Former Hostage Taker Of US Diplomats Dies Of Coronavirus In Iran.

Almost always a silver lining.

Former Iranian ambassador to Syria and a hostage-taker of U.S. diplomats, Hossein Sheikholeslam, died Thursday from a Covid19 infection, local news outlets report.

An advisor to the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, 68-year-old Sheikholeslam was one of the leaders of the so-called “Muslim Student Followers of Imam’s Line,” who took 52 U.S. diplomats hostage, on November 4, 1979, and released them after 444 days.

Sheikholeslam studied at the University of California at Berkeley before the Iranian revolution and later interrogated U.S. Embassy staff members during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979.

Tested positive for the novel coronavirus two days ago, Sheikholeslam was taken to Masih Daneshvari hospital in Tehran, where all Iranian authorities infected with Covid-19 are treated.

Sheikholeslam’s death was announced a day after the advisor to the speaker of parliament, Hossein Abdollahian, had insisted that he was recovering.

Missouri Man Gets 19 Years in Prison for Role in ISIS Attack Planning

Missouri man accused of plotting a terrorist attack with who he believed to be members of the Islamic State but who were in reality undercover FBI agents was sentenced Wednesday to 19 years in prison.

Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr., 28, of Columbia, pleaded guilty in September to attempting to provide material support to the terror group from October 2016 to February 2017, the Justice Department said.

He posted on social media that he had converted to Islam and posted photos of weapons and the ISIS flag. According to a criminal complaint, Hester was told the attack would target “buses, trains and a train station in Kansas City” on the Presidents Day holiday.

Iran Supreme Leader’s top adviser dies from coronavirus: VP and health minister infected

They can be as suspicious as they want. I think the offer of aid was genuine and their refusal makes the bug even more their own problem to deal with.

A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died from the coronavirus pandemic amid a sweeping outbreak that has already infected Iran’s vice president and deputy health minister.

This weekend, Iran confirmed the death of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a senior adviser to the Ayatollah. The news comes amid reports that Iran is trying to cover up the pervasive extent of the coronavirus epidemic in the nation.

The Iranian Health Ministry recorded 523 new cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours — bringing the total number of people infected in Iran to 1,501, Fox News reported.

The virus has killed at least 66 people in Iran so far. That’s the highest death toll from the coronavirus outside of China. Most of the 1,150 cases of coronavirus observed in the Middle East reportedly originated from Iran.

Last week, Iran rejected U.S. offers of help to contain the virus after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern that Iran is trying to hide the mass outbreak in the nation.

In a statement, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iran is “suspicious” of America’s offer of aid. He also accused the United States of trying to weaken Iran’s morale. The rep said: “We neither count on such help nor are we ready to accept verbal help.”

MARK STEYN: COVER STORY.

Before Sleepy Joe’s Super Tuesday and COVID-19’s super-spreaders and the super-virus’s increasing proximity to the super Supreme Leader and all the other stuff that will afflict us this coming week, a Monday miscellany of items that may not have caught your eye:

~From our Abbahu Akbar files, as Laura Rosen Cohen would say: For over a decade, I’ve been saying that we’ve been living through an extraordinary moment in human history – the conscious self-extinction of some of the oldest nations on the planet. Also for over a decade, I’ve been saying that if I had to pick a Continental country that would surrender to Sharia first, I’d plump for Sweden. As Laura noticed the other day, in a land that fifty years ago was almost entirely ethnically homogeneous, an increasing number of Swedish grade schools now have a student body whose first language is Arabic. Within thirty years, ethnic Swedes will be a minority in Sweden.

How do you manage such a transition? Obviously, you make it a hate crime even to raise the subject, you racist you. Still and all, people do tend to notice these things. So maybe it’s time to move to the next phase and make the total transformation of cultural mores a sexy lifestyle choice. The above magazine cover is from Swedish Elle, hailing Imane Asry’s stylish hijab as the “Look of the Year”.

There’s an utterly charming Irving Berlin song from a century ago:

The Girl I Love Is On The Magazine Cover

Now the girl I love is on the magazine covered. That’s not an improvement.

You’re not Muslim? Hey, relax; you don’t have to be – yet. It’s just the new chic. And, in certain of the livelier neighborhoods, it might lessen the risk of getting sexually assaulted when you’re walking home after work.

18-Year-Old SUV Driver Deliberately Runs Over Four Teens On Sidewalk.

