Top Iranian general Shabani dies of Covid-19.
NKARA: Brigadier General Nasser Shabani, a commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, died from the Covid-19 coronavirus on Friday, Iran’s semi-official Fars news Agency reported.
Anadolu Agency quoted Fars as saying that Shabani began his career in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War.
The commander is one of many leading Iranian political, religious and military figures who have been infected with or died from Covid-19.
Isis issues coronavirus travel advice: terrorists should avoid Europe
The Isis terrorist group is steering clear of Europe because of the coronavirus. Having previously urged its supporters to attack European cities, the group is now advising members to “stay away from the land of the epidemic” in case they become infected.The group has issued a new set of “sharia directives” that instruct followers to “cover their mouths when yawning and sneezing” and to wash their hands regularly. Isis militants have plenty of experience in covering their faces, though previously they did so to hide their identities when beheading hostages on camera.In the latest issue of its al-Naba newsletter, the group refers not to guidance from the World Health Organisation or other medical experts, but to recorded quotes by the Prophet Muhammad, known to Muslims as hadiths.The newsletter refers to a “plague” described as a “torment sent by God on whomsoever He wills”. Another message notes: “Illnesses do not strike by themselves but by the command and decree of God.”Isis has lost almost all its so-called caliphate in the Middle East after a string of defeats , but its fragmented remains are still active in Iraq and Syria.The newsletter warned that the “healthy should not enter the land of the epidemic and the afflicted should not exit from it”.But it may not be safe in the Middle East either — Iraq has already reported 101 cases of the coronavirus and 10 deaths.
Three U.S. troops wounded in renewed rocket attacks on Iraq’s Taji base
I guess Hezbollah needs the lesson repeated.
BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three American troops and several Iraqi forces were wounded on Saturday in the second major rocket attack in the past week on an Iraqi base north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, raising the stakes in an escalating cycle of attacks and reprisals.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said 33 Katyusha rockets were launched near a section of the Taji base which houses U.S.-led coalition troops. It said the military found seven rocket launchers and 24 unused rockets in the nearby Abu Izam area.
The Iraqi military said several Iraqi air defense servicemen were critically wounded. Two of the three wounded U.S. troops are seriously injured and are being treated at a military hospital in Baghdad, the Pentagon said.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman declined to speculate on potential U.S. responses but, in a statement, cited Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s warning last week: “You cannot attack and wound American Service Members and get away with it, we will hold them to account.”
The rocket attacks came less than two days after the United States launched retaliatory air strikes at facilities in Iraq that the Pentagon linked to the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, which it blamed for Wednesday’s attack on Taji…..
Brentwood Woman Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison for Aiding ISIS
A Brentwood woman was sentenced Friday to 13 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a charge of providing more than $150,000 in financial support to the ISIS terrorist organization.
Zoobia Shahnaz, 29, was in addition sentenced to 10 years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip.
Shahnaz, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan and a lab technician at a Manhattan hospital, obtained more than $85,000 of the money through a number of fraud schemes and passed the funds on to ISIS in a further complex manner, according to officials.
US conducts airstrikes in Iraq in retaliation for attack that killed 2 Americans
Never underestimate the ability of the U.S. military to pick the time, place and target of their own choosing when they go for ‘payback’.
The U.S. military conducted airstrikes in Iraq on Thursday in retaliation for a recent rocket attack that killed two American service members and one British service member and wounded 14 others, according to two U.S. officials, one of whom characterized the strikes as defensive in nature.
It was unclear what targets were being struck by U.S. military aircraft, but earlier in the day, senior Pentagon officials had blamed Iranian-backed Shia militia groups for Wednesday’s attack on Camp Taji in Iraq.
“Yesterday’s attack by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups consisted of multiple indirect fires that originated form a stationary platform and was clearly targeting coalition and partner forces on Camp Taji,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Thursday. “But let me be clear, the United States will not tolerate attacks against our people our interests or our allies.”
Esper continued, “All options are on the table as we work with our partners to bring the perpetrators to justice and maintain deterrence.”
Islamic Scholar Who Said Coronavirus Was “Allah’s Punishment” Gets Coronavirus
And in the Silver Cloud Lining category.
An Islamic scholar who said the coronavirus was “Allah’s punishment” for China’s treatment of Muslims now has coronavirus.
How ironic.
Back in February, Hadi Al-Modarresi, who is based in Iran, said that the coronavirus outbreak was “undoubtedly an act of Allah that is divine punishment against the Chinese for their treatment, mockery, and disrespect towards Muslims and Islam,” reported MEMRI-TV.
“It is obvious that the spread of this virus is an act of Allah. How do we know this? The spread of the coronavirus began in China, an ancient and vast country, the population of which makes up one seventh of humanity,” said Al-Modarresi.
“More than a billion people live in that country. The authorities in that country are tyrannical and they laid siege to more than a million Muslims and placed them under house arrest. The journalists in that country began to mock the niqab of Muslim women and they forced Muslim men to eat pork and drink wine. Allah sent a disease upon them and this disease laid siege to 40 million [Chinese people]. The same niqab that they mocked has been forced upon them, both men and women, by Allah, by means of the state authorities and officials,” he added.
It is now being reported that Al-Modarresi has contracted coronavirus, meaning that Allah must obviously be punishing him for wrongdoing.
Tlaib Pictured in T-Shirt That Erases Israel Off the Map
The anti-semitism isn’t surprising, but the open display is. Such confidence indicates an arrogance often seen in thick headed radicals but not politicians who normally don’t want to do anything that might negatively influence a voter.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) was recently pictured sporting a t-shirt that portrays the modern state of Israel as belonging entirely to Palestine.
Tlaib, one of Congress’s leading critics of Israel, was pictured in the t-shirt while promoting a recently published book by Linda Sarsour, another outspoken critic of the Jewish state who serves as a surrogate for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
The shirt portrays present-day Israel as a Palestinian state. Shirts of this nature have been a mainstay of pro-Palestinian activists who reject a two-state solution and argue that the world’s only Jewish state should not exist.
“Stand in solidarity with Palestine by wearing this beautiful Palestinian tee-shirt,” reads one online advertisement for the shirt worn by Tlaib. “An outlined map of Palestine is filled with red, white, and green Arabic letters that look stunning from a distance and spell the word Palestine up close. A patterned shemagh wraps around the neck of the Palestinian state like the brave soldiers whose boots stand on the dusty ground.”
Tlaib did not respond to a request for comment.
Tlaib has been repeatedly criticized by the pro-Israel and Jewish communities for comments they say are anti-Semitic. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which combats anti-Semitic incitement, condemned Tlaib in late January for tweeting an inaccurate story claiming Israeli Jews murdered a Palestinian child. The ADL cited her for promoting a “blood libel” that was “steeped in centuries-old accusations used to demonize Jews.”
Tlaib’s associations with many organizations and causes that single Israel out for undue criticism have also generated deep divides between the congresswoman and the pro-Israel community. They include groups that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which critics call anti-Semitic for its promotion of economic boycotts against Jewish-owned businesses.
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
A 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.
Prosecutors said Hester advocated violence on social media and was contacted by the undercover agents who posed as ISIS operatives. He said he was willing to assist ina jihadist attack.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.”
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.
