Category: moslems & jihadis

Somebody got an earful.

Defense secretary abruptly revokes plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind KSM, co-conspirators

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin abruptly revoked a plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and his co-conspirators, and he relieved the overseer in charge after years of effort to reach an agreement to bring the cases to a close.

In a surprise memo quietly released Friday night, Austin said the responsibility for such a significant decision “should rest with me.” Only two days earlier, the Pentagon announced that it had reached a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, more commonly known as KSM, and two other defendants – Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Hawsawi – accused of plotting the attacks.

The memo, addressed to Susan Escallier, the convening authority for military commissions who runs the military courts at Guantanamo Bay, said the defense secretary would immediately withdraw her authority in the cases and “reserve such authority to (himself).”

Austin said that he was withdrawing from the three pre-trial agreements, which had taken the death penalty off the table for the three men.

Prosecutors in the case had been discussing the possibility of a plea deal for more than two years, which would have avoided a lengthy trial complicated by questions over the admissibility of evidence obtained during torture.

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Now We Know Exactly How Israel Assassinated Hamas Chief, and I’m Laughing Inappropriately

Sometimes you have to go with your gut instincts, and I wish I’d stuck with mine yesterday.

Wednesday morning it was my happy duty to report on the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, the night before. “My first thought was that a Mossad assassination team had snuck in, done some dirty work that needed doing, and then snuck back out,” is what my gut assured me had happened. But then reports came in that Haniyeh had been killed in a precision airstrike. But no.

“Never trust first reports.” I’m going to write that on a blackboard 100 times later today — and not for the first time, either.

If you weren’t familiar with Haniyeh or missed yesterday’s column, he was usually presented as the “moderate” face of Hamas because our press seems to be largely made up of willing dupes and terrorist sympathizers. They would never put it that way, of course. In their minds, they’re just on the side of “the oppressed.” In Haniyeh’s case, he was oppressed to the tune of an estimated three billion dollars he’d skimmed off of Western relief funds for the Arabs of Gaza.

Haniyeh has been on the State Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorists list since 2018 for his “close links with Hamas’ military wing” and for his support of “armed struggle, including against civilians.” The State Department report also said, “He has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.” Even the International Criminal Court, often useless in the extreme, sought an arrest warrant for Haniyeh earlier this year for “war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape, torture and taking hostages,” involving the Hamas Oct. 7 terror invasion of Israel.

So don’t be fooled. Haniyeh finally got it as good as he’d spent his foul existence giving it.

Israel has been going hard after Hamas leadership since Oct. 7 and an airstrike in April — possibly with Haniyeh in mind — killed three of his sons who were then praised as martyrs. Haniyeh is also now being praised as a martyr by his vicious former hosts in Tehran.

“At the appropriate time and place, we will have a suitable response,” Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament said at Haniyeh’s memorial on Wednesday. “It is hard for us that our guest died a martyr’s death. We will avenge the blood of the martyr Haniyeh, who was the voice of the oppressed Palestinian people.”

Now then, about that martyrdom…

Haniyeh had been staying at a “heavily guarded complex” in Tehran, according to the New York Times — an official state guesthouse “run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.” Nevertheless, Israel was able to

  • Ascertain which room Haniyeh used during his stays there.
  • Slip a remote-detonated bomb under his mattress.
  • Ascertain when Haniyeh was back in Tehran.
  • Make bomb go boom while Haniyeh slept.

This is all according to local sources who spoke to the Times with the usual protection of anonymity.

As martyrdoms go, Haniyeh’s was delightfully ignominious — in no small part due to Israeli operational genius, plus serious failures on the part of Iranian intelligence and the dreaded Revolutionary Guard. I shouldn’t laugh, but I just can’t help it.

