Category: moslems & jihadis

Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hand-held radios used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.

Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people had been killed and more than 300 injured, while the death toll from Tuesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

At least one of Wednesday’s blasts took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.

A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking out the batteries of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas, including the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labelled “ICOM” and “made in Japan.”

According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company.

The company has said that production of several models of the ICOM hand-held radio have been discontinued, including the IC-V82, which appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon on Wednesday and which was phased out in 2014.

There was no immediate reply from ICOM to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday.

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beep beep beep….BOOM!
From my experience, these explosions are lithium battery going off due to some signal causing an overload. The explosions without the fire – usually seen when a lithium battery goes – reminds me of about a 1/2 ounce of C4.

BREAKING UPDATE: 8 Killed, 2,750 Wounded, Mostly Hezbollah Terrorists, as Pagers They Use to Communicate Explode Across the Country

LATEST UPDATE: Lebanon’s Health Minister reports that eight people have been killed and 2,750 injured due to exploding pagers across the country, per ABC News.

Over 1,000 individuals, mostly Hezbollah terrorists, were wounded when the pagers they use for communication exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Authorities are expecting that the number of victims will continue to rise.

The incident, confirmed by security sources, is being called the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.
The explosions, reported by Reuters, occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time. Panic spread as Hezbollah-controlled areas in southern Beirut and other parts of the country were hit with explosions that lasted for over an hour.

Security sources confirmed that the devices were the latest models used by Hezbollah and were thought to be critical in their communications amidst their war efforts against Israel.

Despite Hezbollah’s close ties with Iran, which has been instrumental in supplying the group with weapons and communications technology, this incident marks a significant embarrassment for their operations.

Hezbollah’s use of technology, likely provided through Iranian channels, appears to have backfired in the most dramatic way possible. Even the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was reportedly injured in one of the blasts, according to Iranian media.

All signs indicate a remarkable operation orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad.

More from Reuters:

The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.

The wave of explosions lasted around an hour after the initial detonations, which took place about 3:45 p.m. local time (1345 GMT). It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.[…]

Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming in for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.

The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical staff were dispatched to help in the evacuation of victims.

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Tim Walz: Anti-Israel protesters ‘speaking out for all the right reasons’.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate failed to mention Hamas or the six murdered hostages in his response to a local radio station

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, told a Michigan NPR affiliate on Thursday that anti-Israel protesters in Michigan “are speaking out for all the right reasons.”

“I think those folks who are speaking out loudly in Michigan are speaking out for all the right reasons. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It can’t stand the way it is, and we need to find a way that people can live together in this,” Walz said in an interview with WCMU, a public radio station serving central and northern Michigan.

Walz has said little about the war in Gaza since Harris tapped him to be her running mate in August. His remarks in the WCMU interview, after a reporter asked how a Harris-Walz administration would handle the Israel-Hamas war, offered a look at his thinking on the topic. 

“I think first and foremost, what we saw on October 7 was a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They have certainly, and the vice president said it, l’ve said it, have the right to defend themselves, and the United States will always stand by that,” Walz began. 

In his answer, Walz did not mention Hamas. Nor did he refer to the six hostages, including U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who were murdered over the weekend. 

“We can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen,” Walz continued. “The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue, I think, to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two-state solution.”

Then, Walz clarified where, in his view, the U.S. should exert leverage: on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think we’re at a critical point right now. We need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction,” said Walz. “We’ve said it and continue to say it, getting a cease-fire with the return of the hostages, and then moving towards a sustainable, two-state solution is the only way forward.”

Over the past year, Walz has attempted to appease both pro-Israel Democrats and more progressive Democrats who have become staunchly critical of Israel after Oct. 7. He drew scrutiny last month for having previously appeared at events with a Muslim cleric who has shared antisemitic and pro-Hamas content.

Hostage Taken on October 7 Freed by Israel in ‘Complex’ Military Operation.

Some Israelis are saying that the rescue of Kaid Farhan al-Qadi, a hostage held in Gaza since his abduction during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, is reminiscent of the “Miracle of Entebbe” where 102 hostages were rescued by 100 Israeli commandos on July 3-4, 1976.

The IDF described the rescue operation as “complex.” As is customary, no details were released to the public about the operation.

What is known is that Mr. al-Qadi is back in the bosom of his family.

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The Houthis have defeated the US Navy

Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) was set up in December 2023 in response to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping passing through the southern Red Sea. The aim was to provide a unified international front that would both deter the Houthis from further attacks and reassure the shipping companies who due to reasons of risk and associated insurance costs were already starting to take the long route round the Cape of Good Hope.

The problem was, it didn’t work. The Houthis were not deterred and continued taking pot shots at anyone and everything from ships with the most tenuous links to Israel, to Iranian grain carriers to Russian dark fleet oilers. For relatively little effort and money, they achieved their desired end states of ‘improved local influence’ and ‘challenging international shipping’ almost immediately. Their line that they would stop if there was a ceasefire in Gaza convinced only a few.

This led to Operation Poseidon Archer starting in January 2024, with US and UK counterstrikes on Houthi targets. But as Saudi Arabia proved between 2015 and 2023 (and repeatedly told us) trying to disable the Houthis by kinetic strikes is like punching smoke, and so it proved.

