PIJ Looks to Ditch Syria; Considering Move to Cairo or Beirut

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) politburo's days in Damascus may be numbered, according to "informed Palestinian sources" cited by Al-Sharq al-Awsat. Word of the move comes despite the Syrian regime's long-time support for the group, and, despite getting more press this time around, is not the first time that such talk has circulated publicly. As in the earlier reports, sources say PIJ is considering moving as a result of Syria's ongoing civil war and the impact that the rapidly deteriorating security situation has had on its ability to operate there.

Various Middle Eastern cities have been floated as potential alternatives to Damascus, including Cairo and Beirut.

If PIJ moves, it would join a rapidly growing list of Syrian defectors, including rival Palestinian terror movement, Hamas. In March, Hamas publicly announced that senior leaders of its political office were leaving Damascus in protest of the Assad regime's brutal crimes. Like PIJ, Hamas had been a long-time beneficiary of Syrian government hospitality and tutelage.

After leaving Damascus, Hamas' external leadership was scattered among several Arab capitals, including Cairo, Doha, Beirut, and Amman—where, for the most part, it remains today.

But those relocations should change, says Rashid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party, Al-Nahda. In an interview with the Lebanese Arabic-language news site, ElNashra, on Monday, Ghannouchi declared his support for Islamic control of "Holy Jerusalem and to the efforts to liberate it."

To that end, he "does not oppose Hamas opening an office in Tunisia."

Hamas, like the PIJ, grew out of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as an Islamicly-oriented Palestinian nationalist organization aimed at destroying Israel. Both groups are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. State Department and tend to draw on the same Palestinian base for support. In January, Agence France-Presse reported that there were talks about attempting to merge the two groups, long at odds with each other over political participation and diplomatic dialogue with Israel. It doesn't appear that the talks gained any traction.

In recent months, acting on a sense of openness and freedom that was non-existent under former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, PIJ and Hamas have moved closer to their roots—actively rekindling relationships with the now-mainstream Egyptian Brotherhood and its popularly-elected native son, President Mohamed Morsi. It remains to be seen whether these talks will lead to any substantive action by the Morsi-led Egyptian government on behalf of the Brotherhood's Palestinian offshoots.

Hamas Hates Israel, But Seems Okay With Its Doctors

Facing a cardiac crisis that threatened his life, the Palestinian man sought relief from an Israeli hospital. It's not a remarkable event – Israeli doctors treated 115,000 Palestinians in 2011. What's remarkable is the patient's family.

His brother-in-law is Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a man who leads a group obsessed with destroying Israel and who spreads vile conspiracies about the Jewish state.

Suhila Abd el-Salam Ahmed Haniyeh's husband spent about a week in a Petah Tikva hospital. He even was transported in a Magen David Adom ambulance. His wife, Haniyeh's sister, was with him throughout. The episode happened four months ago but was just reported this week by Ynetnews.

Haniyeh paid back the kindness this week by accusing Israel of being behind a jihadist attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers Monday. The terrorists tried to drive hijacked vehicles into Israel to continue their killing, but were intercepted by the Israeli military.

"The attack's method confirms some sort of Israeli involvement aiming to achieve political and security goals, cause tension on the border with Egypt and destroy joint efforts to end the Gaza blockade," Haniyeh said.

Egyptian military officials disagreed. On Wednesday, they launched a retaliatory strike against jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula, claiming 20 terrorists were killed.

Egyptian General: Hamas Funded Sinai Attackers

An Egyptian general is blaming Hamas and outsiders for funding 'global' jihadi groups in the Sinai Peninsula, including those that carried out Sunday's terror attack against an Egyptian army base, reported Arabic press agency al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Terrorists ambushed and killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, then tried to drive hijacked military vehicles into Israel to continue the attack. Israeli military forces intercepted them, killing several terrorists.

General Gamal Mazloum's comments, picked up by the Times of Israel, squarely contradict attempts by Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to blame Israel for the attack. They also demonstrate an Egyptian awareness of Hamas' long-term plans to break up Israel-Egypt security cooperation and build support for Gaza-based terrorist group.

"There are elements that presently want to stir unrest between Egypt and Israel, and strengthen the theory that the security [situation] between Egypt and Israel is shaky and impossible," Mazloum said. He blamed radical Islamist elements in both Sinai and Gaza for the attack, adding that the groups received "material support from abroad and from Hamas."

"It's necessary that there is caution in opening borders with the Palestinian side. And there should not be such an open border to the degree that they are exporting to us extremist terrorist organizations that carry out operations like these," the general said.

Mazloum criticized the "negligence and omission" that Egyptian forces for failing to heed warnings of a possible attack and properly prepare their forces. He called for a military review and potential revisions to the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord to allow for greater Egyptian deployments along the shared border.