Iran has vowed to strike directly at Israel in retaliation, so please consider this a developing story

Another ‘austere religious scholar’ makes headlines as he raises money for land along the US border for a Sharia domain, complete with jihad training camps

While journalists at The Washington Post might call Sheikh Yasser al-Habib an “austere religious scholar” (the descriptor so affectionately used to eulogize Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after he detonated himself and his own children a tunnel to evade capture by U.S. forces), others night label the Muslim cleric a terrorist, or even just a devout Islamist, while a report at the Daily Mail describes al-Habib as a “vile Muslim extremist”; after the massacres in the kibbutzim on October 7th, al-Habib reportedly said he and his followers were “buoyed” by the slaughter, and rhetorically asked, “Who among us does not enjoy retaliation of the Zionist enemy?”

Anyway, al-Habib has a substantial following, complete with his own “army” of jihadis, and he’s apparently eyeing small islands across the West—some even along the U.S. border—for purchase, in order to establish Sharia law domains, and he’s just about succeeded in buying a small uninhabited Scottish island called Torsa. As you can expect, the Western governments are radio silent on al-Habib’s ambitions.

Here are the details, from the Daily Mail item:

Vile Muslim extremist with his own ‘ARMY’ plans to create an Islamic homeland under Sharia law on island near US border – and reveals why he saw Canada as a good ‘base’

A firebrand Muslim clerk eyed up an island on the border of the United States and Canada to purchase and turn into an Islamic state.

In a video to his followers, Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, 45, an extremist scholar who already runs military-style training camps, revealed he is in advanced talks to buy an island off the west coast of Scotland.

His group plans to build its own school, hospital and mosque on the island, where it intends to practice sharia law.

Al-Habib – who claimed asylum in Britain 20 years ago after fleeing his native Kuwait – told his followers during their property search they considered an ‘island located on the border between the United States and Canada.’

Sarah Zaaimi, a deputy director for communications at the American think tank Atlantic Council, who has researched al-Habib, said: ‘They will have their own army, their own justice system, they will manage their own schools and hospitals, and people from around the world will be able to migrate to this homeland…

Encouraging supporters to donate, al-Habib said Torsa will become an Islamic ‘homeland’ which they will create to prepare for the coming of their messiah, known as Mahdi.

Al-Habib has already raised more than $3 million of their $3.5 million goal to purchase the land.

Fear not though, we’ve got border czar Kamala on the job—all I can say is deport, deport, deport, and don’t stop deporting until the West is the West again.

Because…tick, tock, tick, tock:

FAFO Factor 10

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran

CAIRO, July 31 (Reuters) – Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the early hours of the morning in Iran, the Palestinian militant group said on Wednesday, drawing fears of wider escalation in a region shaken by Israel’s war in Gaza and a worsening conflict in Lebanon.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, hours after he attended a swearing in ceremony for the country’s new president, and said it was investigating.

There was no immediate comment from Israel. The Israeli military said it was conducting a situational assessment but had not issued any new security guidelines for civilians.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would work to try to ease tensions but said the United States would help defend Israel if it were attacked.

The news, which came less than 24 hours after Israel claimed to have killed the Hezbollah commander it said was behind a deadly strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, appears to set back chances of any imminent ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

“This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
He said Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that ruled Gaza, would continue the path it was following, adding: “We are confident of victory.”
Iran’s top security body is expected to meet to decide Iran’s strategy in reaction to the death of Haniyeh, a close ally of Tehran, said a source with knowledge of the meeting.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killing of Haniyeh and Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank called for a general strike and mass demonstrations.
Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, has been the face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy as the war set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 has raged in Gaza, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor office requested an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes at the same time it issued a similar request against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh has moved between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip and enabling him to act as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or to talk to Hamas’ ally Iran.

The assassination of Haniyeh comes as Israel’s campaign in Gaza approaches the end of its 10th month with no sign of an end to a conflict that has shaken the Middle East and threatened to spiral into a wider regional conflict.

Despite anger at Netanyau’s government from families of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza and mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar appear to have faltered.
At the same time, the risk of a war between Israel and Hezbollah has grown following the strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children in a Druze village on Saturday and the subsequent killing of the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

The war started on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led fighters broke through security barriers around Gaza and launched a devastating attack on Israeli communities nearby, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 hostages into Gaza.