Nah, there surely can’t be a islamic connection

Four teenagers were injured when an 18-year-old driver intentionally ran them over as they were walking on the sidewalk in Burlingame, California. Two of the victims suffered serious injuries and were taken to Stanford Hospital, while the other two teens were taken to a different hospital with less severe injuries.

The SUV driver, identified as Omeed Adibi, struck a fire hydrant after he mowed them down.

“The neighbor, the front room is where he watches TV, he was just house-sitting for his parents, and he heard a loud crash, and he was the first on the scene with the water going crazy,” local resident Joe Ram told KBCW-TV.

Abidi fled the scene but was taken into custody a few blocks away. Authorities said that he deliberately targeted the group, but did not provide a motive for the attack. He is facing charges of felony hit-and-run and attempted homicide.

Coronavirus: Italian Virus Deaths Rise to 29, Number of Confirmed Cases Goes Above 1,000

Schools and universities will stay closed for a second consecutive week in three northern Italian regions in an effort to contain Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus, dashing any hopes of a swift return to normality.

The decision was taken as the death toll from the contagion rose by eight during the day to 29, while the total number of cases jumped by 240 to 1,128 — the vast majority in the wealthy regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna.


Iranian Coronavirus Cases Jump as More Officials Infected

Iran’s coronavirus cases continue to spike, with more cases confirmed among government officials days before a high-ranking delegation is poised to attend a critical OPEC meeting in Austria.

There were 205 new coronavirus cases in the country, bringing the total count to 593 with 43 fatalities, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said. That’s the highest number of deaths from the virus outside of China.

The number of lawmakers infected rose to six on Saturday, after Masoumeh Aghapour said she had tested positive for the virus, the semi-official Tasnim news reported. So far 100 MPs have been tested and a growing number of current and former officials are being diagnosed. Previously, one of Iran’s vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, and deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi were confirmed to have the virus. Tasnim news agency reported that a lawmaker died of the flu, but said he had not contracted the coronavirus.

February 26, 1993.
The First Attack on the World Trade Center.

This is the often forgotten first, and nearly successful, truck bombing of 1 WTC North Tower (Which incidentally was the tower that our friend Lt. Peter Martin of NYFD’s Rescue 2 died in). None of the U.S. government’s indictments against former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden suggested that he had any connection with this bombing, but his organization used the lessons learned from this failure to seek out knowledge provided by structural engineers to figure out that crashing nearly fully fueled commercial jet airliners into each tower would work.

At 12:18 p.m., a terrorist bomb explodes in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast.

Although the terrorist bomb failed to critically damage the main structure of the skyscrapers, six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. The World Trade Center itself suffered more than $500 million in damage. After the attack, authorities evacuated 50,000 people from the buildings, hundreds of whom were suffering from smoke inhalation. The evacuation lasted the whole afternoon.

City authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undertook a massive manhunt for suspects, and within days several radical Islamic fundamentalists were arrested. In March 1994, Mohammed Salameh, Ahmad Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad, and Mahmoud Abouhalima were convicted by a federal jury for their role in the bombing, and each was sentenced to life in prison. Salameh, a Palestinian, was arrested when he went to retrieve the $400 deposit he had left for the Ryder rental van used in the attack. Ajaj and Ayyad, who both played a role in the construction of the bomb, were arrested soon after. Abouhalima, who helped buy and mix the explosives, fled to Saudi Arabia but was caught in Egypt two weeks later.

The mastermind of the attack–Ramzi Ahmed Yousef–remained at large until February 1995, when he was arrested in Pakistan. He had previously been in the Philippines, and in a computer he left there were found terrorist plans that included a plot to kill Pope John Paul II and a plan to bomb 15 American airliners in 48 hours. On the flight back to the United States, Yousef reportedly admitted to a Secret Service agent that he had directed the Trade Center attack from the beginning and even claimed to have set the fuse that exploded the 1,200-pound bomb. His only regret, the agent quoted Yousef saying, was that the 110-story tower did not collapse into its twin as planned–a catastrophe that would have caused thousands of deaths.

The ISIS Plot in Kansas City You Heard Nothing About

A few years ago, Robert Lorenzo Hester, Jr. of Columbia, Missouri met “several young men who suggested that Islam was a religion that valued men like him.” That was when his troubles began: prosecutors announced Wednesday that they want Hester to serve twenty years in prison and be under supervision for the rest of his life for plotted a jihad massacre in Kansas City. His case shows yet again how politically correct willful ignorance regarding the motivating ideology and magnitude of the jihad threat renders us all vulnerable.