None of these efforts were helped when the EU formed a splinter coalition called Aspides so as not to associate with the US posture in Israel. The West’s inability to agree on how to perform a relatively basic task did not go unnoticed by potential adversaries. It was certainly noticed by the shipping companies we were trying to reassure.

Since January, not only have the attacks steadily increased in number, they have diversified too. Drones and cruise missiles were accompanied by hijackings and ballistic missiles. April saw the first use of a surface drone and there has been a steady increase in this method since.

Recently the Houthis have started following up their attacks with small arms fire from fast boats and the last few weeks have seen the amount of attacks increase above what was an average of 2.5 a week.

Even Russia doesn’t want to risk it at the moment. Earlier this month, Russian tankers Arpus and Arlan, which could have gone through the Suez Canal, instead transferred their oil into the Gold Pearl – too big for the Canal – and she duly went round the Cape.

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Pro-Hamas Activists Storm Democratic Event in NYC, Clashing With Police and Setting Off Smoke Bombs

While it wasn’t an official Kamala Harris campaign event in New York City, it was in support of her candidacy as local Democrats, including Mayor Eric Adams, arrived to give what’s reported as a pep rally for the vice president’s candidacy ahead of next week’s convention in Chicago, Illinois. There was one significant issue: the rally got interrupted by pro-Hamas activists, highlighting the simmering tension within the Democratic Party base about the war in Gaza (via Politico):

The energy and size of an ebullient rally of elected New York Democrats hyped for Kamala Harris’ candidacy met a massive crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting, banging drums and waving banners Wednesday night.

The Democrats’ rally was interrupted repeatedly by the protesters — a reminder of one of the party’s biggest internal divisions.

But like the vice president has on the campaign trail, the speakers took the brief disruptions in stride. …

The gathering, dubbed the “New York City Kickoff” and attended by federal, state and municipal leaders as well as labor union members, delivered Democratic unity at an event space in Harlem. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) urged the Democrats in solidly blue New York City to canvass in swing states like Pennsylvania for the Harris-Walz ticket and in swing districts around the state for House Democratic candidates.

The event wasn’t officially sanctioned by the Harris campaign, but it gave the feel of a pep rally or sendoff to the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

Muhammad Inspires Jihadis, But What If Muhammad Never Existed?

An imam in the Vancouver area, Adnan Abyat, recently preached a rousing sermon designed to get his congregation all fired up for jihad. As Muslim leaders all over the world speak of Hamas’ conflict with Israel as a jihad, it’s understandable that this kind of sermon would be common in the Islamic world these days. Abyat, like many others, attributed the jihad impulse to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Yet there is abundant reason to believe that Muhammad was not exactly what Adnan Abyat and so many others think he was.

Abyat declared: “I attest that Muhammad is Allah’s servant and His prophet who awakened the desire for Jihad and incited the believers, who made Jihad for the sake of Allah the pinnacle of Islam, and the one who said that Paradise is underneath the shades of the swords.”

To be sure, this was a statement of faith, but it was one that was rooted in history. Abyat believes that Muhammad was a real man who walked this earth and made statements that can be known today among his multitudes of followers. As the man whom Allah chose to deliver his eternal message to mankind and whom he designated as the “excellent example” for the believers (Qur’an 33:21), Muhammad’s words carry special weight for Muslims.

Indeed, Muhammad’s words are why jihadis take up the sword, as Abyat went on to explain: “His shari’a [law] elevated the status of the mujahideen [warriors of jihad] and he said that Jihad for the sake of Allah raises a man a hundred levels in Paradise and the distance between levels is like the distance between heaven and earth.”

Yet what if Muhammad really said none of this? What if the stories Islamic tradition tells us about what he said and did are more myth and legend than sober historical fact? Then Hamas and other jihadis all over the world are killing and dying for a fiction. It would be the cruelest of cruel jokes on the jihadis, but if this idea became widely known in the Islamic world, the result could be transformational.

A few years ago, I explored this question in a book titled Did Muhammad Exist? In it, I demonstrated that the earliest available biographical data about Muhammad dates from two centuries after the traditional date of his death. There are a few mentions of “Muhammad” here and there before then, but none of them match what we know, or think we know, about the prophet of Islam.

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Either they’ve been bought and paid for, or they’re closet moslems.

Tim Walz repeatedly hosted Muslim cleric who celebrated Oct. 7 and shared pro-Hitler website link

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, on at least five occasions as governor of Minnesota, hosted a Muslim cleric who celebrated Hamas‘s Oct. 7 attack last year on Israel and promoted a film popular among Neo-Nazis that glorifies Adolf Hitler, the Washington Examiner found.

The imam, Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, joined other Muslim leaders in May 2023 for a meeting about mosque security with Walz’s gubernatorial office in Minnesota. Zaman also spoke at a May 2020 event to call for peaceful protests with the governor during the riots in Minnesota sparked after George Floyd’s death. In April 2019, the cleric delivered an invocation before Walz’s state address — just months after Zaman called for an end to a government shutdown at a press conference with Walz in January 2019.

Zaman, moreover, attended a May 2019 event that Walz hosted for Ramadan, social media posts show.

Walz’s ties to Zaman could serve as problematic baggage for the Minnesota governor as he campaigns with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. News of the ties also comes after a Washington Free Beacon report this week found Walz spoke at a 2019 event with an antisemitic scholar who has defended terrorism against Israel.

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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.