed to lighten the blockade, but Israel denies this.

 

A secret meeting was reported on last Thursday between the soon-to-be Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s envoy in the contacts with Turkey, Joseph Ciechanover and Turkish under-foreign minister Feridun Sinirlioglu in Zurich.

 

The Prime Minister’s Office announced that at the meeting it was agreed upon that Turkey’s ambassador would return to Tel Aviv and Israel’s envoy would return to Ankara. Moreover, Israel agreed to establish a compensation fund for those killed in the Mavi Marmara incident, and in return Turkey will renounce any and all claims regarding it.

 

It was also agreed upon that al-Arouri would be expelled from Turkey and that talks about laying a gas pipeline between Israel and Turkey would soon begin.

 

Al-Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing, sat in Israeli jails for 15 years before being expelled to Syria. In 2012, when Hamas’ offices in Syria were closed down, he fled to Turkey. From Turkey he was involved in orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers in Gush Etzion in June 2014.

 

Obama Gave Clemency to 95 Convicts, Who are They

Obama gave the warning earlier this year. He also has collaborated with an outside agency on who and why he commutes their sentences.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to grant clemency to federal offenders “more aggressively” during the remainder of his presidency, he said in a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post on Friday.

Obama has faced criticism for rarely using his power to grant pardons and commutations. In December, he commuted the sentences of eight federal drug offenders, including four who had been sentenced to life. That brought his total number of commutations to 18.

Obama said he had granted clemency so infrequently because of problems in the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. The former head of that office, who was appointed during the George W. Bush administration, resigned in April amid criticism from criminal justice advocates.

“I noticed that what I was getting was mostly small-time crimes from very long ago,” Obama said. “It’d be a 65-year-old who wanted a pardon to get his gun rights back. Most of them were legitimate, but they didn’t address the broader issues that we face, particularly around nonviolent drug offenses. So we’ve revamped now the DOJ office. We’re now getting much more representative applicants.”

Many of those new applications came from what’s known as the Clemency Project 2014, announced when the head of the Office of the Pardon Attorney resigned. That project, which operates independently of the government, is intended to help DOJ sort through a huge number of applicants to figure out who meets specific criteria laid out by the administration.

4 of the 95 Prisoners Obama Just Set Free Had Nothing to Do With Drug Sentences

On Friday, President Obama granted clemency to 95 convicted prisoners. The vast majority of these individuals received harsh sentences for relatively minor drug offenses. Most of them will become free men and women on April 16, 2016.

Speaking to the press, Obama said:

“Earlier today, I commuted the sentences of 95 men and women who had served their debt to society – another step forward in upholding our fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.”

While they were referred to by the media as “drug offenders,” four of the men and women included were not punished for anything having to do with drugs. Here is some background on these “Freed Four.”

George Andre Axam

Crime: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon

Sentence: 15 years in prison

Though Axam had a history of drug abuse and felony offenses, the crime for which he was imprisoned occurred in December of 2001.

After arguing with his daughter outside his Atlanta house, Axam went back inside, retrieved a gun, then went outside and reportedly aimed it at his daughter’s boyfriend, who was sitting in a car. Axam proceeded to fire “one of two shots in [the boyfriend’s] direction,” then fled into the woods when the police came after him.

Carolyn Yvonne Butler

Crime: Three counts each of armed bank robbery and using a firearm during a violent crime

Sentence: 48 years in prison

Butler robbed three banks at gunpoint in 1991 – one on June 4, another on July 10, and the third on November 22. She reportedly purchased a .25 caliber pistol in San Antonio two days before the first crime.

Though she appealed her guilty verdicts, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld her convictions.

Jon Dylan Girard

Crime: Counterfeiting

Sentence: Six months of home confinement and three years probation

Girard, a physician in Dayton, Ohio, was convicted of counterfeiting in 2002. He was granted a full pardon by the President.

Melody Eileen Homa (née Childress)

Crime: Aiding and abetting bank fraud

Sentence: Thirty days of home confinement, three years probation, 200 hours of community service

Homa committed her crime way back in 1991. Like Girard, the presidential pardon expunged the bank fraud charges from her record.

It’s unclear why these four individuals were tapped for sentence commutation or pardon. Obama has now granted clemency to a total of 163 prisoners in 2015.

Tashfeen Malik’s Visa Application Clues to Jihad

The trained Jihad widow by al Qaeda?

In part from BusinessInsider:

Malik, who was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia for part of her life, moved to the US after meeting Farook first online and then in person when he traveled to Mecca for a religious pilgrimage in 2013. Farook was born in the US.

Malik was allowed to enter the US on a K-1 “fiance” visa. That program is now under more scrutiny, with the US government considering stronger screening measures for applicants. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating the issuance of Malik’s visa by Homeland Security officials.

Her application lists addresses in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, including in Punjab Province and Riyadh, where Malik has lived in the past five years.