True to form, federal prosecutors are already busily ignoring the possibility that Hester was inspired to try to kill non-Muslims by Qur’anic exhortations such as “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89; cf. 9:5). According to the Columbia Tribune, they claim that “mental health issues combined with a mockery of his race and intellect by fellow soldiers led him to extremists ideologies.” Federal public defender Troy Stabenow also notes that Hester suffered from an “abusive childhood” and engaged in “drug use at an early age.” He “wanted to feel accepted and do something to make others proud, so he joined the Armed Forces,” but he didn’t stick.

Slovakia Effectively Bans Islam From Country, Forbids Mosques

Another eastern european country seems to have had enough of their islamic invasion

Slovakia has adopted measures making it difficult for Islam to become one of the country’s officially recognized religions, making it the European country with the toughest laws against Islam in all of Europe.

In 2016, two-thirds of deputies, including opposition ones, voted in favor of a legislation submitted by the governmental Slovak National Party (SNS) that required religious groups in the country to have 50,000 followers to run their schools, open religious establishments or qualify for government subsidies. The law previously required only 20,000 signatures.

According to official sources, Islam, which was primarily targeted by the law, has a maximum of 5,000 followers in Slovakia.

In 2016, then Prime Minister Robert Fico said in an interview, “I’m sorry, Islam has no place in Slovakia. It is the duty of politicians to talk about these things very clearly and openly. I do not wish there were tens of thousands of Muslims.”

Based on the last census, religions with the required population threshold include the Roman Catholic Church, to which almost 70 percent of the Slovak population claim allegiance, the Protestant Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession which makes up 7 percent, the Greek Catholic Church at 4 percent, the Christian Reformed Church at 2 percent, and the Orthodox Church at 1 percent.

During the height of the migrant crisis, the Slovak interior minister at the time said, “We want to help Europe with the migration issue. We could take 800 Muslims, but we don’t have any mosques in Slovakia so how can Muslims be integrated if they are not going to like it here?”

Other politicians have also been open about the fact they do not want the Muslim population to grow in Slovakia.

“Islamization begins with kebab and is already under way in Bratislava. Let’s realize what we can face in five or ten years,” said SNS Chairman Andrej Danko in 2016.

“We must do everything we can to ensure that there is no mosque in future Slovakia,” Danko added.

Until now, Slovakia is the only EU Member State where there is no official mosque. Instead, the Muslim community in the country meets in rented houses or temporary prayer rooms.

At the same time, Slovakia is not the only country to carefully choose which religion it will recognize in its territory.

In the neighboring Czech Republic, for example, the Community of Buddhism, which mainly the local Vietnamese community follows, recently applied for registration. However, the Czech Ministry of Culture did not comply with the application for the third time.

Compared to Slovakia, there are significantly fewer Catholics in the Czech Republic. According to the latest data, there are about one million Catholics in Czechia, which corresponds to about one-tenth of the population.

But there are only a few Muslims in both countries; in the Czech Republic, Muslims accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the total population.

Columbia (Missouri) Man Faces 20 Years for Terrorist Plot in Support of ISIS

A 20-year sentence and lifetime supervision will deter Robert Lorenzo Hester, Jr. and others like him from from the “clarion call” of the Islamic State, federal prosecutors wrote in a memorandum seeking the maximum penalty for a Columbia man who pleaded guilty to aiding terrorists.

In opposition to the long sentence, defense attorneys for the 28-year-old who plotted to attack transportation services in Kansas City and other acts over the course of several months argue mental health issues combined with a mockery of his race and intellect by fellow soldiers led him to extremists ideologies.

Hester pleaded guilty in September before U.S. District Judge Greg Kays and will be sentenced March 4 in Kansas City. Discharged from the U.S. Army shortly after basic training in 2013, Hester over the next several years turned to Islamic extremism, eventually preparing to wage war against the United States.

Orban: Not a Single Muslim Immigrant in Hungary, Declares Liberalism Over

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during a panel discussion at the National Conservatism conference in Rome on Tuesday, declared liberalism to be over and said that not a single Muslim immigrant lives in Hungary.

During conference, which was organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation, Orban declared liberalism to be over while adding that a fresh kind government in the form of Christian democracy is needed to replace it, About Hungary reports.

The Hungarian premier highlighted two catastrophic failures of liberal western governments in the recent past: their mishandling of the 2008 global financial crisis and their current mismanagement of the ongoing migrant crisis.

Two Lansing Men Have Now Pleaded Guilty to Conspiring to Supporting Islamic State

GRAND RAPIDS — A second Lansing man accused of planning to join the Islamic State group has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

Mohamud Abdikadir Muse pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, specifically to the Islamic State. He originally pleaded not guilty last year.