Ynetnews, based on Egyptian media, reports that the Egypt's army has surrounded the Gaza city of Rafah. "If we will be forced to strike Gaza, as Israel has, we will do it – if it is proven that those who committed the attack came from Gaza," an Egyptian military analyst reportedly said.

Appeals Court Rejects Al Haramain Damages

Damages previously awarded to two attorneys representing a Muslim charity tied to terrorist financing were tossed out this week by a federal appeals court, Politico's Josh Gerstein reports.

The lawyers for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation sued after believing they were subjected to warrantless wiretaps. But the government's sovereign immunity protections preclude the $40,000 in damages and $2.5 million in legal fees awarded by a lower court from being assessed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday. The attorneys argued that the immunity had been waived, but the court disagreed.

Al Haramain is based in Saudi Arabia and operates throughout the world. Its American branch registered as a non-profit charity in Oregon in 1999. It claimed to "stand against terrorism, injustice, or subversive activities in any form, and oppose any statement or acts of terrorism." But the Treasury Department designated it in 2008 for providing "financial and material support to al Qaida, as well as a wide range of designated terrorists and terrorist organizations."

A jury in Oregon convicted Al-Haramain director Pete Seda in 2010 of filing a false tax return to hide $130,000 in traveler's checks routed the charity that may have ended up in the hands of Chechen militants.

Regulator: British Bank Laundered Billions for Iran Through New York

Shares of Britain's fifth largest bank, Standard Chartered, plummeted Tuesday after New York's top banking regulator accused it of laundering $250 billion in prohibited Iranian transactions and threatened to revoke its license to operate in the state.

An order issued Monday by state Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky accused the bank of being driven by its "evident zeal to make hundreds of millions of dollars [in fees] at almost any cost." Its "actions left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity."

The order is based on a review of 30,000 pages of internal documents, including emails, spanning from 2001-2010. It found that senior SCB officials schemed to use the New York branch to hide transactions with Iran. In doing so, SCB "indisputably helped sustain a global threat to peace and stability. By definition, any banking institution that engages in such conduct is unsafe and unsound."

It called on the bank to show why its operating license shouldn't be revoked and why other operations should be allowed to continue in the interim.

The bank denied the allegations, saying it complied with regulations in nearly every case and that the state order does not provide "a full and accurate picture of the facts." But the order cites a statement by the group's executive director in London, who in 2006 allegedly expressed "SCB's obvious contempt for U.S. banking regulations" by saying "You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians."

The state order follows accusations by a U.S. Senate committee last month that another British bank, HSBC, laundered money for terrorists and drug traffickers. In June, ING Bank agreed to a $619 million penalty for similar violations involving Cuban and Iranian clients.

Tuesday's stock dive decreased Standard Chartered's value by billions of dollars.

But the order isn't the bank's only problem. The FBI reportedly is investigating, too, to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

Read the full New York State order here.

White House Rep Attends Event Hosted by MB Figure

President Obama's envoy to Muslim nations participated in a conference in Mauritania last week tied to radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (GMBDR) reported Monday.

Rashad Hussain, the president's envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), attended the meeting which focused on ""challenges faced by religious minorities in Muslim-majority communities," GMBDR reported, citing an Islamic Society of North America article. The gathering was hosted by Abdallah bin Bayyah, vice chair of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and included ISNA President Mohamed Magid and Community Outreach Director Mohamed Elsanousi.

Bin Bayyah is "a well known global Muslim Brotherhood figure" the GMBDR report said, serving on the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which the NEFA Foundation said was led by Qaradawi. Qaradawi is an influential Brotherhood spiritual leader. He is so revered that the Brotherhood brought him back to Cairo to deliver the first Friday sermon after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster last year.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has tracked a number of Qaradawi's statements sanctioning violence over the years. The self-proclaimed "Mufti of martyrdom operations," endorsed attacks on American forces in Iraq and has repeatedly expressed his dream of killing Jews.

Annual meetings of the European Council for Fatwa and Research have included anti-Semitic speeches, GMBDR said. That includes references to the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which one speaker said exposed a Jewish conspiracy "to undermine Muslim moral values through sexual permissiveness."

Sinai-to-Israel Attack Thwarted

Sixteen Egyptian soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack in which plotters hijacked Egyptian military vehicles and attempted a cross border assault inside Israel. Hamas and other Gaza terrorist organizations declared that "Israeli agents were behind the attack."

The 15-minute assault began with terrorists breaking into an Egyptian army base and commandeering two armored jeeps. The militants, said to be connected with 'globally affiliated terrorists,' then rammed one explosive-primed vehicle into the Israeli border crossing and drove the other into a firefight with Israeli troops.

Quick action by the Israeli Air Force destroyed the second vehicle, killing several terrorists. Some attackers were said to have escaped to Gaza, where Egyptian troops surrounded the city of Rafah in an effort to apprehend them.

Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi promised that "those who committed this crime will pay for it dearly," and sent fresh troops and helicopter gunships to the border. Hamas, which cheered the rise of the Egyptian Islamist president to power, complained that Egypt's decision to close the Rafah crossing into Gaza amounted to "collective punishment" of Palestinians.

Egyptian officials claimed that the militants came from – and returned to – Gaza. But Hamas was quick to distance itself and to try to blame Israel, with a spokesman saying, "This is a despicable crime that only serves the interests of the Zionist enemy."

"We believe that Israeli agents were behind the attack," he added, calling it an Israeli "attempt to tamper with Egyptian security and drive a wedge between the Egyptians and the residents of the Gaza Strip." The Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Jama'ah al-Islamiya [Palestinian division] also blamed Israeli forces.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood also appeared to side with Hamas, refuting Egyptian state media and blaming Israel's Mossad intelligence agency for the attack.

But many Egyptians living in the Sinai protested Hamas' inaction, taking to the streets to rally against smuggling tunnels, which they claimed were the terrorists' route into Egypt. Egyptian forces have since cracked down on loose security near the tunnels, and have shut Egypt's recently opened border with Gaza.

Hamas has also made a show of increasing security at its border, and has issued sympathetic statements to restore Egyptian sympathy and support.

The Week In Hamas

A leader of a terrorist group with al-Qaida ties has been released from a Gaza jail by Hamas.

Hisham Al-Saedni leads the Salafi terrorist group "Tawhid and Jihad" and joined al-Qaida in Iraq in 2003. Hamas officials arrested Al-Saedni in March 2011 for allegedly disrupting public order. Tawhid and Jihad made his release a priority, kidnapping and killing pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni last year in response to Al-Saedni's imprisonment.

On Wednesday, a Hamas official blasted an adviser from the rival Palestinian Authority for daring to visit the Auschwitz death camp. Ziad Bandak became the first PA official to visit the infamous Holocaust camp, the Jerusalem Post reports. But Fawzi Barhoum of Hamas called the Holocaust "a big lie" and said Zindak's trip expressing the Islamic militant group's position, claimed Wednesday that the Holocaust "is a big lie" and said the visit served the "Zionist occupation."

The terrorist group's refusal to acknowledge the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews is long standing. In 2009, the group demanded that the United Nations withdraw a new history book that would be used by middle school students in Gaza because it contained a chapter on the Holocaust.

Last year, Hamas co-founder Mahmud al-Zahar also called the Holocaust a lie, saying it "crumbles with countless holocausts committed by the Zionists in Beit Hanoun, al-Fakhoura school and other places in Palestine."

Ahmadinjead's "Quds Day" Annihilation Dream

As his country continues to push for nuclear weapons capability, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again has made clear his desire to see the state of Israel destroyed.

"Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to ambassadors from Muslim countries.

It marks the latest in a string of threatening statements by the Iranian president. Some have claimed previous his infamous statement about wiping Israel off the map was the product of a mistranslation.

That's not the case this time, as Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) published the remarks in English. Though Theodor Herzl is credited with founding modern Zionism – the call for a Jewish homeland – in the late 1890s, Ahmadinejad blamed "a horrendous Zionist clan" for "ruling the major world affairs, and behind the scenes of the major power circles, in political, media, monetary, and banking organizations in the world" for 400 years.

He then alluded to upcoming "Quds Day," set aside by the late Ayatollah Khomeini for the last Friday of Ramadan, as "not merely a strategic solution for the Palestinian problem, as it is to be viewed as a key for solving the world problems," he said. That's when he called for Israel's annihilation in a comment Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg called "frankly Hitlerian in scope."

Quds Day rallies are planned throughout the United States and Canada on Aug. 17. Past events have featured HIzballah flags and rabid anti-Israel rhetoric. Unless organizer specifically distance themselves from Ahmadinejad's statement, it is fair to infer they agree with it and are advocating the destruction of a nation.

Sharia Crackdown by Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has launched a crackdown on people eating in public during the Muslim fast month of Ramadan, reports Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Although Hamas-run Gaza is typically seen as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, the PA-controlled West Bank is at the center of this harsh enforcement of Sharia law.

The cleric in charge of the PA's Supreme Court of Sharia Law recently declared that the government should enact legislation prohibiting eating in public during Ramadan.

"Our streets are Islamic," Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is said. "Any person caught committing this sin in public during Ramadan has to be imprisoned until the end of Ramadan, as an example to others" and in deference to Muslims' feelings. He also said that the legislation should apply to non-Muslims and those incapable of fasting, a severe restriction on Christians in the West Bank, who represent about 10 percent of the population.

According to PA official newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, six people have been arrested since Ramadan started July 19. A court in Jericho, a formerly liberal town that even hosted casinos for Israelis, sentenced one man to a month in prison for breaking the fast publicly.

The crackdown and the call by a major official raise questions about the PA's commitment to religious freedom, despite promises by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas appointed the sheikh to his position in January.

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