In response, Israel launched a relentless ground and air offensive in the densely populated coastal enclave that has killed more than 39,000 people and left more than 2 million facing a severe humanitarian crisis.

Harris: ‘We must have the courage to object when they use that term, radical Islamic terrorism’

Fine by me. How about “mainstream, Qur’anically-sanctioned Islamic terrorism”?

Of course, what she means is that there is no Islamic terrorism, and anyone can see how true that is.

Europe Doesn’t Want to Be Saved.

It hasn’t been a good week for Europe, and the news isn’t getting any better. In almost poetic fashion, the United Kingdom delivered itself into the clutches of the radical left on the Fourth of July, sweeping the socialist Labour Party into power.

Here’s how that’s going.

 

Keir Starmer is the new far-left prime minister, and oddly enough, his plan to release tens of thousands of criminals didn’t make it into the platform he ran on. Couple that with continued mass migration of Islamists, and you can guess how things are going to turn out long term. As bad as things have been in the United Kingdom over the last decade, the decline will accelerate.

Then there’s the French. After a surprise first round elevated the right-wing National Rally Party, the country’s far-left, from Emmanual Macron to the literal communists, colluded to win the second round. That included pushing hundreds of candidates to strategically drop out of their races to ensure the left wing held enough seats to form a coalition. French voters happily played along.

As in the UK, the results were predictable. Win or lose, there were going to be riots because that’s what European leftists do, with Palestinian flags marking the pro-migration messaging.

I wish I could say there’s hope for Western Europe, but the sad reality is that Europeans don’t want to be saved. These elections weren’t rigged. Voters chose this path, and now they are going to get the consequences good and hard.

By 2050, Muslims are projected to make up 14 percent of Europe’s population, but that’s not evenly distributed. Many Eastern European countries held the line with sane immigration policies, leading to the largest growth of Islamism occurring in Western Europe, including France and the United Kingdom. From there, it’s just a matter of time because Muslims nearly double the birth rate of native Europeans.

What is the solution? There is no solution. Europeans are more concerned with not being called bigots than preserving their freedoms and cultures. The welfare state will continue to grow, the economic malaise will deepen, and the downward slope toward Islamism will continue, not because of some nefarious force behind the scenes but because Europeans wanted this.

To that I say, I let it burn. You can only help those who want to be helped. The French, the Brits, and other surrounding nations do not want to be helped. They truly believe they can push forward with their left-wing ideals to form a better continent. They are mistaken, and eventually, they’ll figure that out. By then, it will have long been too late.

I will say this. When violence inevitably breaks out and Europeans once again look to the United States to bail them out, I have a feeling most Americans aren’t going to be interested. Can you blame them?

“Studies show that moslem terrorists are less prone to violence after they’ve been shot in the face” – unattributed.

Israeli Special Forces Disguised as Palestinian Refugees for Hostage Rescue

Israeli special forces were disguised as Palestinians looking for a place to live when they rescued hostages from Gaza during the weekend, two Israeli security sources told ABC News.

Special forces were already in position near the hostages before being given the “go” command, which was given at 11a.m. local time.

The helicopters carrying the hostages and wounded officers landed at Sheba Medical Center in Israel a bit later.

The hostages were in “good medical condition” when they were rescued, according to IDF officials.

IDF rescues 4 hostages alive in stunning operation in central Gaza

Hostages rescued in an IDF operation in the Gaza Strip on June 8: Shlomi Ziv (top left), Andrey Kozlov (top right), Almog Meir (bottom left), and Noa Argamani. (Courtesy)

Hostages rescued in an IDF operation in the Gaza Strip on June 8: Shlomi Ziv (top left), Andrey Kozlov (top right), Almog Meir (bottom left), and Noa Argamani. (Courtesy)

Four Israeli hostages were rescued alive by troops from Hamas captivity in a daring operation in the central Gaza Strip earlier today, the military announces.