As part of a plea agreement, Muse acknowledged he had recorded a video pledging loyalty to the Islamic State and that he had planned to travel to Somalia at some point last year to join the terrorist organization.

Muse, 25, faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervision once released. He also may lose his citizenship.

U.S. kills al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula leader in Yemen 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States had killed Qassim al-Raymi, the leader of Islamist group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), in a counterterrorism operation in Yemen.

“Under Rimi, AQAP committed unconscionable violence against civilians in Yemen and sought to conduct and inspire numerous attacks against the United States and our forces,” Trump said in a statement.

“His death further degrades AQAP and the global al-Qa’ida movement, and it brings us closer to eliminating the threats these groups pose to our national security,” the president said. He did not say when Raymi was killed.

The United States regards AQAP as one of the deadliest branches of the al Qaeda network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Reports in Yemen have suggested in recent days that Raymi had been killed in a drone strike in Marib. Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

One Yemeni government official told Reuters there had been a drone strike in Marib but it was not Raymi who had been killed.

Alleged Al-Qaeda Terrorist Leader Arrested In Phoenix On Murder Charges.

So how  – and why – did he manage to sneak hisslef into the U.S.?

Federal law enforcement officials arrested an alleged Al-Qaeda terrorist leader in Phoenix, Arizona, late this week on murder charges filed by the Iraqi government.

Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, a 42-year-old Iraqi national was “wanted to stand trial in Iraq for two charges of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.

An Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for Ahmed and subsequently requested Ahmed’s extradition from the United States.

“According to the information provided by the Government of Iraq in support of its extradition request, Ahmed served as the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, which planned operations targeting Iraqi police,” the DOJ added. “Ahmed and other members of the Al-Qaeda group allegedly shot and killed a first lieutenant in the Fallujah Police Directorate and a police officer in the Fallujah Police Directorate, on or about June 1, 2006, and October 3, 2006, respectively.”

The DOJ noted that the decision to extradite him to Iraq will ultimately be made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump makes Palestine an offer too good to refuse.

Click for a larger image.

Today, President Trump followed through with a Middle East proposal that creates a Palestinian state, opens Temple Mount to all three Abrahamic religions, and invests $50 billion to create a million jobs for Palestinians…….

The plan states, “The sovereign capital of the State of Palestine should be in the section of East Jerusalem located in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier, including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and could be named Al Quds or another name as determined by the State of Palestine.”

That’s a huge concession by Israel.

Palestinians angrily reject Trump Mideast peace plan.

They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “a thousand no’s” to the Mideast peace plan announced Tuesday by President Donald Trump, which strongly favors Israel.

The Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem, Abbas said at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.

“After the nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand no’s to the Deal of The Century,” he said.

The plan would create a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank, but would allow Israel to annex its settlements in the occupied territory. The plan would allow the Palestinians to establish a capital on the outskirts of east Jerusalem but would leave most of the city under Israeli control.

“We will not kneel and we will not surrender,” Abbas said, adding that the Palestinians would resist the plan through “peaceful, popular means.”

The Islamic militant group Hamas rejected the “conspiracies” announced by the U.S. and Israel and said “all options are open” in responding to the Trump administration’s plan.

Alleged al-Qaeda Jihadis Caught Trying to Enter U.S. with Fake Colombian Passports

Woohoo Paul. Wazzup down there?

American authorities identified and apprehended three Syrian nationals accused of belonging to al-Qaeda in Dallas, Texas, from Colombia, the Colombian news agency RCN reported on Thursday, publishing images of the three individuals’ fake passports.

According to RCN, American law enforcement identified the three individuals as Al Raefee, Tuameh Tuameh, and Al Harari Al Harari. The three are believed to be in U.S. custody, soon to be charged with membership in a terrorist organization. The men appear to have entered Colombia through Venezuela, where they acquired Colombian residency paperwork, a government identification card, and a Colombian passport through an illegal documentation network.

Journalist Luis Carlos Vélez published images of the counterfeit passports on Twitter, noting that the men appeared to have crossed into Colombia through the La Guajira border crossing with Venezuela. Reports have not yet specified how the Syrians entered Venezuela or how long they had spent in the country after leaving Syria. Vélez reportedly stated that the U.S. embassy identified them as al-Qaeda terrorists when they attempted to procure U.S. visas, which does not align with the RCN report that police arrested them in Dallas. The RCN report does not note if Dallas authorities arrested them at the airport, which would suggest the men did receive U.S. visas and got onboard a flight to the country, or if they arrived by other means.