Farook also wrote the following “intention to marry” statement as part of Malik’s visa application. In the statement, signed on January 20, 2014, Farook wrote that he and Malik “intend to marry within the first month of her arriving in the US.”

Syed Rizwan Farook marriage statementHouse Judiciary Committee

A stamp on the document shows that Malik was admitted into the US on July 27, 2014.

Malik and Farook had both reportedly been radicalized before they met.

FBI Director James Comey said at a US Senate hearing earlier this month that they discussed jihad and martyrdom before they discussed Malik coming to the US to marry Farook.

And a friend of Farook, who has since been arrested, allegedly told authorities after the attacks that he was planning other attacks with Farook in 2011 and 2012.

Malik also reportedly posted a message on Facebook pledging allegiance to the leader of the terrorist group ISIS — aka the Islamic State, ISIL, and Daesh — while the San Bernardino attack was ongoing. She and Farook died in a shootout with police later that day.

Here’s the full visa application:

Tashfeen Malik Visa Application

 

Iran Swapping Nuclear Material with Russia

Sheesh, what could go wrong and what uranium and why to Russia?

In part from FreeBeacon: Russia and Iran are beginning to trade sensitive nuclear materials, an activity that is at least in part condoned by the Obama administration and permissible under the tenets of the recent nuclear accord, according to U.S. and Iranian officials.

Russian-made yellow cake, a type of uranium powder that helps turn it into a nuclear fuel, “is in Iran and Iran’s enriched uranium cargo will be sent to Russia” within the next several days, according to top Iranian officials quoted this week in the country’s state-run press.

Senior U.S. officials confirmed on Thursday that the Obama administration backs the opening of commercial nuclear trade between Moscow and Tehran.

“Commercial contracts are in place for Iran to ship its enriched uranium stockpiles to Russia,” Stephen Mull, a State Department official who is leading the administration’s charge to implement the nuclear deal, told lawmakers. More details here.

This condition is quite familiar especially with regard to Iran.

Bishkek (AKIpress)nuke plant Russia and Kazakhstan are preparing an intergovernmental agreement on construction of a nuclear power plant, Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told TASS on Friday.

“An intergovernmental cooperation agreement is being prepared for construction of a Russia-designed nuclear power plant within the territory of Kazakhstan,” he said, adding that the issue may be touched upon on December 21 at the meeting of presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan “on the sidelines” of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and the SEEC (Supreme Eurasian Economic Council) summit.

“The leaders of the two countries are expected to dwell upon the problem of boosting trade and economic cooperation,” Ushakov said.

Then there is India:

BusinessInsider: India is expected to offer Russia land in Andhra Pradesh to set up units five and six of Kudankulam nuclear power plant. This is in line with the ‘Make in India‘ initiative. The decision would be finalised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s visit to Moscow this week.

“We will follow principles of ‘localisation’ as per Make in India initiative for setting up Kudankulam nuclear power plant five and six,” sources told PTI.

Russia is working a deal in Jordan but back to Iran:

Back in 2013-14: WASHINGTON — Russia has agreed to build Iran two additional nuclear power plants, Iran’s state-run Press TV announced on Wednesday.

Russia will construct the new facilities next to Iran’s sole existing nuclear power plant in the city of Bushehr.

That plant was also built with Russian assistance, and was fueled for operation in 2011. The reactor was put under full Iranian control in 2013.

The deal includes two desalination plants and is reportedly in exchange for oil; Russia built first and only reactor at Bushehr.

Iran To Ship Enriched Uranium To Russia

 RFEL: Iranian nuclear officials say Tehran will export most of its enriched uranium stockpile to Russia in the coming days as it implements a nuclear deal to secure relief from international sanctions.

The Iranian news agency IRNA quotes nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi as saying on December 19 that “around nine tons of Iran’s enriched uranium will be exported to Russia.”

That is roughly the amount that Iran must export to bring its stockpile down to the required level under the sanctions-relief deal.

Salehi did not give a precise timetable for what he meant by “in the coming days.”

Under the terms of the deal it reached in July with world powers, Iran must reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium to around 300 kilograms. It must also deactivate and store most of its centrifuges, and remove the core of a heavy water reactor in Arak so it cannot be used to produce plutonium.

On December 16, Tehran said it was working to complete the requirements in the next two to three weeks, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) closed its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities.

The 35-nation governing board of the IAEA passed a resolution on December 15 ending the UN nuclear watchdog agency’s 12-year-long inquiry into suspicions of “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s nuclear work.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said afterward that Tehran has taken the necessary steps to cooperate with the agency and that it was “not impossible” that sanctions could be lifted in January.

Iran has shown a strong apparent desire in recent weeks to build on the momentum of the nuclear deal and restore international economic links after years of sanctions.