The rescued hostages are named as Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv. All four had been abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the Supernova music festival near the southern community of Re’im.

Special forces had simultaneously raided two Hamas sites in central Gaza’s Nuseirat. At one location, Argamani was rescued, while Meir Jan, Kozlov, and Ziv were at the second location.

The rescued hostages are all in good condition, according to initial medical assessments. They were taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital for further evaluation.

Amid the operation, heavy airstrikes were carried out in the area against Hamas sites and in support of the ground troops. Hamas health authorities reported a “large number” of casualties.

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“The EPP is just beginning to see the perils of mass immigration”: An Interview with Geoffrey van Orden

This is about 1/2 way down the article and applies to the U.S. just as much as to European nations.

Where does the greatest challenge for the West lie: abroad, or in domestic policies of open borders and green pacts?

The West faces multiple challenges, both internal and external. Mass uncontrolled immigration of people from entirely different cultures and habits is sheer madness. While the genuinely persecuted are rightly offered sanctuary, and small numbers of other people with particular skills or resources can be integrated into our societies, we are demonstrably incapable of properly integrating very large numbers of strangers. The effect is unwelcome changes to our own systems and loss of national cohesion at a time when this is more necessary than ever.

The vulnerabilities and fractures in our society are exploited by external enemies. While we had imagined that conflict between European states was a thing of the past, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Ukraine has provided a salutary shock. The West needs to rearm and demonstrate the solidarity and resilience of its alliances, particularly NATO. EU involvement, through its autonomous defence ambition, is a dangerous distraction from this.

Fetterman has turned out to be a less a demoncrap and more a thorn in the party’s side.

Fetterman: Biden’s Ceasefire Proposal Isn’t ‘Meaningful Peace’, Hamas Has to Be Destroyed

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) reacted to President Joe Biden’s ceasefire proposal by stating that there won’t “be any meaningful peace, so long as Hamas is able to operate.”

Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant exchange begins around 3:50] “Sen. Fetterman, while I have you, the President endorsed a ceasefire proposal today, … and essentially, it would stop going after Hamas, would release all the hostages, and be a permanent ceasefire. Your thoughts on that proposal?”

Fetterman answered, “I’ve been very clear, I’m going to follow Israel in this situation. I do believe that Hamas needs to be destroyed, and it needs to be followed to the end, until there is an absolute surrender and they are…either in exile or they’re brought to justice or they’re eliminated. One way or another, there’s not going to be any meaningful peace, so long as Hamas is able to operate. And if you look at all of the damage, the death, and all of that, that’s exactly what Hamas wants. They designed that to be that way. They really don’t care how many Palestinians actually die and their suffering. Actually, Israel cares about minimizing all of the civilian deaths and all of the kinds of damage.”

‘Martyred’: Iranian Media Declare Raisi Dead; ‘No Sign’ of Life at Helicopter Crash Site

Search teams have reportedly located the site where a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, crashed on Sunday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the state’s news agency.

There was “no sign’ of life, according to Iranian state television (via the Times of Israel).

IRAN – MAY 20: A screen grab captured from a video shows from Akinci Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which participated in search and rescue operations for the helicopter carrying the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his delegation in Iran on May 20, 2024. A Turkish Akinci unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) identified a source of heat early Monday suspected to be the wreckage of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and shared its coordinates with Iranian authorities. (Photo by Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images)

State-run media also declared that Raisi had died — or, rather, that he had been “martyred.”

The Times of Israel quoted Iran’s Mehr news agency:

“The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, had an accident while serving and performing his duty for the people of Iran and was martyred,” Iran’s Mehr agency says as other media outlets also reported the news.

Iranian Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian and other officials were also reported to have been on board when the helicopter went missing in a mountainous area of the country.

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to reemphasize from earlier this year………..