Iran rocket attack on Iraqi military base injured 11 US service members, official reveals

Inter-cranial brain injury, ‘TBI’, due to explosive shock wave concussion has been a major trademark of the war. Maybe it’s been that way since – maybe – WW1, but our medical technology has finally caught up with being better able to diagnose, and we hope, treat it.

Eleven U.S. service members were flown out of Al Assad Air Base in Iraq and treated for concussion symptoms after Iran‘s rocket attack targeting two Iraqi military bases earlier this month, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command revealed Thursday night.

President Trump and U.S. officials had said earlier that no Americans were killed or injured in the Jan. 8 attack.

Several U.S. troops “were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed. As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate are transported to a higher level of care,” Capt. Bill Urban, the Central Command spokesman, said Thursday.

He said that although no U.S. service members were killed in the attack on Al Assad Air Base, “in the days following the attack, out of an abundance of caution, some service members were transported… to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, others were sent to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, for follow-on screening. When deemed fit for duty, the service members are expected to return to Iraq following screening. The health and welfare of our personnel is a top priority and we will not discuss any individual’s medical status. At this time, eight individuals have been transported to Landstuhl, and three have been transported to Camp Arifjan.”

Pensacola military base shooting confirmed as jihadi terrorism, AG Barr says

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr announced the results of an investigation into the motives of the Saudi flight student who carried out a deadly Dec. 6 shooting attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. The conclusion: the shooting was an act of terrorism.

Barr said the gunman, identified as 2nd Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was “motivated by jihadist ideology.” In a Department of Justice transcript of his statements, Barr cited various anti-American and anti-Israeli social media comments as well as a comment on Sept. 11 of last year in which Alshamrani said “the countdown has begun.”

“This was an act of terrorism,” Barr said. “The evidence shows that the shooter was motivated by jihadist ideology.”

Iran’s Theocracy Will Collapse Because of People Like Kimia Alizadeh
The nation’s only female Olympic medalist says she has permanently left the Islamic Republic due to the oppression of women.

The killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani by the United States military will understandably dominate headlines for weeks if not months to come.

But the actual demise of the authoritarian regime that’s been in power since 1979 will come more from acts like the one taken by Kimia Alizadeh, Iran’s only female Olympic medalist. Late last week, the bronze medalist in Taekwondo in the 2016 Summer Games announced via Instagram that she has fled her home country due to the systematic oppression of women. Via CNN:

“Let me start with a greeting, a farewell or condolences,” the 21-year-old wrote in an Instagram post explaining why she was defecting. “I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years.”…

“They took me wherever they wanted. I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me,” she wrote, adding that credit for her success always went to those in charge.

“I wasn’t important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools,” Alizadeh added, explaining that while the regime celebrated her medals, it criticized the sport she had chosen: “The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!”

On the heels of Alizadeh’s self-imposed exile comes reports that two anchors for Iranian state broadcaster IRIB have quit over qualms about censorship and official lies. From The Guardian:

Zahra Khatami quit her role at IRIB, saying: “Thank you for accepting me as anchor until today. I will never get back to TV. Forgive me.”

Her fellow anchor Saba Rad said: “Thank you for your support in all years of my career. I announce that after 21 years working in radio and tv, I cannot continue my work in the media. I cannot.”

The journalists’ statements are part of a crisis of confidence following the initial attempts by state officials to deny that Ukrainian jetliner 752 had been shot down by mistake by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) air defence force.

A third broadcaster, Gelare Jabbari, said she quit “some time ago” and asked Iranians to “forgive me for the 13 years I told you lies.”

This is all happening against the backdrop of massive protests in Iran following the accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner that carried 176 people. Demonstrators protested rising gas prices late last year and in the years prior, there have been other protests and general strikes for a host of reasons, including increased dissatisfaction with theocratic rule. According to a Carnegie Endowment report, 150,000 educated Iranians emigrate each year, “costing the country over $150 billion per year” as relatively young and motivated residents leave for greener pastures elsewhere.

By all accounts, sanctions imposed by the United States in 2018 have hit Iran’s economy extremely hard and are playing a role in sparking protests. It’s never fully clear how those sorts of intervention, much less more militaristic actions such as the killing of Soleimani, play out—sometimes overt pressure applied by an outside power emboldens dissent and sometimes it decreases it. But when a country starts to get hollowed out from within, as seems to be the case with Alizadeh’s exile and other recent and ongoing domestic developments, autocrats should start sweating.