Iranian Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said on December 17 that Tehran is prepared to begin negotiations for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Iran first applied for WTO membership in July 1996, but progress had been minimal since then due to tensions over the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Iran Behind the Bombing of the Jews in Argentina

In Secret Recordings, Former Argentine FM Admits Iran Behind Massive 1994 Terror Attack

TheTower: Former Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman knew that Iran was responsible for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires even as he negotiated with the regime in Tehran, secretly-recorded telephone conversations released on Friday reveal.

The previously unknown recordings of conversations between Timerman and leaders of the Argentine Jewish community confirm what has long been suspected. While negotiating the infamous “Memorandum of Understanding” in 2013 aimed at setting up a joint commission with Iran to supposedly investigate the bombing, Timerman had no doubt that Tehran was behind the atrocity that claimed the lives of 85 people and injured hundreds more.

The conversations took place in 2012. In the first recording, Timerman is speaking with Guillermo Borger, the then president of the AMIA Jewish community organization. He attempts to persuade Borger to support the negotiations with Iran that would in due course lead to the signing of the Memorandum.

Borger: We don’t regard Iran as valid [as a negotiating partner].

Timerman: And who do you want me to negotiate with, Switzerland?

Borger: I will just say that Iran lies, is not credible and denies the Holocaust.

Timerman: But we don’t have anyone else to negotiate with […] Well, tell me who you want me to negotiate with?

Borger: I understand, I wish there was someone else to negotiate with.

Timerman: If there was someone else, they [the Iranians] wouldn’t have planted the bomb. So we are back to the beginning. Do you have someone else for me to negotiate with?

The second conversation is between Timerman and José Scaliter, the Vice President of the AMIA at the time:

Timerman: Eighteen years ago they [the Iranians] planted the bomb. You don’t tell me who I should negotiate with, you tell me who I shouldn’t negotiate with. What a smartass you are, so who do you want me to negotiate with?

Scaliter: The Prosecutor [Alberto Nisman, found dead in suspicious circumstances in January 2015] working on this case, who wasn’t appointed by us, carried out a serious and important investigation and says Iran did it.

Timerman: Great! Fantastic! So how do you want me to bring them [the Iranian fugitives to Argentina]. You never know what should be done.

It’s not clear who made the recordings or why they were leaked just now. Timerman himself just made a sudden reappearance on Twitter to complain that they were made in secret by Borger and that indeed seems the likeliest explanation. (Timerman did not, notably, claim that the recordings were fake, or that they distorted his views.) By the sound of the recordings, it seems that Borger and Scaliter simply put Timerman on the speaker in their office and recorded the conversations without mentioning that they were doing so.

Considering the track record of the previous government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, whom Timerman served, in publicly hounding those who crossed it, Borger and Scaliter may have wished to have a guarantee that their conversation was recorded faithfully. The recent election of Mauricio Macri as President, a completely unexpected outcome for Fernández de Kirchner and her allies, may have emboldened the AMIA leaders to leak the recordings now.

There may be others with secrets to reveal, now that they can do so without harassment from Fernández de Kirchner’s government. The mother of Alberto Nisman, the late federal prosecutor investigating the AMIA bombing, told a journalist in recent days that she has a digital copy of “all” of her son’s formal complaint against Timerman and Fernández de Kirchner over their deal with Iran, along with “all” the evidence he collected to support it.

It’s not clear whether Nisman, who was found dead in January 2015 hours before he was to present his complaint, would have had access to the recordings. As Scaliter pointed out in his conversation with Timerman, Nisman was working for the government and not AMIA, and in any case had access to other sources of information about the negotiations with Iran.

The revelation of these recordings confirms Nisman’s thesis that the Memorandum was a sham, designed to protect those guilty of the AMIA Massacre. The Argentine government, despite knowing that Iran’s responsibility was beyond doubt, agreed to let the murderers “investigate” themselves through an Orwellian “Truth Commission,” and led Iran to believe that simply signing the Memorandum would lead to Interpol dropping the arrest warrants against its citizens, which seems to have been Tehran’s initial if not principal motivation in negotiating the pact. As a result, trade relations between the two countries would flourish, allowing enormous sums to be made by Argentine officials in state-body-to-state-body deals free from market pressures or scrutiny, the preferred kirchnerista business model. Elsewhere on the recordings, Timerman speaks of the negotiations being a “great opportunity for Argentina.” It’s not difficult to imagine what kind of opportunity he had in mind and which Argentines he thought might benefit.

Every word spoken by the former Argentine government and its supporters in defense of the Memorandum has now been proven to be a lie – not that there was ever much doubt about that. As soon as her husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner died in October 2010, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner could not wait to launch negotiations with Iran, hoping to bury the AMIA issue once and for all.

And the worst of it is that none of this should come as a shock. Shortly after Timerman’s appointment as Foreign Minister in 2010, I wrote this satire on his complaisant attitude to the Iranians on a blog sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. Looking back, it’s clear that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s handling of the AMIA case was, in fact, far worse than I imagined it was going to be. Deeper details on the Iranian mission to kill Jews in Argentina.