Attack and Defense
Thoughts on a 10/7 style attack on America

So I just finished Kurt Schlichter’s new novel, The Attack.  It’s a fictionalized account of an October 7 style attack that takes place on a large scale in the United States.  It’s also a warning.

A person wearing a head scarf Description automatically generated

In essence, Iranian terror experts use America’s open southern border to slip in thousands of Islamist fanatics, sleeper cells who are primed to attack specified targets on command.  The terrorists don’t know their targets until the last minute, when they get guns, ammunition, and directions.  They also don’t know that they’re part of a massive effort.  This means that if they turn, or are caught, as a few do or are, they can’t give anything away.  They have minimal training, basically how to lay low, and to shoot guns and throw grenades.  They’re also equipped with web-linked cameras to stream their attacks, and the atrocities – rape, torture, etc. – that they perpetrate on their victims.  Also meth to pump them up for the attacks.

When the day comes, they attack public places, schools, the Atlanta Zoo, and so on.   The next day, with the overstretched police trying to protect public places and ordering people to shelter in their homes, they go after suburban neighborhoods, again placing torture, rape, and dismemberment videos online.  On the third day, the remaining terrorists attack infrastructure targets – substation transformers, oil refineries, etc.

The result is a six-figure civilian casualty list, massive economic disruption, and political turmoil.  The terrorists’ goal of cowing the United States into isolationism fails, however, in dramatic fashion.   The entire novel is written as an oral history from numerous viewpoints, including the terrorists and their leftist American sympathizers.

It’s a gripping story, and an unfortunately plausible cautionary tale.  How likely is it to happen?

Probably the biggest impediment to something like this happening in America is the aftermath of the 10/7 attacks on Israel.  Atrocities didn’t cow the Israelis, but angered them. Other nations, even many of those that the Palestinians of Hamas generally looked to for support, turned against them.  Hamas leaders are being targeted and killed, Hamas backers know they aren’t safe, and the Israelis simply continue to grind away, four months after the attacks happened.

And everyone knows that the consequences of an attack on the United States would likely be worse.

Or maybe not.  Our current president is senile and inept, our vice president is just inept – though neither Kamala nor Biden is named in the book, Schlichter’s version of Harris’s response to the attacks is picture perfect, an incomprehensible word salad that causes Americans to lose faith in her entirely.  The President and VP wind up being replaced by the unnamed Speaker of the House, who brings the hammer down.  (I was at a luncheon Friday with Speaker Mike Johnson and didn’t get to speak to him – we had to leave early – but I was going to tell him that his role in the line of succession is probably more important for the remainder of this year than it usually would be.  I did notice that there was a lot more security than I had seen at similar events in the past).

Okay, I said it was a cautionary tale, but once cautioned, what should we do?

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The guy on the right is Mosab Hassan Yousef. His father was the co-founder of HAMAS. Mosab defected to Israel and went undercover for Shin Bet. If anyone knows HAMAS every which way, he does and he tears the ditzhead on the left a new one.

Biden Admin Finally Acknowledges What’s Happening With Gaza Aid

President Joe Biden has made aid to Gaza a priority as the Israel-Hamas conflict rages on, despite the increasingly high financial cost, the threat to American troops, and how such aid has been hijacked by Hamas terrorists before. As The Times of Israel covered, which our sister site of Twitchy also picked up on, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted on Thursday that Hamas was able to seize aid that was coming from Jordan to Gaza.

As the report mentioned:

According to Miller, the aid shipment was unloaded by the Jordanian military inside the Strip before being “picked up by a humanitarian implementer for distribution inside Gaza, and that aid was intercepted and diverted by Hamas on the ground in Gaza.”

“The UN is either in the process or has by now recovered that aid, but it was an unacceptable act by Hamas to divert this aid to begin with,” he said during a press briefing.

Miller added that UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, would likely issue a statement soon condemning the incident, indicating it was the organization from which Hamas stole the aid.

“If there’s one thing that Hamas could do to jeopardize the shipment of aid, it would be diverting it for their own use, rather than allowing it to go to the innocent civilians that need it,” he said, claiming this was the “first widespread case of diversion that we have seen” in Gaza.

Hamas held the aid trucks for “some time” before releasing them, according to Miller….

Israel recently stepped up efforts to deliver aid by land and opened up new ground routes, including opening Erez to aid trucks on Wednesday. Washington has said aid delivery has increased significantly in recent weeks, but that more is needed.

A temporary pier is also being constructed by the US military to increase humanitarian aid deliveries, and is more than halfway complete, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The subheadline for The Times of Israel’s article notes, with added emphasis, that this was “the ‘first widespread case of diversion’ acknowledged by US.”

There’s been video evidence for months now of Hamas taking over aid meant for civilians and sold on the black market. The article also mentions the tricky way that the United States has tried to go about that narrative:

[Miller’s] comments follow Israel’s long-standing contention that Hamas stockpiled supplies and kept them from increasingly desperate civilians. Footage from Gaza has shown gunmen, who were reportedly linked to the terror group, stealing trucks delivering humanitarian aid from Egypt.

In February, the US diplomat who was then involved in humanitarian assistance for Gaza denied allegations that Hamas stole aid and commercial shipments into the enclave, saying that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with “specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that Hamas had used other aid delivery channels to “shape where and to whom assistance goes.”

That acknowledgment of how much control Hamas really has in the region is a pretty significant one.

When it comes to Miller expecting a statement from the UNRWA, that may be asking too much. There’s evidence that the pro-Hamas agency of the anti-Israel United Nations has actually been involved with the terrorist group, and that this includes even holding one of the captives taken as a hostage on October 7.

As of early Friday afternoon, the most recent official statement posted to the UNRWA website is from Tuesday, April 30 and highlights the introductory remarks from UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. There’s plenty of sympathizing with Gazans and criticism about Israel’s role in the conflict, but no update on hijacked aid.

Further, the UNRWA’s X account also contains no mention of the aid that was intercepted by Gaza. Instead, the posts lament the situation in Gaza as a result of the Israel-Hamas conflict brought on from the brutal attack that Hamas perpetrated against Israel on October 7, demand more assistance for their region and agency, and call for a ceasefire.

A separate eyewitness video, verified by Reuters and taken in the aftermath of the incident, shows the man being pinned to the ground by several others, his face obscured. A voice speaks in Arabic and says: “If they didn’t insult my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he didn’t involve himself in my religion, I would not have come here.”
Authorities disclosed no motive for the attack and have not identified the suspect.

Australia church stabbing: bishop wounded, 15-year-old arrested

SYDNEY, April 15 (Reuters) – At least four people were wounded, including a bishop with a global online following, in a knife attack during a service at a church in a suburb of Sydney on Monday, police and witnesses said, triggering clashes between angry residents and police.
Police said they arrested a 15-year-old male at the scene and were forced to hold him at the church in Wakeley, a suburb about 30 km (18 miles) west of downtown Sydney, for his own safety after a crowd gathered outside and demanded the attacker be brought out.

It was the second major stabbing attack in just three days after six people were killed in a knife attack at a beachside mall in the Bondi area.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church was speaking during an evening service on Monday when a man walked towards him and lunged with a knife, according to video of the event captured from a livestream on the church’s social media page.

Horrified members of the congregation scream as the man stabs the priest several times in the head and chest, the videos show. A separate eyewitness video, verified by Reuters and taken in the aftermath of the incident, shows the man being pinned to the ground by several others, his face obscured. A voice speaks in Arabic and says: “If they didn’t insult my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he didn’t involve himself in my religion, I would not have come here.”

Authorities disclosed no motive for the attack and have not identified the suspect.

Two witnesses told Reuters the crowd threw rocks at police. More than 100 police officers were ultimately called in to deal with the unrest, and two were taken to hospital with injuries, police said. Reuters saw two men pepper sprayed.

 

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